October 2010 Leaders of Learners

The bi-monthly resource for Texas ASCD members

Leadersof Learners

October 2010

Vol. 3, Issue 5

Designing Boundless Futures for 21st Century Learners Special Issue Meet the 2010 Texas ASCD Annual Conference Presenters 15 Eric Jensen

Ten Critical Things You Should Know About Brain Based Research

13 Hall Davidson The Need for Leadership in the Digital Age

4 Ken Kay

21st Century Skills: Why They Matter, What They Are, and How To Get There

23 Lee Crockett Education and the Role of the Educator in the Future

Leadersof Learners

October 2010

Vol. 3, Issue 5

Contents

Features 4 21st Century Skills: Why They Matter, What They Are, and How to Get There by Ken Kay

13 The Need for Leadership in the Digital Age

by Hall Davidson

15 10 Critical Things You Should Know About Brain Based Research by Eric Jensen

23 Education and the Role of the Educator in the Future by Lee Crockett

In Every Issue 3 Letter from Texas ASCD 26 Calendar of Events 27 Texas ASCD Membership Application President Ellen V. Bell, Ph.D. Vice President Janis Jordan, Ed. D. Secretary Alma Rodriguez, Ph.D. President-Elect Al Hambrick, Ph.D. Past President Gena Gardiner

Texas Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (Texas ASCD) is a nonprofit educational organization that improves learning through supporting all educators and school children of Texas in their educational endeavors.

Leaders Learners is an official journal of Texas ASCD. If you 2 News andofEvents

Yolanda M. Rey, Ph.D. Executive Director October 2010 Leaders of Learners

have comments concerning Leaders of Learners, please send them to texasascd@txascd.org. Opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily the opinions or endorsements of Texas ASCD or our membership.

2

It’s Not Too Late To Register! www.txascd.org/development or call 1.800.817.2723

Texas ASCD

2010

Annual Conference Texas ASCD

2010

Annual Conference

The 2010 Texas ASCD Annual Conference is right around the corner. As a way to get geared up for this year’s event, this issue of Leaders of Learners is highlighting previously published works from some of our keynote speakers. We are lucky to have such well-respected speakers, such as Ken Kay, Lee Crockett, Hall Davidson, Andrew Hargreaves and Eric Jensen speak during the conference. In this issue, four of our presenters discuss their thoughts on the future of education, technology, and leadership. The articles are fascinating and thought provoking, and we’re sure their presentations at the conference expand even more on the concept of Designing Boundless Futures for the 21st Century Learners!

Featuring: Curriculum and Technology Integration Curriculum Design Addressing Challenges and Change Multiple Measures of Assessment Instructional Coaching and Leadership Building Community College and Career Readiness

2 0 1 0

K e y n o t e

P r e s e n t e r s

Andrew Hargreaves

In addition to the general sessions and special sessions, there will be nearly 50 concurrent sessions over the two and a half days. This year we are also thinking of the future and not printing any handouts from the keynote presentations and special sessions – they are available here to download ahead of time!

You can also view and download the Program Book here and start planning your conference schedule, but hardcopy a book will be available at the conference.

We hope you enjoy this special edition of Leaders of Learners, and we hope to see you at this year’s conference in Houston October 24th – 26th.

Eric Jensen

Hall Davidson

Ken Kay

Lee Crockett

October 2010 Leaders of Learners

3

21st Century Skills: Why They Matter, What They Are, and How We Get There

by Ken Kay

The book 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn was published by Solution Tree in 2010. Author Ken Kay wrote the foreword for the book, which has been reprinted here with permission. In his foreword, Kay presents the Framework for 21st Century Learning advocated by his group. He responds to three key questions—(1) Why are the skills listed in the framework needed for learning in the future? (2) Which skills are most important? and (3) What can be done to help schools include these skills in their repertoire so that 21st century learning results?—and argues for realigning the teachinglearning relationship so that it focuses on outcomes.

