A Guide for Facilitating 21st Century Learning

By admin On December 7, 2012 · Add Comment · In Blog

Brock University professor and C21 Canada supporter Dr. Camille Rutherford contributes this guest post. Check out her blog for insights on leadership, teacher education and technology.

Students do not become 21st century learners on their own. They need learning opportunities that challenge them to utilize 21st century fluencies and integrate the five dimensions of 21st century learning. These dimensions include:

Collaboration
Knowledge-building
The use of ICT for learning
Self-regulation
Real-world problem-solving and innovation

The following is a set of guidelines developed by the Innovative Teaching and Learning Research program to help educators understand how they can create learning opportunities that will facilitate the development of 21st century skills. In addition to a brief description of each of the five dimensions of 21st century learning, the guidelines include a scale/rubric which educators can use to determine the degree to which each dimension is present during a specific learning opportunity.

Similar to Bloom’s Taxonomy, educators should seek to create learning opportunities that challenge their students to demonstrate the highest level on each scale. While educators may strive towards the highest levels of each dimension, it is important to note that these scales/rubrics should be applied to a sequence of lessons or unit plan and not individual lessons. Even though an individual lesson could focus on a single dimension, it is not possible to achieve the highest level on all of the scales/rubric within a single classroom lesson.
For the full description of the Innovative Teaching and Learning Research: Learning Activity Rubrics and Sample Student Work Rubrics please visit: http://www.itlresearch.com/home.

Collaboration

To challenge students to the highest level of collaboration, students need to have shared responsibility for their work, and participate in learning activities that requires students to make substantive decisions together. These features help students learn the important collaboration skills of negotiation, agreement on what must be done, distribution of tasks, listening to the ideas of others, and integration of ideas into a coherent whole.

1 = Students are NOT required to work together in pairs or groups.

2 = Students DO work together: BUT they DO NOT have shared responsibility.

3 = Students DO have shared responsibility; BUT they ARE NOT required to make substantive decisions together.

4 = Students DO have shared responsibility AND they DO make substantive decisions together about the content, process, or product of their work.

Knowledge Building

Knowledge building happens when students do more than reproduce what

they have learned: they go beyond knowledge reproduction to generate ideas

and understandings that are new to them. Activities that require knowledge building ask students to interpret, analyse, synthesize, or evaluateinformation or ideas.

1 = The learning activity DOES NOT REQUIRE students to build knowledge.

Students can complete the activity by reproducing information or by

using familiar procedures.

2 = The learning activity DOES REQUIRE students to build knowledge by

interpreting, analysing, synthesizing, or evaluating information or

ideas; BUT the activity’s main requirement IS NOT knowledge building.

3 = The learning activity’s main requirement IS knowledge building; BUT the learning activity DOES NOT have learning goals in more than one subject.

4 = The learning activity’s main requirement IS knowledge building; AND the knowledge building IS interdisciplinary. The activity DOES have learning goals in more than one subject.

Use of ICT for Learning

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is becoming increasingly

common in the classroom, but ICT is often used to support practice on basic skills rather than to build knowledge. This dimension examines how students use ICT—whether or not the use of ICT helps students build knowledge, and whether or not students could build the same knowledge without using ICT.

1 = Students do not have the opportunity to use ICT for this learning activity.

2 = Students use ICT to learn or practice basic skills or reproduce information; BUT they are not building knowledge.

3 = Students use ICT to support knowledge building; BUT they could build the same knowledge without using ICT.

4 = Students use ICT to support knowledge building; AND the ICT is required for building this knowledge.

Self-Regulation

In 21st century workplaces, people are expected to work with minimal supervision, which requires them to plan their own work and monitor its quality. Learning activities that give students the opportunity to acquire self-regulation skills last for a week or more and require students to monitor their progress. Teachers can foster self-regulation skills by giving students working in groups responsibility for deciding who will do what and on what schedule.

1 = The learning activity can be completed in less than a week.

2 = The learning activity lasts for one week or more; BUT students ARE NOT given the assessment criteria before they submit their work and; DO NOT have the opportunity to plan their own work.

3 = The learning activity lasts for one week or more AND students ARE given the assessment criteria before they submit their work OR DO have the opportunity to plan their own work.

4 = The learning activity lasts for one week or more AND students ARE given the assessment criteria before they

submit their work AND DO have the opportunity to plan their own work.

Real Problem Solving and Innovation

In traditional schooling, students’ academic activities are often separate from what they see and do in the world outside school. True problem solving requires students to work on solving real problems, and challenges them to complete tasks for which they do NOT already know a response or solution. For the result of this problem solving to be considered innovative it must require students to implement their ideas, designs or solutions for audiences outside the classroom.

1 = The learning activity’s main requirement IS NOT problem-solving.

Students use a previously learned answer or procedure for most of

the work.

2 = The learning activity’s main requirement IS problem-solving; BUT the problem IS NOT a real-world problem.

3 = The learning activity’s main requirement IS problem-solving AND the problem IS a real-world problem; BUT students DO NOT innovate. They are NOT required to implement their ideas in the real world.

4 = The learning activity’s main requirement IS problem-solving AND the problem IS a real-world problem AND students DO innovate. They ARE required to implement their ideas in the real world.

Here are some learning activities to review and determine where they would rank on the five dimensions: