{"id":134,"date":"2018-04-15T14:43:02","date_gmt":"2018-04-15T14:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/grahamvogt\/?p=134"},"modified":"2018-04-15T14:43:02","modified_gmt":"2018-04-15T14:43:02","slug":"reflecting-on-the-cohort21-advantage-21st-century-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/grahamvogt\/2018\/04\/15\/reflecting-on-the-cohort21-advantage-21st-century-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on The Cohort21 Advantage: 21st Century Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warning:<\/em><\/strong> this post veers dangerously into that \u201ccohort21 as a cult\u201d sentiment so often captured in blog posts, twitter shout-outs and face2face confessionals. If this makes you feel uncomfortable, well… don\u2019t allow it to! Embrace the magic!<\/em><\/p>\n

What do you say when someone asks \u201cwhat is 21st<\/sup> Century Learning?\u201d I don\u2019t know, maybe something like this: leveraging technology to \u201cfoster skills that increasingly demand creativity, perseverance and problem solving combined with performing well as part of a team\u201d (Larson 121).\u00a0 Yeah sure, but why do I loathe answering that question, at least in this conditioned, pass-the-elevator-test sort of way? It doesn\u2019t do justice, it doesn\u2019t feel quite right. And this, I believe, is where Cohort 21 continues to truly challenge my understanding. In his most recent post, @adamcaplan<\/a> captures so eloquently the amazing inspiration he draws from the many Cohort21 participants. Read his blog. Read recent posts from @pcobban<\/a>, @jdykerman<\/a>, @hpalmer<\/a>, @mmoore<\/a>. Heck, read any post on any cohort21 blog. Yes, the extent of action is truly incredible. But embedded in that action is the individual journey made so rich by the extent of \u201crisk\u201d (and the vulnerability of the experience) and the sheer openness to the learning that often manifests as determination. Partially because of this shared Cohort21 experience, I understand that 21st<\/sup> Century Learning is much more than an approach. If we\u2019re serious about shifting mindsets around teaching and learning then we must understand that teaching and learning for the 21st<\/sup> Century is also a way of being (wow, that\u2019s really cultish!). Here\u2019s what I mean…\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In his text titled A Post Modern Perspective on Curriculum (a golden oldie for sure), William E. Doll suggests \u201ccreativity occurs by the interaction of chaos and order, between unfettered imagination and disciplined skill\u201d (87). Indeed, in my professional environment (RNS) and at Cohort21 we work hard to build and maintain vibrant, supportive and safe environments in which participants (or students) may feel empowered to take risks, to respond to challenges that at first appear too difficult (moonshots!), and to achieve outcomes that may feel out of reach. At RNS, the best examples we have of this are our large scale \u201cdisruptED\u201d events which now occur several times throughout the year in a wide-range of forms for a multitude of purposes. I\u2019ve written about some of these events before (because they\u2019re amazing!) and they have quickly become a trademark of the Grade 9\/10 Program (Discovery) that I coordinate and, to a broader extent, the teaching and learning at our school. I like to think of them as symbols of 21st<\/sup> Century approaches that, to an ever-increasing extent, reflect and affect the teaching and learning in the classrooms.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an awesome example of what I mean…<\/p>\n

Recently, teachers from our Math department endeavoured to create a two day challenge for our students around real\u2013world applications of math concepts. The resulting theme was entrepreneurship, and our 100 students from grades 9 and 10 were placed in small teams to imagine and design a business or product not only able to thrive in today\u2019s economy, but also respond to the needs of today\u2019s world. Amazing, right? I believe part of the enduring magic of these events is the intersection between learning and life. As if to truly emphasize this magic, we invited many business-minded people and entrepreneurs from the local community who willingly donated time to lead workshops and interact in a variety of ways with our students \u2013 including the role of \u201cdragons\u201d to culminate the event. To be clear: Students were displaced from routine and social defaults and tasked, in teams, to creatively respond to real-world challenges, drawing from both real-world experts and in-class learning. To observe these two days was to also observe cooperation, struggle, excitement, frustration, epiphanies, doubt, determination and, at least in some measure, the exhilaration of success. The learning is palpable.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s push this a little further, and this is what I mean when I say \u201ca way of being\u201d…<\/p>\n

Cohort21 alum and RNS Math Whiz @kwhitters<\/a> took the initiative and lead on this event, and she noted the basic importance of \u201cstepping back from our daily routines. It helps to stimulate the mind and promotes creativity.\u201d But, as you can surely appreciate, the level of planning required in successfully implementing an event like this is intense and extensive. And so, it seems to me that Kate easily could have been describing the teachers as we gather to imagine and plan these events. There is beautiful symmetry in the fact that the set of skills required by teachers in planning is very similar to those exhibited by the students in learning. Kate was able to bring a group of teachers together by proposing the challenge of creating a two day event for our students. I think this was a moonshot. In building a successful \u201cproduct\u201d, the teachers collaborated to ideate, create, innovate and refine. \u00a0Therefore, if I were to describe RNS as a school that values 21st<\/sup> Century Skills, it would be clear that I\u2019d not just be describing classroom learning but rather an entire culture of teaching and learning. I am now comfortable suggesting that as teachers at RNS, we understand deeply the importance and power of 21st <\/sup>Century Skills because we are applying and building those skills constantly in the ongoing development of our own practice. In this way, we are learning alongside our students so that when they experience frustration and doubt, or success and excitement, we are strongly positioned to understand those experiences and to better harness the learning available.<\/p>\n

Of course, all of us at Cohort21 deeply understand this because for all of it Cohort21 has truly provided the template. From the \u2018how might we?\u2019 to metacognition and every grimy, wonderful moment in between, we know 21st<\/sup> Century Learning because we are actively 21st<\/sup> Century Learners. \u00a0Recently, @gnichols<\/a> confronted our tendency to measure our learning against others \u2013 perhaps as an annoying remnant of an industrialized approach. I think all of us with a passion for better understanding teaching and learning in the 21st century likely share an increasing discomfort with anything in our practice that might perpetuate our students\u2019 determination to rank themselves. I know that at cohort21 we do a lot to recognize and celebrate each other\u2019s journey, and this support is obviously extremely important. More lasting however is the inward focus and the personal, intrinsic joy realized in perseverance, growth, epiphany… Guiding students into this mindset also means understanding and therefore living it.<\/p>\n

Doll, W. (1993). A Post-Modern Perspective on Curriculum<\/em>. New York: Teachers College Press.<\/p>\n

Larson, L., Miller, T. (2011).\u00a0 21st<\/sup> Century Skills:\u00a0Prepare<\/strong>\u00a0Students<\/strong>\u00a0for the Future. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 47 <\/em>(3), 121-123.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warning: this post veers dangerously into that \u201ccohort21 as a cult\u201d sentiment so often captured in blog posts, twitter shout-outs and face2face confessionals. If this makes you feel uncomfortable, well… don\u2019t allow it to! Embrace the magic! What do you say when someone asks \u201cwhat is 21st Century Learning?\u201d I don\u2019t know, maybe something like … Continue reading “Reflecting on The Cohort21 Advantage: 21st Century Learning”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classroom-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/grahamvogt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/grahamvogt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/grahamvogt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/grahamvogt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/grahamvogt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/grahamvogt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/grahamvogt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/grahamvogt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/grahamvogt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}