Everyone is talking about 21st century skills. What are they? And, what do they mean for education today?Posted by: Education Sector from Education Sector

Elena Silva from Education Sector responds:

Part of the reason we embarked on this project is to understand if there is a clearer and easier way to think about 21st century skills. For all of the talk about 21st century skills, trying to figure out what they really are is not easy (I lived in Oakland, CA for 5 years so Gertrude Stein's quote about that city came to mind a lot during this project—is there a there there?). The term is everywhere and used to describe pretty much every imaginable skill or attribute: soft skills, life skills, key skills, inter-personal skills, workforce skills, non-cognitive skills… the list of skill sets and subsets goes on and on.

Some frameworks make it easier—The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, for example, breaks it down into learning and innovation, life and career, and media and technology skills. Like Oakland, I found it took a lot of digging to find but yes, there is a there. The heart of 21st century skills—what policymakers and educators need to focus on—is an emphasis on what students can do with knowledge rather than the individual units of knowledge they have. The ability to analyze and evaluate information, and to create new ideas and new knowledge from that information—these are the skills that matter most now. And while these aren't new skills, they are essential today in ways they weren't in past centuries. That's an economic reality---most of the simplest jobs today are done by computers, which means today's workers need to do more than that—they need to think analytically and creatively so they can make sound judgments about everyday issues and problems.

Knowing what we mean by 21st century skills is an essential starting point. If these skills are to be part of our educational system in any formal way, we can't leave them as a muddled mass—we must have a common understanding of what we mean when we say "21st century skills." But no one disagrees that the skills I describe above—to analyze, evaluate, create—are important. Questions about integrating these skills into school- and non-school-based education are not about whether we should do this (being against 21st century skills is like being against the 21st century)—they are about whether it's possible—do we have the capacity to teach these skills to all children, and do we have the capability to measure the skills and know if kids are getting what they need to succeed. The answer is that we're not there yet but we're getting there. We have to get there.

Paul Curtis from New Technology Foundation responds:

I like the way the Partnership for 21st Century skills had defined the skills. They break them into three categories or sets. The first relate to how people learn, work and innovate and includes things like creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, communication and collaboration. The second category relates to our interaction with technology and includes using software (word processors, spread sheets, web browsers, etc), interacting with various hardware interfaces (computers, PDAs, etc), and media literacy skills. The final category is life and career shills including flexibility, adaptability, initiative, and cross-cultural skills. In traditional education paradigms, these would often be called "soft skills" but for today's employees, they are often more important than specific content.

Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds:

We have our own list too. It derives in part from writing by Dexter Fletcher (2004) and our own work in blending domain- independent cognitive demands with subject matter. They emphasize application, of course, but also the adaptability needed to apply knowledge to new environments. For instance, for problem solving, students need to identify unclear problems in different ways and play out their solutions. To do so, they need skills like situation awareness (which could be perceptional, cognitive, or social) as well as strategies to estimate the risk of taking the wrong course of action. Students will need to be fluent, as time for success seems to be shrinking, and, as usual, increased skills for recognizing expertise and sharing it with team members.

Do you think measuring and fostering intrinsic motivation could help in improving quality of education? People who do what they love to do are often better at doing it outstandingly than those who are just doing what others expect from them.Posted by: Oscar Becerra from Ministry of Education

Paul Curtis from New Technology Foundation responds:

I am not sure measuring "intrinsic motivation" is as relevant as measuring student engagement. In high school campuses across the country, students voluntarily come to school 3 weeks before school starts for football practice. They endure high temperatures and high humidity as the coach screams at them to run faster, hit harder and do more push-ups. I doubt many of them are intrinsically motivated to do push-ups, but they are willing to do them. Why? They could play football in the park with their friends and not have to do them. They certainly don't want an easy coach who doesn't push them to be their best. The fact is that students are motivated to win and with the proper coaching understand that the push-ups help them win. They are willing to work hard (engaged) if the goal is clear and meaningful.

In the New Technology High School model, teachers are trained to turn the state content standards into meaningful, relevant and rigorous projects that engage the students. We warn them that if their students are asking "Why are we doing this?", they have not provided the proper context to make the learning relevant. In our classrooms, just like the football field, we find that if students see the relevance of the work and are engaged in the process, they will work very hard for us. So, I would say that it is critical teachers regularly assess the student's level of engagement and care enough to make adjustments when engagement is low.

Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds:

Fostering yes, measuring no, although the PISA 2006 Chapter 3 report has interesting data. Instead of surveys, however, Id support schools giving students a modicum of flexibility in what and how they learn. That operationalizes motivation.