The writer Malcolm Gladwell (2000) astutely describes how and why social change happens when we arrive at a “tipping point,” the moment when a critical mass of circumstances come together and sets us on a new and unstoppable course. Scientists, economists, and sociologists all use this term to describe moments when significant change occurs and results in a new reality that is markedly different from the old.

I believe we are on the threshold of a tipping point in public education. The moment is at hand for a 21st century model for education that will better prepare students for the demands of citizenship, college, and careers in this millennium.

I am honored that the editors have asked me to introduce this book and set the context with the overarching theme of 21st century skills, using the Framework for 21st Century Learning developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2009a). This book is a compilation of reflections on the possibilities for 21st century learning by some of the most thoughtful educational minds in the United States.

October 2010 Leaders of Learners

It is gratifying that so many of them are engaged in envisioning and substantiating more robust approaches to educating young people, particularly since those of us in the Partnership have worked since 2001 on the same exciting project.

The vision for 21st century learning developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2009a), summarized in figure on page (#), offers a compelling context for the chapters in this volume. This vision offers a holistic and systemic view of how we can reconceptualize and reinvigorate public education, bringing together all the elements—21st century student outcomes and 21st century education support systems—into a unified framework. For us, the starting point for this framework is actually the end result: the outcomes—in terms of mastery of core academic subjects, 21st century themes, and 21st century skills—that should be expected of students once they leave school to venture successfully into higher education, workplaces, and independent life. It’s only when we understand these outcomes that we can then begin building the supporting infrastructure that will lift the education system to commanding heights. The 4

21st Century Skills...continued from page 4 Foreword xv

raison d’être for the support systems—standards and assessments, curriculum and instruction, professional development, and learning environments—should be to achieve the results that truly matter for students.

Without a clear and thorough articulation of the outcomes that students need, reshaping the infrastructure is premature. Here’s an analogy: if you are building a house, it doesn’t make sense to order the plumbing fittings before the architect finishes the design specifications. In education, 21st century student outcomes are the design specs for the rest of the system.

The Partnership has crafted an all-encompassing vision for a 21st century education system. We don’t have all the answers, however. As the contributions to this book make clear, there are many more wonderful ideas percolating that will strengthen the vision of 21st century learning and help transform every aspect of the system.

We aren’t rigid about the language used to describe 21st century skills, either. We say adaptability, for instance, while others prefer resiliency. We say critical thinking; others say systems thinking. No matter— we’re all talking about the same concepts. On the other hand, the term 21st century skills is not a vague and squishy catchword that can mean anything. Every element of our model has been defined, developed, and vetted by leading experts, scholars, educators, business people, parents, and community members.

We invite individuals and organizations to use our framework to spark a lively national dialogue about all of the elements required for enriching 21st century minds. It is particularly important to engage educators and representatives of the business community in this dialogue (Wagner, 2008). It’s critical for states, districts, and schools to have these conversations and agree on the student outcomes they value—and then to create systems that can deliver.

October 2010 Leaders of Learners

Learning and Innovation Skills Life and Career Skills

Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes

Information, Media, and Technology Skills

Standards and Assessments Curriculum and Instruction Professional Development Learning Environments Core Subjects • English, Reading, or Language Arts • World Languages • Arts • Mathematics • Economics • Science • Geography • History • Government and Civics 21st Century Themes • Global Awareness • Financial, Economic, Business, and Entrepreneurial Literacy • Civic Literacy • Health Literacy • Environmental Literacy

Information, Media, and Technology Skills • Information Literacy • Media Literacy • Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Literacy Life and Career Skills • Flexibility and Adaptability • Initiative and Self-Direction • Social and Cross-Cultural Skills • Productivity and Accountability • Leadership and Responsibility 21st Century Education Support Systems • 21st Century Standards and Assessments • 21st Century Curriculum and Instruction • 21st Century Professional Development • 21st Century Learning Environments

Learning and Innovation Skills • Creativity and Innovation • Critical Thinking and Problem Solving • Communication and Collaboration Source: Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2009a. Reprinted with permission.

Figure F.1: The Partnership for 21st Century Skills Framework for 21st Century Learning.

