{"id":188,"date":"2013-11-03T18:53:16","date_gmt":"2013-11-03T18:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/?p=188"},"modified":"2019-08-19T23:42:59","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T23:42:59","slug":"my-working-definition-of-21st-century-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/2013\/11\/03\/my-working-definition-of-21st-century-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"My working definition of &#8220;21st century learning&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/files\/2013\/11\/21st-century_credit_pete_ashton.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-189 alignleft\" alt=\"21st-century_credit_pete_ashton\" src=\"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/files\/2013\/11\/21st-century_credit_pete_ashton.jpg\" width=\"360\" height=\"270\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/files\/2013\/11\/21st-century_credit_pete_ashton.jpg 400w, https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/files\/2013\/11\/21st-century_credit_pete_ashton-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 960px) 75vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As I am grappling with articulating my central question for my action research this year in Grade 7 English, I am struck with the realization that <span style=\"color: #33cccc\"><strong>I don\u2019t have a firm grasp on what \u201c21st Century Learning\u201d really means.<\/strong> <\/span>Am I alone in feeling how nebulous this term is?<\/p>\n<p>I mean, I know on one level I know that it revolves around leveraging technology, connecting with our global world, collaborating with others, being innovative, and solving complex problems&#8230;but I have yet to internalize an effective and concise working definition as it applies to my practice and discipline.<\/p>\n<p>So I consulted the oracle (Google) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edweek.org\/tsb\/articles\/2010\/10\/12\/01panel.h04.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">I found this article from EducationWeek<\/a> that was asking the same question I am pondering and posed it to eleven different educational thinkers.<\/p>\n<p>As you can probably guess, their answers reflected the complex nature of this subject. But I pulled a few themes that either resonated with my personal beliefs or reflected an aspect of English teaching that I thought was applicable. According to these experts, 21st century learning is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff9900\"><strong>Personalized:<\/strong> <\/span>the learner\u2019s goals and interest drive instruction<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff9900\"><strong>Focused on Excellence:<\/strong><\/span> the fundamentals do not get replaced in this paradigm, but rather technology is leveraged (there\u2019s that word again) to enhance instruction and improve how the basics are taught.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ff9900\"><strong>Innovative:<\/strong> <\/span>Getting outside of the box means rethinking the \u201cnorms\u201d of school. Teachers become learners, risks are rewarded, the outside world is reflected in the classroom, and authentic problems are solved in order to teach concepts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/files\/2013\/11\/8532261497_66e1a00799_z.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-190\" alt=\"8532261497_66e1a00799_z\" src=\"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/files\/2013\/11\/8532261497_66e1a00799_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"376\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/files\/2013\/11\/8532261497_66e1a00799_z.jpg 640w, https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/files\/2013\/11\/8532261497_66e1a00799_z-300x176.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 960px) 75vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This makes me wonder if the educational community needs to collectively agree what we mean when we say \u201c21st Century Learning\u201d. Or is it that we don\u2019t know what the future will hold, so we are all just collectively guessing about what we need to teach \/ how we teach it in order to best serve our students? Or should we all come to understand this term in our own way, even if that means uncertainty and confusion, because navigating these two ideas will be key for finding success in the world to come?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I am grappling with articulating my central question for my action research this year in Grade 7 English, I am struck with the realization that I don\u2019t have a firm grasp on what \u201c21st Century Learning\u201d really means. Am I alone in feeling how nebulous this term is? I mean, I know on one &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/2013\/11\/03\/my-working-definition-of-21st-century-learning\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;My working definition of &#8220;21st century learning&#8221;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actionplan","category-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":905,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188\/revisions\/905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}