Wagner for those who missed it

Dr. Tony Wagner's presentation at the Polk County Convention Center on Wednesday was very well attended; packed actually (I almost didn't have a place to sit for lunch). Best about it was the high level of LEA participation. My former home district of Decorah sent a delegation to make the 3.5 hour trip to hear Wagner, and visiting with a couple of them, they said it was well worth it.

That's the critical piece. Those at the DE and the AEAs are familiar with the Wagner's work, but visiting with several teachers and administrators, the general consensus was that LEA educators were not. They had heard him mentioned and maybe had seen a list of his 7 survival skills, but had not read his books.

So for those educators on the front lines of changing our schools, hearing Wagner speak candidly about what schools need to do to change, giving many concrete examples of schools doing it now, and not slipping into "the sky is falling... we're so far behind" panic that other speakers are guilty of, was a potential vision-crystallizing event.

Unfortunately... not every LEA educator (or district for that matter) was able to attend. So, here's a primer of the basics of what he said, much of which can be grabbed by reading The Global Achievement Gap and Change Leadership.

THE NEED FOR CHANGE
There is a convergence in the skills needed for college, the work force, or to be a productive citizen... we don't prepare student for one or the other now. Those 7 survival skills, or the lack of them, is leading to higher dropout rates in high school and college (the US has slipped from #1 in the world at college completion in 1995 down to #13 in 2005). This is because students are not "college and work ready" when completing high school (white & Asian students = 37%, Aftrican American students = 20%, and Hispanic students = 16%).

Students in this day are motivated differently than students in past generations. That isn't to say they aren't motivated. They are motivated differently. Students are using the web for extending friendships, self-directed learning, and for self-expression. They are constantly connected (except in school), and have an accompanying need for instant gratification. And students are less interested in doing things for money as they are to making a difference... doing worthwhile work.

THE 7 SURVIVAL SKILLS

1. Critical thinking/problem solving
2. Collaboration across networks
3. Agility and adaptability
4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism
5. Effective oral and written communication
6. Accessing and analyzing information
7. Curiosity and imagination

THE SOLUTION
Not increased content standards, more testing, or smaller schools, at least not by themselves. They won't lead to improved performance alone.

Speaking of alone, teachers cannot work with little to no feedback on the quality of their lessons.

Wagner says "The challenge of change leadership is to create a 'system' for continuous improvement of teachers' lessons and supervision in a common vision of the performance standards students must meet."

SO... THE SOLUTION IS...
1. Holding ourselves accountable for what matters most. Not focusing on AYP when graduation and college completion is more critical for student success than "proficiency". And using assessments that measure the 7 survival skills instead of content knowledge.

2. Doing the new work. Using constructivist learning strategies that emphasize the survival skills. This includes requiring all students to do internships or group service projects, because the learning is authentic.

3. Doing the new work... in new ways. Developing teacher collaborative teams, like professional learning communities. Utilizing video to tape teaching, and then reviewing the video to concretely see what's working and what isn't. And assuring every student has an adult advocate driven to make sure the child succeeds.

3 STRATEGIES FOR CREATING THE URGENCY FOR CHANGE
1. Use Data Strategically. This includes disaggregating the data and keeping it simple, but also dramatizing it to make real. Wagner shared the story of the "living bar graph", where an educator took 10 students with her to various community meetings and had 7 sit down to illustrate the point of the number who weren't ready for college. By doing so, community members would frequently come up to the educator on the street and ask the question "how are we doing this year? Are we improving?"

2. Create Consensus on Priorities through Dialogue. This means talking about what is important for students to know and be able to do when they graduate, and in light of that, what are the schools strengths and weaknesses. What should the school do to meet those needs?

3. Collect Qualitative Data. This means asking students and recent graduates for their perspective, especially on the schools strengths and weaknesses, what would be some things they would change, and what they feel good teaching looks like.

Wagner touched on several other topics which I'll touch base on in the future, including:

• Unpacking what we mean by "critical thinking"
• Calibrating "rigor" so that all educators have an understanding of what makes a lesson effective
• How to use videotaping to improve professional practice
• The purposes and best practices of a "learning walk"
• Holding focus groups of students, and the questions to ask
• Effective constructivist learning (avoiding the meaningless posterboard project)

No Presidential Speech for My Kids

Not of my choosing, of course.

The district my kids attend were one of several schools in Iowa that did not air the speech. Here are the official reasons given to parents (all caps = district's emphasis):

1. There will be no organized school-wide or grade level viewings in any of our schools
2. If this speech supplements curriculum being taught, AT THE CURRENT TIME, by a teacher - it is at the discretion of the teacher to show it or not
3. Parents may make a decision to keep their children at home during this hour long speech and they will be excused for that hour only
4. The district will post the President's speech on the district website for students, parents and others to view later in the day

After some digging, it was determined that this was because of "8-10 calls and emails from concerned parents". For some scale, my kids attend a 4A school district. Those calls represented less than 1% of the student body.

My initial thoughts:
• This screams of the path of least resistance. Not that that position is always a bad one... as an administrator, you make a dozen decisions a day that you aren't too crazy about, but you do so because they are going to cause the least amount of controversy. The district just voted on the use of their one-cent sales tax yesterday, and as any district coming up to a vote can tell you, extra controversy is not what you want when coming to a public vote. The part where parents can keep their kids home (presumedly to watch the speech?) without consequence, and that the speech was posted on the website, are very telling.

• I cannot figure out "if this speech supplements curriculum being taught--AT THE CURRENT TIME" (again, the district's emphasis). This is a speech about setting goals and taking your academic efforts seriously. Is that truly a place in the curriculum? "Class, tomorrow we will be learning about the importance of education and then we'll take a quiz." Is it like other objectives, that are covered once in the 13 years?

Self-awareness, responsibility, and self-worth are 21st century skills. You do not teach 21st century skills "at a current time". They are infused in the curriculum. They are always present. Any teachable moment that comes up, you try to foster the 21st century skills. A speech from the nation's president and a follow up discussion is the perfect opportunity for a teachable moment. I've thought that perhaps this is a wink-wink code to teachers that basically permits them to show the video because it can always be argued the speech fits in the curriculum... that's the best I can do with this.

• Speaking of 21st century. I remember the powerful experience of turning on the TV on 9/11 eight years ago. We were in the middle of Fahrenheit 451 at the time, but that went by the wayside. The students at Postville, as well as everywhere else, were mesmerized by what they saw. I said simply "Get out your journals and write. Write about whatever comes to your mind." Even the most resistant journal writers in my class did so immediately and could not stop themselves from writing and afterward discussing.