Why Do We Need a New Model for Education in the 21st Century?

The forces instigating the inevitable changes on the horizon in education have been building for some time: • The world is changing—The global economy, with its emerging industries and occupations, offers tremendous opportunities for everyone who has the skills to take advantage of it. There has been a dramatic acceleration in global competition and collaboration over the past thirty years, spurred by information and communications technology. The service economy, 5

21st Century Skills...continued from page 5

which is driven by information, knowledge, and innovation, has supplanted the industrial economy and reshaped businesses and workplaces. More than three-quarters of all jobs in the United States are now in the service sector. Manual labor and routine tasks have given way to interactive, nonroutine tasks—even in many traditionally blue-collar occupations.

Technology has replaced workers who perform routine work, while it complements workers with higher-level skills and empowers them to be more productive and creative (Autor, Levy, & Murnane, 2003). Advanced economies, innovative industries and firms, and highgrowth jobs increasingly reward people who can adapt and contribute to organizations, products, and processes with the communications, problem solving, and critical-thinking skills that enable them to customize their work and respond to organizational expectations (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2008).

In this era of rapid change, the social contract prevalent for a good part of the last century doesn’t exist anymore. Doing well in school no longer guarantees a lifelong job or career as it did for previous generations of Americans.

“Internationally, American students score lower than the average on the Programme for International Student Assessment” Today, people can expect to have many jobs in multiple fields during their careers. The average person born in the later years of the baby boom held 10.8 jobs between the ages of eighteen and forty-two, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, 2009).

The new social contract is different: only people who have the knowledge and skills to negotiate constant change and reinvent themselves for new situations October 2010 Leaders of Learners

will succeed. Competency in 21st century skills gives people the ability to keep learning and adjusting to change. Twentyfirst- century skills are the ticket to moving up the economic ladder. Without 21st century skills, people are relegated to low-wage, low-skill jobs.

Proficiency in 21st century skills is the new civil right for our times.

• U.S. schools and students have not adapted to the changing world—Our current public education system is not preparing all students for the economic, workforce, and citizenship opportunities—and demands—of the 21st century. Many students do not receive the family and societal support they need to stay in school.

On top of that, many students are not engaged or motivated in school learning that seems out of step with their lives and irrelevant to their futures. The high school dropout rate has reached crisis proportions, with only 70 percent of students—and only 50 percent of minorities—graduating from high school on time and with a regular diploma (Swanson, 2009).

Alarmingly, we now face two achievement gaps— one national and one international. Nationally, Black, Hispanic, and disadvantaged students perform worse than their peers on national assessments (see, for example, Grigg, Donahue, & Dion, 2007; Lee, Grigg, & Donahue, 2007; National Center for Education Statistics, 2009), dragging down the collective capacity of the future workforce. This is especially troubling as the demographics of the United States are shifting, with minority populations growing at a much faster pace than the rest of the population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008).

Internationally, American students score lower than the average on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the benchmark assessment in reading, mathematics, and science for the developed countries of the world (see, for example, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2009).

PISA results are telling because these assessments measure the applied skills—what we call 21st century skills—of critical thinking and problem solving.

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21st Century Skills...continued from page 6

Even the best U.S. students cannot match their peers in other advanced economies on PISA. Even if all students earned a high school diploma and mastered traditional academic subjects, they still would be ill prepared for the expectations of the new economy.

Today, a different set of skills—21st century skills— increasingly powers the wealth of nations. Skills that support innovation, including creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving, are in great demand (Casner-Lotto & Barrington, 2006; Conference Board, 2007; Lichtenberg, Woock, & Wright, 2008), yet employers report substantial deficiencies in these and other applied skills among even college-educated entrants into the workforce.

Educational attainment is no longer a guarantee of either academic or skills proficiency (van Ark, Barrington, Fosler, Hulten, & Woock, 2009).