What is the research base underpinning your version of 21st century skills?Posted by: Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA

Elena Silva from Education Sector responds:

I conducted a fairly exhaustive literature review on 21st century skills to get a sense of how the term was being defined and used. But it was the research base on learning sciences, which has grown in the past couple of decades and continues to tell us more about how kids learn, that helped me settle on what the "must haves" really are for the 21st century.

Will schools use more internships and hands on assessments to insure that students can use the knowledge obtained in a classroom?Posted by: Christie Foster from Middle Tennessee State University

Paul Curtis from New Technology Foundation responds:

I think internships are an important piece of a well rounded education experience because it gets students thinking about next steps and allows them to see why these skills are important to their future. However, I think it is more important, and more difficult, to change the teaching practices in our core content classes so that math, science, history and language arts ask students to apply what they have learned. If we fail to make more systemic changes to the core of what schools do and instead leave it to add on programs, we will likely see little significant changes in the skills our students have when they graduate.

Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds:

I dont see how schools without the assistance of the community at large, public and private organizations, and particular mentors could otherwise support performance assessment and 21st century skills. An obvious role is here for retirees or those needing to supplement their dwindling income.

I'm very encouraged to hear that creativity and innovation have finally been recognized as valuable assets, and that people like Robert Sternberg have designed alternative assessment. In the spirit of creativity and innovation, I wonder if there are efforts to reverse the idea that children begin school lacking in knowledge and that instead we look at children's innate knowledge. Are there any studies on common sense, and what the child brings with him/her to school?Posted by: Lynn Purvis-Yund

Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds:

Geoff Sachs at UC Berkeley is among a number of researchers who study students "everyday knowledge". Start with his work and his references will direct you along an interesting path. Of course, if individuals were the focus of reform efforts rather than institutions, we would have to begin with the children and what they bring.

The Education System focus seems to be on the measuring of the student's full comprehension ability with all the education "thrown" at him during his school years. Shouldn't the student want to seek answers through his own curiosity while the education department provides an organized educational framework (21st learning) to obtain it?

The 21st Century focus needs to be on the information instruction structure within the educational framework first. The testing part will then become the easy and inexpensive process. Our country has institutionalized education so tightly that creative change in this process has made it difficult to apply the ultimate solution to an effective organized system.

As a professional consultant on incentive plans for corporate success with employee/owner win/win, the most difficult challenge I encounter with people is their inability to understand the bigger picture. I am currently working independently on this educational problem and welcome any and all the support I can get to move my efforts forward.Posted by: E. Jayne from Universally Yours

Paul Curtis from New Technology Foundation responds:

One of the key tenets of the New Tech Model, and project based learning in general, is that humans only learn when they have a “need to know”. Adults and children only really learn when they are curious about something or have a reason to obtain the information. Traditional environments rely on the threat of tests and poor grades to create a desire to learn … unfortunately not all students are motivated by grades and it's not an approach likely to lead to life long learners.

When using rigorous and relevant projects as the primary mode of instruction, the project becomes the incentive to learn. The teacher then responds to the student's need to knows with lectures, web sites, text book resources and what ever else they can find to help the students complete the project. In a strong project based classroom, you should never hear from the students “why am I doing this” or “is this going to be on the text”. Everything the teacher does is a response to the questions the students are asking. The art and challenge of project-based learning is to create the scenarios/problems/projects that pull students into the content standards we are expected to cover.

A huge bi-product of using projects is that 21st Century skills become a natural part of the student work. Students are required to collaborate, problem solve, innovate, communicate, and use technology to get their work done. Rather than these skills being taught out of context from the rest of the curriculum, they become a natural part of how they do their work.

So, you are correct. Unless we engage the student's curiosity to learn more about our curriculum and the world around them, we will always fight an uphill battle to gain their attention. By adopting project-based learning we create a natural way to teach important 21st Century skills and ways for teachers to teach and assess them.

Schools are faced with the pressure of standardized tests and the impact of making annual yearly progress. Schools that are struggling have little time in a rigid schedule to integrate 21st century skills. How do we turn the tide on a practical level in our classrooms - is cooperative/collaborative learning the place to start?Posted by: Judith Goodrich from Augusta Lewis Troup School

Elena Silva from Education Sector responds:

This is such an important question because it speaks to how we approach 21st century skills. These skills are not add-ons or extras—they are integral to learning. There are always trade-offs and hard choices to be made about what we teach and how we teach—particularly now in tough economic times, districts and states are going to be forced to rethink what's most important—but there is no choice b/w basic skills and critical, creative and evaluative thinking. Good learning requires both. The choice is about how we support this good learning—what training and tools do we give teachers? That starts with pre-service—making sure that teachers know about how students learn and progress in their content area. We focused on assessment in this latest paper because in a climate of strong accountability tests are a major signal for what we take seriously. Emerging assessments enable teachers to see where students are succeeding and where they are falling short, so they can target their efforts. But again, it's true, we're short on time and money—we don't want another layer of tests or an additional list of skill objectives that teachers need to teach. We don't need more discrete outcomes—we need to refocus teaching and learning on fewer outcomes that are really meaningful for student success.

