According to Barnett Berry, a Founder and CEO, Center for Teaching Quality, Twenty-first-century learning means that students master content while producing, synthesizing and evaluating information from a wide variety of subjects and sources with an understanding of and respect for diverse cultures. Students demonstrate the three Rs, but also the three Cs: creativity, communication, and collaboration. They demonstrate digital literacy as well as civic responsibility. Virtual tools and open-source software create borderless learning territories for students of all ages, anytime and anywhere.
Success in the 21st century requires knowing how to learn. Students must develop strong critical thinking and interpersonal communication skills in order to be successful in an increasingly fluid, interconnected, and complex world. Technology allows for 24/7 access to information, constant social interaction, and easily created and shared digital content. In this setting, educators can influence technology to create an engaging and personalized environment to meet the emerging educational needs of this generation. No longer does learning have to be one-size-fits-all or confined to the classroom. The opportunities afforded by technology should be used to re-imagine 21st-century education, focusing on preparing students to be learners for life. This was based on Karen Cator, a Director Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education.
Sarah Brown Wessling added twenty-first-century learning embodies an approach to teaching that marries content to skill. Without skills, students are left to memorize facts, recall details for worksheets, and relegate their educational experience to passivity. Without content, students may engage in problem-solving or team-working experiences that fall into nothing, into relevance without rigor. Instead, the 21st-century learning paradigm offers an opportunity to synergize the margins of the content vs. skills debate and bring it into a framework that dismisses these contrasts. Moreover, twenty-first-century learning means hearkening to foundations of the past to help us navigate our future.
The study of Berry point out that the twenty first century learners should have a mastery of the content of information from different subjects. This means, the twenty first century learners as well as teachers should be flexible. But Cator and Wessling emphasized the application of the content of information which is the skill. Student’s knowledge can be left when they do not apply it since there are many ways to access information. Knowledge and skills should be together based on what they’ve said.
Milton Chen explained that twenty-first-century learning builds upon such past conceptions of learning as “core knowledge in subject areas” and recasts them for today’s world, where a global perspective and collaboration skills are critical. It’s no longer enough to “know things.” It’s even more important to stay curious about finding out things. Furtheremore, the internet which has enabled instant global communication and access to information, likewise holds the key to enacting a new educational system, where students use information at their fingertips and work in teams to accomplish more than what one individual can alone, mirroring the 21st-century workplace.
Steve Hargadon stated that, twenty-first-century learning will ultimately be “learner-driven.” Our old stories of education are breaking down or broken, and this is because the internet is releasing intellectual energy that comes from our latent desires as human beings to have a voice, to create, and to participate. I believe the political and institutional responses will be to continue to promote stories about education that are highly-structured and defined from above, like national standards or the teaching of 21st-century skills.
According to Janelle Cox 21st Century learning means teaching just as you have done in the past centuries, but with way better tools. Today’s teachers have a great advantage, they have powerful learning tools at their disposal that they did not have before. 21st Century technology is an opportunity for students to acquire more knowledge. Teachers have the ability to move away from being the distributor of information to someone who can guide them and prepare them for their future. Ultimately, the 21st century learner will be “learner-driven,” where they choose how and what they want to learn. The teacher will serve as a facilitator and guide to help embrace 21st century learning.
Chen, Hargadon and Cox viewed the historical educational system as significant basis to expound what will be the future. They were all said technology is the major reason why people are exposed in many modern things. Students can learn more and advanced and teacher can use powerful learning tools through internet. Technology gives students and teachers an opportunity to discover and learn new things. Both students and teachers will be competent and holistic when 21st century learning continues.
References
Berry, Barnette et. al.Education week teacher pd sourcebook. http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/2010/10/12/01panel.h04.html
Cox, Janelle. By Teachers, For Teachers Provided by the K-12 Teachers Alliance. K-12 News, Lessons & Shared Resources.http://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies-what-21st-century-educator-looks
By: Katherine V. Llenarez