I'm disappointed that the message I received from my kids school is that we don't allow the current world to creep in. We do our education in an incubated box.

• I had, both as an administrator and a teacher, the chance to be ruthlessly attacked for "forcing" my students to read "racist trash"... aka Huckleberry Finn. Six different occasions in all. We made other options for the students, which was met with the charge of ostracizing the student who wasn't reading the book. Nothing less than the entire class not reading the novel was unacceptable for them. Every time I stood my ground, and every time, the parent of the student threatened to take the fight to the school board. And while they never did, my decision harmed my relationship with the parent in 5 of those 6 occasions. The parents never got past it.

The thing I had to tell myself is, do the right thing. The vocal minority do not dictate the curriculum. It would have been the path of least resistance to offer a different book, but even my students agreed, the discussion about whether the book was racist and what the author's purpose was, was one of the most powerful experiences they had in their high school career. Ironically, I never had a single parent object to Catcher in the Rye. As one student told me after he graduated, "there was no way I was going to tell my parents again what I was reading after they wouldn't let me read Huck Finn."

Bottom line to all of this: The decisions we make have to be what's in the best interest of learning, not the path of least resistance. This decision (at least what was communicated to the parents) was the opposite. It sets a very bad precedent, for it gives license by any small minority to tell the district you cannot show a future president's speech.

South Dakota Testing 21st Century Skills

Busy time of year for me... only day not at an inservice for this week and next.

THE Journal reports on South Dakota mandating statewide testing in 21st century skills, becoming the first state to explicitly do so. They are using the assessment created by Learning.com, which is specifically aligned with the NETS standards.

Some quick thoughts:

• In general, I applaud the move. In the words of Tony Wagner, what gets tested gets taught. In Iowa, while we will push the concept of 21st century skills in the rollout of the Iowa Core, unless there is a test, it will remain a secondary concept to specific skills on the ITBS.
• The fact that "21st century skills = NETS standards" will raise some eyebrows. It's to say that technology literacy is the only literacy in 21cs. Financial literacy, civic literacy, employability skills, health literacy...? But, if you dig deeper into the NETS standards, you find there is some general overlap with other areas. At the very least, you have to start somewhere in assessment, and the NETS standards looks the best place to start of any.
• The test is a coupling of multiple choice and performance based tasks. Not the ideal, but impressive given the logistical challenges that any performance-based tasks provide. I am curious to see how "communication and collaboration" is assessed.
  
• The test does have problems assessing one of the standards. From THE Journal:

  A sixth category, Creativity and Innovation, is also included in the assessment, although this area is not a "skill" per se, and there has been some controversy within the education community over how the category might be standardized and assessed.

I would counter that "creativity and innovation" is most definitely a skill, one that some people are more gifted than others, but a skill that can be developed nevertheless. Gifted education researchers have used tools to measure creativity before, usually along the lines of finding the number of different solutions to a task, the number of original solutions to a task, and then a subjective valuing of the originality of the solutions.

Iowa should do the same as South Dakota, but should look for a different assessment product, one that gathers significant data about creativity.

Civil Discourse and a Teachable Moment

While I try to make it a habit not to let this blog become a discussion on politics, I was struck with a thought this morning looking at my daily feed that I cannot get out of my head.

Two articles over the national news were brought to my attention. The first was from Politico's Alex Isenstadt, entitled "Town Halls gone wild". Isenstadt highlights the dramatic increase of rhetoric at what used to be a tranquil medium for conversation. Despite (or maybe because of) a solid victory at the polls the past two elections, House Democrats are facing more and more yelling, kicking, and screaming at the meetings, to the point where some are cutting them off. As those opposed find themselves in a smaller minority, they make up for it with increased intensity and non-civility.

Republicans have not been immune either. The most famous example is the now notorious "birther" confrontation Mike Castle (R-De) faced:



As you can see in the video, the trademark of this discourse is yelling, interrupting, verbalized anger, and a strong appeal to pathos only (some have said Castle was "hijacked by the Pledge of Allegiance"). Absent is any listening and consideration for another's point of view. Perspective is never mentioned... everything is an issue of right or wrong. This type of behavior is amplified by the 24-hour intensity on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, which feature many of the trademarks (check out an episode of the O'Reilly Factor).

Contrast that with the news of Gates, Crowley, Obama, and Biden having a beer at the White House. The meeting yesterday wasn't a Disney special... there was no magical apologies for the men who still have significant disagreements about what transpired. But what's significant was there was no yelling, no interrupting, and instead, quite a bit of listening. And each who came out of the meeting felt much more positive about the future.

You might want to dismiss this as a photo op, meant to defuse a tense situation, but the symbolic significance of the images from the White House have a lot of power for teaching and learning. Here you had 4 grown men coming together to discuss their matters calmly, in private. In a phrase, civil discourse.

The concepts of engaging in a civil discourse as well as understanding a different perspective are essential 21st century skills. And, practical measures needed to keep a positive culture in a school. My days of being a principal were filled with these type of meetings (sans beer), where a student, the teacher, the parent and I would sit and have a civil discourse about what was happening in the classroom. The best teachers I had would do this regularly on their own, and some who struggled a bit participated in many, some after bad flare-ups with email and 3rd part gossip.

To this day, I feel the most important component of a principal's leadership is the ability to listen, and that is what made these meetings successful. And like the four from the Gates' incident, we didn't always get pollyanish apologies, but we handled ourselves respectfully and came away with an understanding of where we go from here. And of most significance to me, the problem always got much better.

I think those of us in education know this innately. The hard part is helping teach the power of civil discourse to students, so that they help our society instead of hindering it. Here's the power of that image above.

Obama categorized this event as a teachable moment. Juxtaposing this scene with the scene from Castle's town hall takes no explanation. Which is solving problems? Which is the one you would feel comfortable attending? Something we can use in our classrooms.

21st Century Skill: Delayed Gratification (and the Marshmallow Test)

Another TED presentation to look at, and a fascinating one at that. Joachim De Posada looks at early childhood students and their ability to delay gratification. He gave students a marshmallow and promised them if they could resist eating it, they would get an additional marshmallow in 15 minutes.

Looking longitudinally, those that were able to resist were much more successful (he uses the astounding figure of 100% being successful at school), while those that were not able to resist were overwhelmingly not successful at school. This finding was reproduced in many cultures.



Delayed gratification is not a new concept for educators, but it perhaps doesn't get its due. What in the Iowa Core addresses this? And yet, students who can delay gratification are much more likely to be driven by intrinsic instead of extrinsic motivation, display more creativity in their projects, and are more willing to take risks.