Paul Curtis from New Technology Foundation responds:

In our network of schools, we find that by increasing student engagement with project-based units derived from the content standards, student scores go up even though we are relying on a drill and kill approach. This is likely caused by higher student engagement, higher retention of information, and the ability to transfer knowledge from one area to another.

Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds:

Nope, changing the standards and assessments is the place to start

In these fragile economic times do you have suggestions for alternative funding that will enable all schools to have equal access to IT equipment ?Posted by: Katherine Burdick from Learninga-z

Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds:

The cost of computing equipment is dropping rapidly; one simply has to avoid needless goodies. The availability of game platforms and telephones with computational support make the cost far less. In my view, schools need to begin to fund technology support first, rather than last, as if it were a frill. Students can learn far more content and demonstrate skill in discerning quality for inferior information through use of technology. Schools need to switch priorities.

I am not sure where or if this fits in the discussion: What tools can you provide a classroom educator who is told to "do" test prep daily using released California Standards Tests' released questions, and whose students take a high-stake (50% of each grading period score via district fiat) multiple choice test designed for the CA Exit Exam and grade-level subject tests? This may describe our climate: My two Department Chairs in English brag: "We hardly read any literature in tenth grade anymore," and they recommend that we read none for at least half the year in ninth grade; we are told to focus on worksheet skill and drill of parts of the Standards and test prep. Given an environment in which data from NCTE or recent research is mocked, how can one teacher stay employed and build the skills needed for a complex, interwoven globel economy? Any advice?Posted by: Steven Kuschel from Rancho Verde HS

Paul Curtis from New Technology Foundation responds:

I'm afraid I don't have much advice for you. As a former “Don Quixote” in a large traditional high school, I've learned there is not much an individual teacher can do to push against the site or district policies that are so antithetical to the teaching practices we are advocating here. This proves the point that we get what we assess. Until the states begin assessing and reporting on 21st Century skills, it is unlikely your school will see the light.

On the other hand, there are states and even individual schools who have read the tealeaves and have already started to make these changes. Forty-two districts across the country have chosen to adopt the New Tech High model and charter school management organizations like Envisons and High Tech High are creating their own schools. So I guess your choices are to wait out the current assessment system and change what you can or find a school that is more in line with your educational philosophy.

Can Eva Baker explain performance assessment and how that would change assessment and how well performance assessment fits with high stakes assessment?Posted by: Bruce Hunter from AASA

Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds:

I think that performance assessments can and should be used in accountability testing, albeit, in a different way than earlier advocacy. Without recounting short falls in some standardized tests, it is clear to me that our weakness educationally shows up in outcomes for secondary students, and in the drop out rates among students in high school. I have argued for student choice in the selection of "exams or certifications" that would result in their obtaining a recognized qualification in academic and workforce domains. These certifications may well be the composite of performance based assessments, experience in the field, and must be judged by clear and validated criteria by one or more well trained rater. This idea is lifted in part from Al Shanker's "merit badge" idea, that incorporates selection among a wide range of carefully stated outcomes. What would be new is that we would want to see explicitly that the performance (s) link to specific 21st century goals, for instance, adaptive problem solving, as well as to the situations and domain content required for success. Choice for students should assist them to find relevance and responsibility. Support for these assessments need to reflect precise standards for performance and guidance for instruction. So performance would become an aspect of instruction, emphasizing coherence and depth rather than broad coverage of existing standards. Acquisition and transfer in the chosen areas should be required performance components. Providers may include community organizations, the private sector, colleges and universities, as well as schools, either separately or in combination. Providers outside of school would need to be vetted. Do not read this recommendation as spliting people into tracks, but rather expanding options beyond what is now available. I believe the Obama administration could have an early win by incorporating these as waiver options administratively in NCLB and evaluating effects. I can deal with cost and technology too... but this is already toooooooo long.