• The United States has no clear sense of purpose or direction for securing our future economic competitiveness—The United States remains the most competitive nation on the planet, but “creeping complacency” could erode this dominance (International Institute for Management Development, 2009; Scott, 2009). Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) experts in industry and higher education have been warning for years that the United States is losing ground when it comes to preparing an adequate supply of workers for these critical fields. Competitor nations in Asia and Europe have gotten the message that skills matter, and they are catching up. Concerted international efforts—and marked success—at improving education and 21st century skills mean that the United States is no longer unrivaled in producing highly qualified, nimble, and ambitious workers for the new economy. In addition, the substantial economic growth fueled by information technology since the late 1980s and early 1990s is likely to max out without investment in intangible workforce assets, including ideas, knowledge, and talent (van Ark et al., 2009).

October 2010 Leaders of Learners

What Should a 21st Century Education Look Like?

Meeting the challenges we face requires a new model for education— one in which every aspect of our education system is aligned to prepare Americans to compete.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has spent the better part of a decade developing a robust Framework for 21st Century Learning (shown on page xv in figure F.1) that responds to the changing demands young people face today. Sustained and enthusiastic support from leading education organizations, the business community, and policymakers—and reality checks with parents, frontline K–12 and postsecondary educators, and community organizations—have shaped this framework into a comprehensive, intentional, and purposeful vision for 21st century education (Trilling & Fadel, 2009).

The graphic is powerful because it communicates at a glance the integration of core academic subjects, 21st century themes, and 21st century skills, with the educational support systems clearly aligned to these student outcomes. The Framework for 21st Century Learning offers a compelling, responsive, and viable direction for public education— starting now—for a number of reasons.

The Framework Focuses on Results That Matter

A 21st century education must be tied to outcomes, in terms of proficiency in core subject knowledge and 21st century skills that are expected and highly valued in school, work, and community settings. It is a national travesty that a majority of U.S. students leave high school without the core competencies that employers and postsecondary educators cite as the most critical for real-world performance and advanced learning. Critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, and the other 21st century skills are the tools people need to move up the economic ladder. With 21st century skills, students will be prepared to think, learn, work, solve problems, communicate, collaborate, and 7

21st Century Skills...continued from page 7

contribute effectively throughout their lives. Some say these kinds of skills are not unique to the 21st century.

This is true. We call them out for three reasons.

First, these skills are rarely incorporated deliberately throughout the curriculum, nor are they routinely assessed. This status quo relegates these skills into the “nice to have” rather than the “must have” domain in education, which means they are taught unevenly.

It is more likely that young people pick up these skills by chance in everyday living and job experiences and, yes, sometimes in school—if they are lucky enough to have good mentors or are astute enough to recognize and build these skills on their own. We simply can no longer afford to continue this haphazard approach to developing the most critical skills if we are to remain a competitive nation.

Second, these skills are essential for all students today, not just an elite few. In bygone economies, Americans lived in a hierarchical world with an assembly-line mentality. Top managers and experts took on the lion’s share of the thinking, problem solving, decision making, and communicating for their organizations.

They gave orders, and most workers were expected simply to follow directions.

This is not so today. Competitive organizations have flattened management structures, increased their use of technology, created more flexible work arrangements, and given greater responsibility to frontline workers and collaborative project teams.

Such significant organizational and behavioral shifts have boosted productivity and innovation (Black & Lynch, 2004; Gera & Gu, 2004; Pilat, 2004; Zoghi, Mohr, & Meyer,2007). With these realities, students who do not master 21st century skills will never fulfill their economic potentials.

In this flattened structure, every worker has more information and tools at his or her disposal—and much greater autonomy in using them. In exchange, workers are expected to be self-directed and responsible for managing their own work. As a manager at Apple told October 2010 Leaders of Learners

me, any employee who needs to be managed is no longer employable.

The same shift of responsibility to individuals applies to personal life. There are fewer authority figures to take care of people or tell them what to do.

Today, people have to manage their own health care, arming themselves with information, making choices about coverage, acting as their own advocates, and partnering with health-care providers to manage their health. Likewise, participating in civic life requires people to seek out information to understand issues on their own. The decline of print journalism, for example, means that the latest local news may not be delivered to the doorstep every day.