The question we have to ask ourselves is how, as educators, do we build students' ability to delay gratification? Again, eliminating grading is the elephant in the room. But while De Posada briefly mentions it, the strategy of distraction is a tangible outcome that we could use. In a nutshell, students that are successful distract themselves from the temptation; they think of other things, they play with their hair or tap their toes or start singing. Anything to distract themselves from the instant gratification.

My wife mentions that with her kindergarten students, it is a constant task to persuade them they don't have to be first in line. Let others go first; you can sing a song or remember the colors of the rainbow we just learned. To teach students to be patient, to not rush, to enjoy the beauty of many moments while others gorge themselves on the rush of an instant is a fine art, a 21st century skill if ever I saw one.

After all, according to De Posada, there is a 100% correlation between delayed gratification and success. I vote for the marshmallow test to be used in the ITBS.

Determining the Purpose Before Integrating Technology

As we mentioned yesterday, you must start with the purposes of your curriculum in mind before integrating technology. By "purposes", I mean the necessities that go way beyond the specific outcomes or benchmarks of a particular lesson. Think bigger picture: what are you trying to do to enhance learning and build the complete student? Or in the case of this discussion, what is your purpose for using technology?

A QUICK NOTE
Not all purposes are geared towards technology. Consider enhancing logic and reasoning. Or building self-worth. Could a lesson involving technology also help with those purposes? Yes. But those would be tangential benefits. And, could a purpose be reached without using technology? Again, yes.

Therefore, keep in mind the 12 purposes listed below are a list that make it easier to see where you would integrate technology into your curriculum. They are not an all-encompassing list of what is important in education, nor do they mandate using a computer to achieve them.

12 PURPOSES
• Writing Literacy - One of the 5 literacies listed in the Iowa Core, writing can be greatly enhanced via technology, as tech gives students the ability to write more, share with larger audiences, and receive more feedback during the process.

• Visual Literacy - Another of the 5 literacies, it is important for educators to know how much today's student thinks and understands with visual images. Tools that provide visual images in conjunction with concepts help firm learning and build on student schemas.

• Oral (and Aural) Communication - Two more of the literacies are speaking and listening. Much like written literacy, technology can enhance the way we speak and listen by giving us a multitude of different media and audiences for which to communicate. And, they give students a chance to dissect their own communication skills, which is near impossible to do in a live setting.

• Collaboration - The Iowa Core emphasizes that 21st century teaching and learning is a collaborative process. Several tools give more sophisticated collaboration forums, allowing it to happen at a distance in both space and time, and giving everyone access to the same workspace. Try having 4 students write an essay with one piece of notebook paper and see how "collaborative" the process is.

• Networking - Using the modern day learning theory of Connectivism, as Alan November mentions, a major part of teacher's work in the future will be networking them with people outside the classroom, school, community, and country. Technology gives teachers the tools to connect students with millions of other teachers and colleagues that are out there.

• Data Collection and Interpretation - An absolutely critical purpose of education, students need to understand how to access data in different ways. Be it temperature probes, digital cameras, heart-rate monitors, spreadsheets, or more, through technology there are ways to access the variety of data out there, for each content area. And, giving students access to collection of data is a pre-requisite to having them interpret it.

• Critical Research - Much like data, the process of finding and analyzing information is paramount in this age. Tools that help students filter the process of finding information, as well as knowledge of how to critically judge information are vital.

• Formative Assessment - A key component of the Iowa Core, so many tools out there now can give a teacher a better glimpse of what the student has learned, what they are ready to learn, and what they are struggling with. Be it diagnostic assessments or tools as simple as Clickers or PollDaddy, the teacher can differentiate, remediate, or eliminate content and be much more systematic about their instruction.

• Graphical Representations - Given the body of research that indicates humans think in graphical representations, there is a mismatch of best practice and instruction if a teacher does not use those in the classroom. This is a somewhat of a catch-all category, as the charting, mapping, and drawing tools out there actually have a variety of different uses. But it all starts with a teacher focusing on the purpose: I need to better utilize graphical representations in my classroom.

• Presentation - Don't let the name fool you, this purpose is not just about Power Point. Rather, it is the process of sharing one's learning with someone else. Which, makes this a category that includes technology you'd see in many other categories, be it an Inspiration chart, a word processed essay, or a spoken voicethread. Still, even if you ended with the same tool, the key is to know what your purpose is.

• Organization - Probably the primary use of technology among adults is to help organize our lives. Why is it a forgotten purpose in education? When given a project to do, students need to find ways of organizing the task to make it do-able. And more and more, there are a variety of tools that can help them with that process.

• Enhanced Opportunity to Learn - One important component of the Iowa Core that isn't discussed is the need to extend learning beyond the time and space confines of the classroom. Portal and content management technology allows learning to happen during study hall, lunchtime, or after hours.

I find this list makes sense to educators. They can look at this and agree that A) all of these things are valuable, B) all of these things are enhanced with technology, even if I don't currently know the tools, and C) all of these things have bearing in my class. I should be enhancing all of these. But at the very least, I can see 1-2 immediate ones that, with some direct focus and planning, will make my classroom more effective.

And, that's where we start. With understanding and agreement of this list. Once we say "I need to better graphical representations" and we find the specific lesson which is our greatest need, we'll find the best fit of technology to use. And, we won't waste a teacher's time learning how to blog if that isn't the best fit of technology. This is the way to conduct focus technology professional development in your school.

Tony Wagner in the Des Moines Register

Yesterday's Des Moines Register featured an interesting Q&A with Tony Wagner, co-director of the Change in Leadership Group at the Harvard School of Education. The piece focused on Wagner's book The Global Achievement Gap, and looked at some of his thoughts on key issues revolving around the Iowa Core Curriculum.

A quick synopsis of the book: Wagner like many others feel American schools are fundamentally set up wrong, not like they should be in the 21st century. He identifies what he refers to as '7 survival skills' that are the critical elements for student. Those are-

• Critical thinking/Problem solving
• Collaboration (and leading with influence)
• Adaptability and Agility
• Initiative and Entrepreneurship
• Effective Communication (both oral and written)
• Gathering and Analyzing Information
• Curiosity and Imagination

This list, of course, looks to identify the famous 21st century skills, and you'll see a lot of overlap with lists by Angela Maiers, Stephen Downes, and the Partnership for the 21st Century Skills. He also weighs in on the core-content vs. 21st century skills debate to say that content should be secondary. In the article, Wagner mentions:

We have been focused on state standards. The problem comes with the definition of standards. What we have done is create content standards. The thinking is if students master more content, they will be better prepared for college and careers. That is fallacy.