Do you think that assessments for 21st Century Skills will become a component of NCLB and if so, would it be a funded component or another expense to localities for an already underfunded mandate?Posted by: Mark Burnette from Carroll County Public Schools

Paul Curtis from New Technology Foundation responds:

This is a great question and until we see what the next administration's focus for education reform is, it is tough to tell. But I don't think we should wait for a policy change to make the changes we need to. Local businesses around the schools in the New Tech Network make significant investments because they see the economic development of their community in jeopardy if student do not graduate with 21st century skills. Morally, we have an obligation to prepare our young people for the world they will face. While providing an external accountability system like NCLB can help motivate our schools to change, we should be able to find enough "intrinsic motivation" (see earlier question) in those who run our schools to do what is best for students.

Elena Silva from Education Sector responds:

We won't and shouldn't see it added for accountability purposes. But it will come up, probably as funding for the research and development of new assessments or for demonstration sites where innovative teaching and assessment practices are emerging.

Elena Silva from Education Sector responds:

A related concern is that "21st century skills" shows up in a lot of places in a not-so-coherent way that further confuses efforts to teach and assess these skills. There are several bills already that mention the need for 21st century skills. There's one in the Senate for example (3573) that wants to fund state partnerships to improve career pathways by infusing 21st century skills into education. This bill is about low-income kids getting what they need to participate in today's workforce so it's certainly needed. But we have to be careful so we don't end up tacking on a "21st century" logo to everything and not knowing what we mean by it.

Paul Curtis from New Technology Foundation responds:

One of the things that the New Tech Foundation has been working on the past several months is making some distinctions between 21st Century Skills, 21st Century Learning and 21st Century Schools. Many school might take a look at the list of 21st century skills and create a mandatory elective course for all freshman that focussed on using technology, collaboration skills, and career exploration and feel comfortable that they have "covered" those skills. 21st century learning, however, infuses 21st century skills into the curriculum through projects and activities which require a combination of content and skills to succeed. Lastly, 21st schools have made a much more significant change at a systemic level that supports a professional culture of trust, respect and responsibility where students are empowered, a school-wide emphasis and assessment of 21st Century skills, an expectation that 21st century learning is taking place in all classes and the allocation of resources that supports a high tech-high touch environment. Using these criteria, the New Tech Foundation has developed a certification process for the schools in our network which recognizes those organizations which have made the system changes needed to become a 21st Century School.

Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds:

Yes, but it cannot happen in a superficial way that divides them from academic content or useful preparation of postsecondary life. Luckily, there are techniques to create a cross-walk from standards, 21st skills, to instruction and assessments. I hope the new administration, after it takes up our immeidate economic survival, will address changes required of the current system to foster long term student success.

A question that Elena Silva brought up and answered in her first statement was---do we have the capacity to teach these skills to all children, and do we have the capability to measure the skills and know if kids are getting what they need to succeed?---Elena's answer was---we're not there yet but we're getting there. We have to get there. The answer is YES but it's imperative that we reach these children by age 3 on up.
 
We must help children develop complex connections (pathways) that serve creative thinking, the interest in assuming challenges in life and having a wide variety of interests and abilities. We must assume this responsibility for each individual student, by providing the information to be digested and a continuous measurement toward mastery that leads to real world and academic abilities within the now and the future. ...

Posted by: Ryan Whitworth from Neuropath Learning

Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds:

I think we are a lot closer than most think. We can do great things with speech recognition technology with very young children, and we can demonstrate that complex learning can be acquired and measured. It is a matter of priorities and hard work, as opposed to tradition and at least some comfort with existing approaches

I strongly agree that it is important to emphasize intrinsic motivation in this paradigm, yet I think that the intrinsic motivation of teachers also plays a key factor in educational success. How we can motivate teachers to think this way in their teaching? How can we nurture the curiosity and problem-solving skills of teachers so that their passion for teaching becomes their motivation to help their students achieve? In essence, how can we create a climate in which teachers become strong professional role models who are truly passionate about their work?Posted by: Necole Fabris

Paul Curtis from New Technology Foundation responds:

I do believe that the current environment of high stakes testing, pacing guides and canned curriculum has had a "natural selection" process on teachers. It has rewarded teachers who are implementers of curriculum rather than those who create it. For this to change, we need to change the environment in which teachers work.
 
If you were to take a group of young athletes and trained them to be an excellent football team, but then put them on a basketball court to play against another team … what sport would they play? Grabbing the basketball and running toward the goal would quickly result in punishments that would quickly push the athletes to obey the principles of basketball and ignore their training. The same principle applies to teachers. Creating teachers prepared for 21st Century requires two things …. The right kind of training experiences that mimic the kind of classroom we want them to create and the right kind of teaching environment that continues to reward the things we want to see and discourages the things we don't.