“As a manager at Apple told me, any employee who needs to be managed is no longer employable.”

Third, the skills that employers and postsecondary educators say are required for success have converged.

Even entry-level employees now are expected to use 21st century skills to accomplish their work (CasnerLotto & Barrington, 2006; Conference Board, 2007; Lichtenberg, Woock, & Wright, 2008). Most jobs that pay a living wage today require at least some postsecondary education—and this is particularly the case for the 271 jobs with high-growth potential over the next ten years, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, 2008).

Most students aspire to college because they understand this. Indeed, there has been a significant increase in the proportion of the labor force with at least some level of higher education (Carnevale & Desrochers, 2002). Twenty-first-century skills are equally important for successful transitions to college and workforce training programs. Among the 8

21st Century Skills...continued from page 8

components of college readiness presented by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are “academic behaviors” and “contextual skills and awareness” (Conley, 2005, 2007), which reflect the kinds of skills captured in the Framework for 21st Century Learning. All students should be prepared with the skills they need to do well, whatever route they decide to take in the future.

The Framework for 21st Century Learning incorporates several new 21st century themes might not seem familiar. Again, employers educators—along with parents, policymakers, community advocates—identified these themes skills as crucial.

also that and and and

Typically, though, they are not emphasized in public education. These themes are grounded in everyday life as people across the United States are living it now.

They want schools to integrate these new themes, which blend content and skills, to better prepare young people to thrive in a complex world.

For example, global awareness is a new essential in the global economy. Americans need a secure understanding of global issues that affect them as citizens and workers. They need to be able to learn from and work collaboratively with people from a range of diverse cultures and lifestyles. They need to be able to communicate in languages other than English.

Likewise, financial, economic, business, and entrepreneurial literacy are new imperatives.

Guaranteed pensions are a rarity today, so the responsibility for retirement planning, saving, and investment management falls on individuals. Recent crises in the banking, credit, and mortgage industries— and the severe recession—underscore the importance of understanding how economic forces impact people’s lives. Failure to make responsible financial choices could adversely affect individuals’ quality of life for years. At work, people need to know how they fit in and contribute to a larger organization, and they need to bring an entrepreneurial mindset to their lives. By recognizing opportunities, risks, and rewards, they October 2010 Leaders of Learners

can enhance their workplace productivity and career options and take changing circumstances in stride.

Finally, the Framework for 21st Century Learning articulates several skills that definitely break new ground, at least in education: creativity and innovation, flexibility and adaptability, leadership and crosscultural skills—for all students. These are the kinds of skills that set people apart. Small leaps of imagination can result in tremendous personal and organizational advances. A willingness to respond positively to change leaves people open to new possibilities and more comfortable with the inevitable vagaries of life.

Taking on leadership roles gives people more control over their lives, while cross-cultural skills strengthen their effectiveness in interacting with others they encounter in school, work, and the community.

These new skills also differentiate leading from lagging organizations and nations. They undergird every aspect of competitiveness: ingenuity, agility, and continuous improvement; the capacity to turn bold ideas into innovative products, services, and solutions; and the ability to champion worthwhile endeavors, overcome obstacles, and bridge cultural divides.

Taken together, the combination of core academic subjects, 21st century themes, and 21st century skills redefines rigor for our times. Many Americans have been advocating a more rigorous education to prepare students for college and career readiness—a position that we share.

However, rigor traditionally is equated with mastery of content (core subjects) alone, and that’s simply not good enough anymore. Knowledge and information change constantly. Students need both content knowledge and skills to apply and transform their knowledge for useful and creative purposes and to keep learning as content andcircumstances change.

I’ve heard John Bransford, a noted professor of education and psychology at the University of Washington and the coauthor of How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice (2000) and How 9

21st Century Skills...continued from page 9

Students Learn: Science in the Classroom (2004), put it this way: In the United States, we tell students the same thing a hundred times.

On the 101st time, we ask them if they remember what we told them the first hundred times. However, in the 21st century, the true test of rigor is for students to be able to look at material they’ve never seen before and know what to do with it.