Mastering more content doesn't equate to more competency. The research is very clear that breadth of scitentific exposure in high school does not prepare students for college. Only when you go into content in some depth do you begin to understand conceptually what science is.

What's interesting is Wagner doesn't necessarily see this to be in conflict with the Iowa Core, which identifies a core content. Partly, this is because the Iowa Core includes "21st century skills" as one of its subsets (along math, literacy, science, and social studies). But also because of the focus on instruction, not just content, that the Iowa Core has, which will get students to those 7 survival skills.

The most salient point from the article in my opinion is that we need assessments which measure those 7 items. Wagner says it thusly, "What gets tested gets taught". And since we test on lower-level comprehension and inferential type questions, that's what we end up teaching in class.

Wagner combats the notion that these skills are too fuzzy to assess. He points to the PISA and the Collegiate Learning Assessment as two assessments that do this. In this, he echoes what other local advocates for 21st century teaching and learning have mentioned, including Scott McLeod.

The article is definitely worth a read if you haven't checked it out already. In addition to discussing the necessity of 21st century skills over core content, Wagner has some discussion-starting thoughts on teacher-preparation programs, teacher evaluation, teacher salaries, and the Obama administration.

Wagner will be coming to Iowa to speak at the Polk County Convention Complex on September 16, sponsored by School Administrators of Iowa.

The 21st Century Student

Bill Ferriter at the Tempered Radical has a vignette on the "Elusive 21st Century Student", describing a student that, given a topic like all other students, still pushes himself past the regular curriculum and chooses for himself a venue that's both challenging and authentic. A good illustration of the student we seek to develop in our classrooms.

However, there is an even better nugget in Gilbert Halcrow's comment for the post:

Are not these attributes more to do with an individuals desire to understand, communicate and to collectively solve problems? Hasn’t the problem really been that the ‘production line model’ of education did not serve those strong and natural desires in young people?

Technology is like the archaeologist’s tools (sometimes sable brush, sometime dynamite) removing the dirt to rediscover an ancient masterpiece.

Any discussion about the 21st Learner should focused on what the masterpiece might look like; rather than the tools used to clean the centuries away.

Eliminating Silos

Imagine the irony. We need to eliminate silos in Iowa.

Of course, that isn't the building landmarks that paint our countryside. It is rather the separation of content areas that is often seen in high schools. Math kept in the math room, science in the labs, PE in the gym... well you know the drill.

Visiting with Jim Reese from the DE recently, I'm reminded by something he mentioned:

Our biggest challenge with rolling out the Iowa Core Curriculum is to get districts out of silos.

Unpack that for a second. The Iowa Core gives schools core content in the core subject areas of math, literacy, social studies, and science. In essence, it puts us further into silos, sending each content area off to work with that core content away from everyone else. This is not best practice... in fact, it is far from it. It is exactly what we have to avoid with 21st century skills.

ONE IDEA
Getting rid of silos is a challenge mainly because it goes against the rigid tradition of content separation in the high school. And it doesn't work to say "we're all teaching math now" for 2 reasons. 1) Not all subject areas work as smoothly with math, and it becomes a contrived solution, and 2) There still is a hierarchy; there are the math teachers who are the experts in the content and the other subject areas that are the novices... not an environment for change.

So, here's one idea to de-silo. The Iowa Core identifies content and there still are content experts who will work with the material. But let's shift thinking on the basis of 21st century skill outcomes. And then, let's build teams within our staff whose goal it will be to ensure students reach competency (or literacy) in that area. Teams that cut across curriculum areas, so there are no "experts" and "novices", but only team members. Team members with a natural tie in with the skill, not contrived.

The result is an articulated curriculum, where teachers are adapting and tying into other content's lessons. And these teams lead authentic cross-curricular projects that transcend the traditional class structure, as well as authentic assessments to measure proficiency. And these teachers become the lead for how that skill is infused across the curriculum, helping others tie into the main thrust of the school. What do I mean?

1) Skill #1: Logical Reasoning. How do we develop students' ability to gather and interpret data, using logical reasoning skills? Imagine math, science, and social science teachers working together to see how this skill can be developed across algebra, psychology, chemistry, and more.

2) Skill #2: Humanitarian (Empathetic) Thinking. Including ethics and philosophy, I've already mentioned the need to have students understand other people and the humanitarian condition. There's a natural fit here with social studies, foreign language, and language arts instructors. I've seen this in action with Grinnell's team-taught Humanities course.

3) Skill #3: Health Literacy. Getting health teachers, physical education teachers, family consumer science teachers, and counselors together to have a full discussion about what does it mean for a student to be health literate? That's the way to go to get to the whole child.

4) Skill #4: Financial Literacy. This is where I've seen "contrived" curriculum at its best (let's do a random "credit lesson" in the middle of our gym class). That doesn't help a student become literate. There are places where this skill fits better with curriculum and teachers can work together much better. This includes all the vocational areas (business, industrial technology, agriculture, etc.) and economics. The state's emphasis on "All Aspect of the Industry", which require schools to develop authentic projects in the vocational areas, help students understand how financial manangement fits in to the bigger picture.

5) Skill #5: Creativity. Some will disagree with this skill fitting into this framework. Surely this is an area that, unlike the others, does fit across the curriculum. Still, I feel it is best developed and enhanced in the visual, vocal, instrumental, and dramatic arts. And this is not a catch-all category or some bone thrown. As Sir Ken Robinson's The Element attests, creativity is as much of a core skill that should be developed in students as any other in the Iowa Core, perhaps more so. Imagine the arts teachers given a prominent leadership role in a school's instruction, helping other teachers understand how to develop creativity in their curriculum.

SOME OTHER THOUGHTS
There are some notes of course. Special education and talented-and-gifted education teachers would work with these teams, having a different role, that of Teaching for Learner Differences advisor. Not on this list are a couple areas, reading and technology, that I do feel are truly cross-curricular and require the whole staff working as a team. All of these skills are undeniable important, and they give staff a rejuvenated focus on their profession. Whereas I might have taught language arts for 15 years before, what has my focus been on humanities? Or for the geometry teacher, logic? It provides an avenue for discussion and teamwork among our staff.

Most of all, it will lead to better learning. A student might be likely to forget math concepts having learned them in isolation only in the math room, but learning logical reasoning skills in a variety of contexts, all of which building off each other? That's where connections are made. And of course, I've got a spiffy graphic on the back of a napkin sitting in front of me... perhaps when I get a moment, I'll whip out Adobe Illustrator and make a jpg to share.