We know that what you asses is what you get. Because 21st Century skills are not being formally assess by schools, states or the federal government, there is little incentive for schools or teachers to address these skills. Education Sector's report on Measuring Skills for the 21st Century is an important step in working toward educating policy makers on the importance of taking on the challenge of figuring this out. The more these skills get assessed, the more the teachers will value them. While ultimately policy makers and tax payers will decide how much teachers get paid (which certainly has an impact on the quality of teachers), there are things we can do at a school level to guide the teachers in the right direction. Some examples: creating integrated courses that require two teachers to make connections between two content areas and abandon their fact driven curriculum, creating longer class periods to allow for deeper dives into subjects, adopting a set of school-wide 21st century learning outcomes that all teachers are expected to teach and assess, use technology to support inquiry and collaboration rather than digital worksheets and tests, a significant investment in project-based learning training, and changing the hiring and evaluation system for teachers to measure the skill sets and personality types that better match a 21st Century learning environment.

The last thing I will say about creating the right climate for teachers is that schools are prone to piecemeal reform rather than systemic reform. School will typically pick on item from the list above and try to implement it without making other reforms. The one-off change is like a cancer to the system because it doesn't fit with the rest of the policies and practices on campus. When the change fails, the community moves on to the next big thing leaving behind a few more cynical teachers who are ready to say "we tried that." The key to our work at the New Tech Foundation has been to institute more system approach that installs several changes all at once so that those changes are more likely to fundamentally reinvent the teaching and learning at the classroom level.

How do you plan to measure skills such as creativity? How can new kinds of assessments be taken to scale?Posted by: Barbara Nielsen

Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds:

Im not sure that "creativity" is what we mean, but rather the ability to be innovative and effective within a set of constraints. I think we know how to measure this through some inexpensive computer tools and even through writing. Taking anything to scale is more of a political issue than a technical one.

If a focus on 21st century skills is not to be thought of as an "add on", but rather a philosophical shift, what progress is being made by universities and accrediting bodies in changing teacher preparation programs to lead in this direction?Posted by: Amy Cochran from Trevecca Nazarene University

Paul Curtis from New Technology Foundation responds:

This is a great question. While most teacher preparation programs are making little real progress in making the philosophical shift themselves, we have found a few groups who are taking on this challenge. I'm sure Eva Baker will talk about the great work CRESST is doing, so I'll mention a few others we've come across. The UTeach (http://uteach.utexas.edu/) at the University of Texas has totally revamped how it prepares teachers. The Reach Institute for School Leadership (http://www.onthemovebayarea.org) is another one. High Tech High (http://gse.hightechhigh.org), a project-based charter school management organization, has taken upon itself to create its own credentialing process that prepares teachers for their schools.

Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds:

Since Paul suggested it, I'll make a comment. I know that some teacher preparation institutions have continued to focus on deep understanding, even going against the grain of NCLB and district's desires. Im not sure that strategy was so enlightened. Our experience is more in the in-service part of professional development. There we have had great (even evidence-based) success that teachers can learn what they want and need in applying subject matter knowledge so that students learn to transfer learning to new situations. As I said earlier, for me, this is the core of 21st century skills. We also have studies on team work and collaboration, problem solving and deep understanding, using technology supported and paper based assessments. Formative and summative.

How do you envision 21st century skills being implemented in the elementary curriculum with regard to space and time? Elementary teachers have a strong culture of planning time being directly attached to their students being in other classrooms like art, physical education, library media or technology. A 21st Century Skills curriculum intertwines these skill sets and places them in real-life scenario, problem solving opportunities for students. How will this new paradigm look? Will teachers be working more collaboratively or will just the curriculum be collaborative?Posted by: Lori Carter from Howard County Public Schools

Eva Baker from CRESST UCLA responds:

I think both kinds of collaboration are warranted, with teachers and with groups or teams of students. This paradigm is really the way a good deal of elementary education (and middle school, for that matter) was managed in the not too distant past.. At Seeds University Elementary School, at ULCA, teachers do this all the time, starting with 4/5 year olds who create projects involving science and math content, problem solving team work and communication, held together often by the arts and the careful documentation and reflection by each individual students. The hardest part of any performance assessment system is not the doing it, although I know teachers are pressed. Rather it is assuring that the projects and activities that are taught connect to standards and to assessments in transparent ways. Understanding how students think in subject matter and applied situations is a challenge for us all, teachers and researchers alike. But if we want our students to reach and extend the top level of knowledge, motivation and innovation, we must push ourselves to master the architecture of thought and knowledge that lies beneath the surface of performance assessments or projects. Otherwise, we are stuck on the surface again.