This isn't to say my idea is the end-all in this discussion. No school should feel it has to follow one model. There are many other ways a school district can break down silos and get teachers to work with other teachers in non-alike content areas. The key is to do so in a way that works for your school.

21st Century Skill: Being Empathetic

Teaching is both a science and an art. We have traditionally neglected the science of teaching by underutilized student data to experiment with classroom instruction, seeing what works and what doesn't. But recently, we've swung the other way and neglected the art of teaching. Everything has come down to tests. Simply put, there are some absolutely critical skills for student development that cannot be quantified.

Boiling down student success to student achievement has its effects. It creates a resume more than a student. And in a similar vein, boiling down student success to "attributes that help you in the future workplace" is just as bad. There is more to life we are preparing students for than being a skilled worker.

IT'S COOL TO CARE
Nowhere, I believe, is all of this more true than the skill of being empathetic. Todd Whitaker, who starts his books by mentioning he draws his conclusions not by standardized research data, identifies one of the top attributes of the most effective principals and teachers is that they "make it cool to care". They mold their school's culture to one where students help others pick up their dropped books and lend a hand when others are struggling with homework. The students feel bad when other students feel rejected. They work to make sure there are no outgroups.

From his "What Great Teachers Do Differently":

One year the junior high school where I was principal decided to adopt a partner school--a preschool whose students had multiple disabilities. I was very proud of our students. They were pen pals to the youngsters, sent them cards on their birthdays, and hosted monthly theme parties

As the holiday season approached, our students decided to do something special, to raise money to buy each one a hat, mittens, and a sweatshirt with our school logo. The students came up with the idea of holding a half-hour carnival during advisory time each morning for one week. Each class contributed. Students in art classes made holiday cards for the preschoolers. Home Economics baked cookies. The band played, the choir sang, the drama students did holiday skits. I even chose a student to wear my personal Santa Calus suit. We caught the entire party on video; our students comfortably and fearlessly holding and entertaining the preschoolers; excited children opening their presents. It was something special.

Two days later, as part of our traditional all-school holidaty assembly, we played the tape of the party. Everyone got to see the love and joy that we brought into these youngsters' lives. Tears came easiliy when our students saw the video of these very challenged children hugging their classmates. By the time the tape ended, there were few dry eyes in the auditorium. And this was a group of junior high students! Then, the curtains opened on stage. There were all our very special preschool friends, in their matching sweatshirts, singing carols to us. No one in that room will ever forget it. You see, that is school.

We didn't have any fights in school the rest of the week; no one was even referred to the office. And we never had a problem with students teasing any of their own peers with special needs who attended our junior high. Once it becomes sool to care, there are no limits to what can be accomplished.

Isn't this what we want from our students? The most skilled student in the world is not a contributing member of society if they cannot empathize for others. The ability to think of others' feelings, thoughts, and well-being is essential for being a teammate at work, a good neighbor, a contributing citizen, and perhaps most importantly, a caring family member. Our inability to empathize has made a millionaire out of Dr. Phil, and puts many of our relationships at risk. And, don't schools have a role in developing this? Any educator can tell you about scenes they have witnessed that seem to come straight from the movie Mean Girls. If a school is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem.

FINDING THE OPPORTUNITIES
At Grinnell High School, we took part in a drive entitled "Trick or Treat So Kids Can Eat", which asked students to bring in food items. We were very successful at raising food (2nd in the nation)... perhaps it was due to the obligatory pizza party that went to the home room that brought in the most. I hope not. I hope it was because the students cared, that it made them feel valuable to see how they could help others.

That, of course, is the problem. How do you help students see the impact their empathy has? Like Whitaker was able to do for his school. This is where a good leader will take the bare-bones blueprint of the Iowa Core (which calls for adding relevance to one's curriculum) and will put some serious meat on it. They will find ways within their community to take their essential skills and apply them to better others. They will create the opportunities. And, they will give students the opportunities to reflect on their work, to see its impact.

EMPATHY IN THE CURRICULUM
I will now pull out my soapbox. I believe that the primary way to develop empathy is when good teachers and administrators develop a culture that promotes it. But a secondary way that I feel is sorely lacking is in curriculum. And, I believe one of the weaknesses of the Iowa Core is that it doesn't prescribe an empathetic curriculum, per se.

How do we learn to think about others? Through curriculum such as philosophy, drama, and psychology. Humanities. And even religion. None of which are emphasized by Iowa's public schools... at the most, they are often an elective available only to seniors.

I don't think this is coincidental. Our curriculum is, by and large, self-centered. When students do math, reading, writing, and science, they are exploring their understanding of those contents. They are working with their own skills. They don't focus on others... not in itself a bad thing. But a truly 21st century curriculum allows opportunities for students to think from other perspectives. This should give us pause when considering the role of these marginalized curricular areas.

21st Century Skills before the 20th Century Skills?

A comment from a teacher during a workshop I was facilitating with a school:

Why are we teaching the 21st century skills when students haven't learned the 20th century skills?

Now certainly, there's context to this quote; it's 8:00 in the morning, a required inservice, I see people madly filling out their tournament bracket sheets for the games start later that afternoon. And I know the instructor as well, someone that can give guff with a smile. But, strip away the context, and I feel this is a genuine question that many educators have.

So, I answered it.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY 21ST and 20TH CENTURY?
First, we have to define what we mean by "21st century" and "20th century". 20th comes before 21st not because they are easier building blocks or because of chronological sequence (like Algebra 1 and 2). Many argue they are a misnomer anyways, because the skill sets they represent are both important today and yesteryear. We can call them "21st century skills" because while you could say people have always needed the ability to analyze, solve problems, and create, the need has never been more important and the pace more frenetic than now. It is a demarcation of emphasis, not chronology.

Second, much like what we need to do with "21st century skills", we need to define what we mean by "20th century skills". Reading? Yes. Math? Yes. Memorization? No. Filling-in-the-blank from the teacher-generated word bank? No.

Define it further (reading is too broad of a stroke). Decoding the meaning of words using clues in the context of the sentence. Yes. Being able to label terms as gerunds? No. Check me on this one if you'd like, but the only one in the room who knew what a gerund was was the two teachers who taught it and myself.

This is the intention of the Iowa Core, to better define what the "20th century" essential skills are. As schools, we need to look at our curriculum and have some critical conversations about what is essential. If it is essential, then absolutely teach it.

So to answer the original question, you first have to define 21st century and 20th century. Next you have to examine how well you teach those items.

ARE WE REALLY TEACHING THE ESSENTIAL SKILLS?
Reading is an essential skill--everyone agrees with that. But what is effective reading instruction? Just having it done in language arts class? Many times, a non-language teacher might assume that they are teaching reading by giving the students a chapter in the book to read. You could give me some thread and a needle, but that doesn't mean I will learn cross-stitch.

In this case, the question seemed to imply that the students he had in class couldn't read up to his standard. If that's the case, absolutely teach them how to read.

But, don't refuse to develop 21st century skills at the same time.

THE BREAKTHROUGH A-HA
I asked if the individual was a coach (he wasn't, just my luck). So, I asked who the head basketball coaches were (they were sitting together on the other side of the auditorium). So I asked them as a group "Do you teach the defensive position? The duck-billed follow through? How to run your offense? And, do you have a sequence of these things?" The answer, yes to all of them... you can't get to the fine details of the motion offense and the half-court trap defense without hitting the building blocks first.

So, then I asked, "Do you teach hustle? Awareness? Improvisation?" One coach who was very interested by this train of thought had a great answer. "Yes, we do, but it's different."

"How so?"

"Well, it isn't cut and dry. It isn't step-by-step teaching, but it's much more coaching. You see it, then you point it out and process it with the kids. Saying, you made an excellent move there that wasn't part of the offense... what did you see? Then the kid answers, and it makes everyone want to do it. And what hustle looks like to the post is different than the wing."

And another coach:

"Yeah, and we're never done teaching those things. Up until the last day, you are looking to work on those. And the first day as well."

Those are the "21st century skills" of basketball. And, that's what it should be in the classroom as well.

You work on things like creativity, analysis, and problem-identification on all days, at all points in the lesson, at all grades. You never stop. You coach them more so than you teach them. You find examples of them in the classroom, point them out, and have kids learn from each other. The skills look different in different situations. But they are absolutely vital to a child's success.

So the answer is, you don't teach 21st century skills before the 20th century. You teach them at the same time, infusing them together.

(By the way, they had me fill out a tournament bracket sheet. Now that's the sign of love for a professional development consultant. I belong!)

Unpacking "Communication Skills"

A valid criticism of a "21st century skill" approach in the classroom is that the skills--communication, creativity, problem-solving, etc.--have become glittering generalities. Everyone has a sense what it means to himself, but it is hard to share a common conception of the skill.

Because of this, it makes it difficult to assess, and therefore, difficult for a teacher to improve their practice. Almost every teacher wants to build creativity in her room, but many don't because no one can explain why what they do now isn't building creativity, and what they should do to build creativity. Simply because, no one can isolate what the term "creativity" really means.

UNPACKING
The task before us is to unpack these terms. Communication skills is an excellent example. Sure to be one of every district's core outcomes, the ability to communicate in a diverse array of settings is crucial. But what does it mean? How do you assess communication skills?

The first step that we sometimes forget is to remember the wide variety of forms for communication. If our outcome is for students to develop communication skills, we often make the mistake of pigeon-holing it to be oral communication. Oral small-group communication, to be precise. 1-1 communication, written communication, visual communication, listening, and intrapersonal communication are often very underdeveloped in schools.

But even if we have settled on oral communication, from personal experience, I can say that breaking it down into basic elements, such as "hand gestures", "rate and pitch", and "eye contact" is not the full solution. It can give students specific knowledge to build upon, but when a student communicates orally, it is not good for them to be consciously thinking of 15 different elements of speech. The true conundrum is, even though we need to better define and describe "communication skills", communication is in itself a holistic item.

A DIFFERENT APPROACH
I've been fortunate to work with two of Iowa's best oral communication teachers in Kathy Turner, now retired from Postville, and Liz Hansen from Grinnell. A common theme I gleaned from both is to have students critically assess communication from a situational perspective. What is your audience, and what is your outcome? With both teachers, communication was a cognitive study for students, not just a skill mastery. It makes no difference if I perfect my eye contact and use the optimal rate and pitch; it matters if I actually communicate what I intended to.

The best teachers, then, do three important things. First, they give students a wide variety of audiences and situations for communication. One persuasive communication activity I observed had students at one point persuading their parents to improve their cellular plan, another point persuading the school board to change a board policy, a 3rd to persaude their best friend to go to the movies over the basketball game, and a 4th to convince the 6-year old they were babysitting to eat their peas. Rapid fire. And afterwards, the students had to analyze what did they change between settings, and what else did they notice that others were doing effectively. Much better than basic recognition of oral communication elements, the students had to actively manipulate them and analyze their use.

Second, the best teachers help students understand what type of communication is most appropriate. One of the best science units I have seen was an infectious disease unit a biology teacher named Dale Dennler used. Dale had what he termed as a basic unit: look at some attributes of infectious diseases and have a test. That is, until he experimented with authentic assessment. He posed the situation where an outbreak has just happened in an area. What and how do you tell the public? Not just, "we're going to write a letter to the public", but "is a letter to the public the best way to communicate the dangers without creating panic, or is there a better way?" And what was excellent to see is that, students realized there is more than one effective way to communicate.

Third, the best teachers provide authentic formative feedback from communication. From not just the teacher, but the students. I've mentioned a couple 21st century tools that can be used for this, but there are several ways to have students give feedback without needing technology. And, not just from the students as well, but also from authentic audiences. If you are communicating through visuals, have a panel of community members give their perspective on what was communicated (or how well).

What ultimately needs to happen is for communication to become a cognitive activity, where students actively think "What is the best way to communicate, and how effective am I reaching my goal?" Mike Sansone posted yesterday on what he describes as a void in "conversation literacy", and I think this really rings true. Do we teach students how to communicate in a positive way with friends? How to argue appropriately? How to be respectful in public communication? We (myself included) complain often about the way students communicate with authority figures in school, but do we have students think about the process they do?

Don't Fit It In

This is the message from a recent post of one of my favorite blogs to read, Teach Paperless, by Shelly Blake-Plock. In this post, he critiques the nature of technology integration in schools, including many teachers who often wonder where they are going to find room to fit in technology. In four words, he does a good job sufficing what I described about integration.

The words "Don't fit it in" work well for all the 21st century skill areas, though: health literacy, financial literacy, civic literacy, employability skills, as well as technological literacy.

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT INTEGRATING THE 21C SKILLS
There seem to be 2 big misconceptions with 21st century skills adoption and the Iowa Core. The first is that you need some sort of class that covers these skills. Schools that are only looking this route are being foolish. The 21st century skill areas are not set chunks of information you teach in one unit and then have mastery, like say, the process of photosynthesis. They require ongoing exposure, integration, and practice, all to create a mindset of literacy (just as reading literacy does).

That's also the problem with the second misconception, that I'll find some place to fit in some financial literacy components in my course. That I will take 5 minutes out of my choir lesson and talk about healthy care of vocal chords, or I will have students take a class period to make a running budget of Holden Caulfield's expenses. Students are savvy enough to know when lessons are contrived, and they are savvy enough to discard contrived learning as soon as that information is not needed for an upcoming test.

THINK OF READING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM
Infusing the 21st century skill areas takes a broad, multi-disciplinary approach, spearheaded by curricular leaders. It is just like reading literacy. In good schoolwide literacy instruction, the outcome is to have a literate student, one who knows how to read, can read on their own, does read on their own, and uses reading to meet other purposes. Its primary focus might be in language arts classes, but through good communication, teachers in other disciplines are aware and can build off of what the main reading thrust is. It includes activities that extend outside of the school day and the classroom, like "reading drives for charity" or student book clubs. And, reading teachers serve as coaches for the professional development of other teachers.

Good schoolwide literacy instruction is not "I've got to do 1 reading strategy per 3 weeks via PD quota, so I'm going to fit in an article on how to run the mile".

The same is true for the 21st century literacies. Your school might have an extra-curricular "know your credit score" or "get involved in the community" drives that all students participate in. These drives have as a purpose to get students exposed, infused with, and practice with the financially literate and civic literate mindset. These would be extensions of what they learn in classes such as economics or social studies. But because they are schoolwide, other teachers can relate their curriculum to that bigger picture without contriving it.

It has to be organized, stemming from good leadership. And, it has to be a team approach amongst your faculty. We, not me.

So, we have to challenge ourselves when we hear ourselves when we say "where do I fit this in?" It is not "fitting", and it is not I.

21st Century Skill: Being Curious

From Angela Maiers on curiosity:

Champion learners are curious about everything. They ask questions and get themselves involved in all stages of learning, without worrying about the answer, but relishing in the process. They have learned that by posing questions, they can generate interest and aliveness in the most exciting or mundane situation. This inquisitive attitude fuels their unrelenting quest for continuous learning.

I use the term curiosity-based education, which is different than outcome-based education. Different, not opposite. We need a clear set of outcomes that we want students to achieve, and we need to measure and give students feedback on their progress toward those outcomes. But, we have to interweave in room for curiosity.

No, not just room, but support. Time. And, purpose. We have to say "this curriculum will be driven partially by student curiosity".

This isn't the same as relevance, where the teacher takes the directed curriculum and tries to make it relevant. In this case, students follow curriculum of their own interest, and teachers follow along, incorporating the necessary skills and knowledge that accompany it.

The principles behind this are seen in both the Montessori method of education, and the work or Joseph Renzulli. It is an essential concept in gifted education. But, as Renzulli attests, it isn't just for gifted students... or if it is, we need to expand our definition of giftedness.

Renzulli advocated for what he labeled as Type III enrichment, where students would embark on self-selected projects, individually or in groups, that they are curious about. Teachers would provide Type I and Type II enrichment, which boils down teachers providing students to understand the necessary content to pursue that activity and give them appropriate experiences (say, for the student who wanted to overhaul an engine, the teacher would provide them not only the specifics on how to do so, but also get them in contact with local mechanics to serve as a mentor).

Not allowing for curiosity to drive the curriculum is sure to stifle it. Look at the relative effect of this over the lifespan of a student, who moves from the most curiosity-driven environments in kindergarten to the least in high school.

Being curious is a critical element to the "life-long learner" mantra that exists ubiquitously in all our vision statements. We need to make sure our curriculum allows for it.

Using the lens of habitudes for your Iowa Core plan

If you are an Iowa school district and making sense of the Iowa Core's "21st century skill component" is getting you nervous, I'd recommend taking the bull by the horns. Faculties across the state are ripe for this conversation. How is teaching and learning in the 21st century different than before?

I think the Partnership for the 21st Century is only part of the equation. And while the Iowa Core will add guidance, I think the ongoing discussion of what teaching and learning is will add much more meaning and actual difference in classroom discussion. In other words, don't be limited by the Core.

I'd mentioned Stephen Downes' "What You Really Need to Learn" presentation as an excellent discussion starter. I'd up that by saying Angela Maiers' Classroom Habitudes is just at good at analyzing what habits and attitudes we want to develop in students.

Angela, a local resource who resides in Des Moines, frames 21st century teaching and learning into 6 "habitudes", including imagination, curiosity, perseverence, self-awareness, courage, and adaptability. Her book can help facilitate your school's discussion.

Ken Kay under attack

Ken Kay, director of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (which Iowa has modeled for its Iowa Core component), has come under fire by several "Back to Basics" folk, who see Kay as typical of the whole 21st-century-skill movement championed by me and others. There is common criticism that Kay is a "public relations executive", not an educator. The irony here, of course, being that most of his critics are further away from the classroom than he is.

Here is Kay's response:




While I don't agree with the Back to Basic folk on much of anything, Robert Pondiscio of the Core Knowledge Blog has a valuable criticism:

It's easy to say "world class content" and "world class skills" but if you look at the examples of what P21 proposes teachers do in the classroom, you see a lot of activities driven by creating things like movie trailers and commercial jingles, even claymation movies that demand only a superficial relationship with the subject matter. Activities that don't deepen understanding will not build the skills Mr. Kay wants our children to have.

Spending a month making a movie trailer or claymation is an egregious waste of time (and I'd like to see someone do one of those projects decently in less time). But, I'd add this is a valuable criticism of the Partnership, not of constructivism or authentic work in general. These items appear to be brainstorms instead of tried and true activities faithful to the research of Wiggins and McTighe.

But, there is deeper criticism. Diane Ravitch, a former Assistant Secretary of Education under Bush 41, mentions this:

I continue to have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that this is just another misguided attempt to dumb down American education, as if we can stand any more of it... the “stuff,” the “content,” the “it” of David Hawkins’ triangle must be there. The skills can’t be learned in a vacuum; one can’t think critically without having something to think about and enough information to compare, contrast, and evaluate different points of view. And, as far as I am concerned, it is unacceptable to tolerate ignorance of the important events and ideas in our nation’s history. These events and ideas are important in shaping our civic and historical literacy, which all of us need.

Ravitch apparently feels Kay is giving lip service to content in his speech, as he mentions specifically that the Iowa Core addresses both content and skills. No credible person in the "21st century skill" camp is advocating teaching skills without content.

What we are questioning is what you emphasize, what you are concerned most with. Ravitch's point about "important events and ideas" is true. The problems is, what are the important events and ideas? We all have agreement that reading, writing, and mathematical computation are essential, but that's as vague as saying creativity and problem-solving are important skills.

Deconstruct this. Do we agree that the names of the presidents is an essential idea that no one should be ignorant of? Many social studies teachers would say yes. How about slope-intercept graphing? Many math teachers would say yes. How about diagramming sentences? Many (definitely not most) language arts teachers would say yes. But, many actual people would say no. There lives are not altered one way or another by the knowledge of these items. Essential to whom? Seems more essential to the teacher.

Therein is the basic problem with the core content argument. Too many cooks will say their content is essential. I felt the understanding of Orwell's "power corrupts" thesis was essential, but successful former students making a heck of a lot more than I am have pushed back saying no, it wasn't.

But, what they don't push back against is the idea that these intangibles, these 21st century skills, these habitudes are what make us successful. A school cannot do all the content necessary for a person to be successful; they will have to learn some content on their own. But given skills like being creative, being able to communicate with others, and being able to solve problems are needed by everyone, that is where a school emphasizes.

Of course, claymation isn't going to do that...

The Digital Curriculum in Physical Education

My two oldest kids both mentioned to me that physical education is their favorite subject at school, which made me think. When I was in first grade, phy ed was my favorite as well. And somewhere in the litany of dodgeball games and half-effort team sport games, by high school it was my least favorite. And my experience wasn't that uncommon. Which, of course, is insightful on many levels.

First, it illustrates how important psychomotor activity is to young children, and how it should be a cross-curricular feature in all subjects, for kids at that age need to be active and learn best that way. And second, it illustrates how irrelevant the traditional phy ed curriculum was. Irrelevant for the athletic, as the games were a joke compared to interscholastic sports, and irrelevant for the unathletic, as it was a source of embarrassment to not be talented.

Fast forward to 2009, and physical education is one of the fastest changing curricula out there. I had the privilege to work with two great high school physical education programs at Howard-Winneshiek and Grinnell. Both utilized aspects of the digital curriculum to give students a 21st century education.

POLAR FITNESS
Both schools participated in the physical fitness grant, as many Iowa schools did, which brought not only workout equipment, but also Polar Fitness monitoring devices. In a nutshell, Polar Fitness systems consisted of watches and/or bands worn around your torso which gathered heart rate and other vital information, and downloaded it via infrared into a computer. The equipment could be programmed to help students stay in their target zone for physical exertion.

Tony Farmer, a physical education teacher at Grinnell, was the one who explained to me how critical the integration was to the curriculum. Without it, assessment was a constant subjective battle. It was very hard to get students to actually learn about their bodies physical activities. On the other hand, the technology gave immediate feedback in the form of digital data to every student, data that wasn't arbitrary. Every student could monitor their own individualized target zones and measure their progress off the digital data. And the technology was basically invisible... it didn't interfere with the physical activity.

The Grinnell phy ed staff upped the ante with individualized plans for students, who could set their own goals with certain physical skills. Students could focus on stamina, dexterity, healthy diet, strength, you name it. Combined with individualized research and a reflective journaling process, you had a highly engaging curriculum. These attributes--utilizing technology to give feedback and individualize learning, being student-centered, offering authentic assessment, all while being invisible, are key elements of the digital curriculum.

HEALTH LITERACY
One of the areas of the 21st century skills in the Iowa Core is health literacy. Like financial literacy, health literacy will be very challenging to integrate in core classes like math and language arts without it being contrived. Story problems about BMI in math class won't cut it.

I will argue there is no way to meet this need without cross-curricular work involving physical education teachers, health teachers, family consumer science teachers, and school counselors (the "health literacy" people) in contact with the core content teachers. This is a paradigm shift, as those educators are often the most compartmentalized in already-compartmentalized high schools.

Moreover, these can't be units. Health literacy has to be ongoing, just like character development, seamlessly woven into the routine. That's because healthy living is more than a skill, it is a habit.

How would this look? Health teachers can work with students to monitor their habits throughout the school day. Find ways to keep data on posture, water intake, and attention in all classes, for example, and then analyze the use. This helps students become conscious of their lifestyle and the effect it has on their performance.

Working collaboratively with health and drama teachers, core content teachers can find ways to get students active kinesthetically. Ask the students which activity do they remember the most from Mr. Abbey's classes, and the answer will surprisingly not involve computers. It was rather when I taught my ninth grade English class the finer details of stage swordfighting during Romeo and Juliet. Using dowel rods, students learned the dramatic twists on fencing to make for fine stage art, and then integrated the learning into recreations of scenes from the play. Because of the high energy level, students became more aware of their physical bodies. And, those student-choreographed swordfights were excellent... we drew audiences from the elementary school.

Health literacy can be the springboard for authentic change in cultural ways in addition to personal. It is no secret that classrooms feature a lot of sitting and straining of the eyes. Some schools, led by active health teachers, are leading changes in the culture by encouraging students to push for "stand time" in the class. This has caught on in some schools, which are eliminating the traditional desks. As good principals will mention, situations where students can change the culture not only improve the school, but also give the students a feeling of self-worth that cannot be recreated in an infinite number of gold stars.

21st Century Skills from a Designer's Point of View

(Hat tip to Nancy Sojka, a former colleague of mine, who writes an excellent blog for the Iowa Alliance for Arts Education)

The design firm IDEO, which has recently consulted some elementary schools in California, has their own perspective on what teachers can do to teach the 21st century skills, and it is definitely worth a read. Some of the points I found interesting:

Create an environment that raises a lot of questions from each of your students, and help them translate that into insight and understanding. Educa­tion is too often seen as the transmission of knowledge.

Engaged learning can’t always happen in neat rows. People need to get their hands dirty.

Teachers are designers. Let them create. Build an environment where your teachers are actively engaged in learning by doing.

Learning doesn’t happen in the child’s mind alone. It happens through the social interactions with other kids and teachers, parents, the community, and the world at large.

If you want to drive new behavior, you have to measure new things. Skills such as creativity and collaboration can’t be measured on a bubble chart. We need to create new assessments that help us understand and talk about the developmental progress of 21st-century skills.

Very reaffirming to the discussion we're having here and elsewhere about what teaching and learning in the 21st century looks like.

Shifting Emphasis of the Workforce

Not that the workforce is the primary target of our education (we easily lose focus that we are helping develop well-rounded people, not just workers)...

But, George Siemens has a post on a recent report showing the shift from the service-industry to the creative-industry that mimics what we are seeing in Iowa. Analysis and synthesis skills, as well as social intelligence skills, are key to properly training this workforce... not a deep focus on core knowledge.

What are the 21st Century Skills?

A good discussion is breaking out about the topic. Go take a look and contribute your thoughts.