Infusing 21st century skills into core subjects actually ratchets up rigor. Recalling facts or terms from a textbook, or performing simple processes or procedures, places a low level of cognitive demand on students. Demonstrating deeper understanding through planning, using evidence, and abstract reasoning, for example, is more demanding.

Making connections among related ideas within the content or among content areas, or devising an approach to solving a complex problem, requires extended thinking and even higher cognitive demand (Webb, 1997).

The connection between skills and rigor shows up on international assessments such as PISA. Students who can apply critical thinking and problem solving to math and science content perform better than those who cannot. In a 21st century education system, rigor must refer to mastery of content and skills.

As I see it, then, there are plenty of convincing indicators that proficiency in 21st century skills is the right result for our time. Enriching minds for the 21st century requires organizing the public education system around this goal.

The Framework Recognizes That Educational Support Systems—Especially Professional Learning Experiences—Are Vital The vision for 21st century learning is situated in reality: producing the results that matter in terms of student outcomes in 21st century skills requires every aspect of the education system to be aligned toward this goal.

October 2010 Leaders of Learners

While this might seem to be a monumental aspiration, the evidence suggests that states are prepared— even very willing—to take on this work. By October of 2009, fourteen states (Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) had committed to retooling their standards and assessments, curriculum and instruction, professional development, and learning environments to support 21st century skills outcomes.

The states and districts that are making real progress are those that take a holistic and systemic approach, articulating the skills they value and aligning every other part of their systems to move in this direction.

Many of these states face daunting challenges.

Major industries are restructuring and eliminating jobs. The recent economic downturn has exacerbated this problem, and seriously affected state budgets and schools. Nevertheless, these states have carefully examined the framework and endorsed it as their model for building a 21st century education system. They realize that they must reinvent their education systems to renew their workforces and their economies. West Virginia, for example, is revising and refocusing its standards, assessments, instruction, professional development, teacher preparation, preK, and technology programs around the Partnership’s Framework for 21st Century Learning.

Professional development is far and away the most important part of the work. Steve Paine, superintendent of schools in West Virginia, tells me that 80 percent of his efforts are devoted to improving teacher effectiveness in delivering 21st century instruction. He has it right.

Articulating the skills that matter is only the first step.

States and districts cannot assume that teachers can break out of the 20th-century box without sustained professional development. The West Virginia Department of Education has put a full-court press on this mission, initially training every teacher in the state during in-depth summer sessions on 21st century skills and in follow-up web-based coaching during the school year. The state also has a dynamic, interactive 10

21st Century Skills...continued from page 10

website, Teach 21, with a wealth of resources to assist teachers in their everyday classroom practices.

At the Partnership, we’ve developed detailed content maps and online resources that add layers of specificity to 21st century learning for teachers. These resources promote the kinds of hands-on, inquirybased learning and development of higher-level thinking skills that the most effective teachers employ (Darling-Hammond et al., 2008).

Indeed, many classroom teachers and educators who work closely with students in schools are leading the way in delivering this kind of instruction. All of the teaching resources are available at a dedicated website: Route 21 (www.21stcenturyskills.org/route21/).

The entire supporting infrastructure of education must be modernized to establish the conditions for 21st century teaching, learning, and outcomes. And, as we have learned from previous standards-setting initiatives, ignoring the infrastructure puts an undue burden on students. It is unfair and unproductive to expect students to meet new and higher expectations if the supporting infrastructure does not exist. To help states, districts, and schools move forward, we have developed and updated our MILE guide with implementation guidance and self-assessment tools (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2009b).

All of the critical elements of an education system contribute to 21st century skills outcomes, and they cannot be left to chance.

The Framework Resonates With Policymakers, Educators, the Business Community, Community Organizations, and Parents

Plenty of organizations have developed models for improving education. Not many have had the courage to vet their models with thousands of people from every walk of life. Our model of core subjects, 21st century themes, and 21st century skills has been put to this test.

October 2010 Leaders of Learners

We developed the framework in concert with our nearly forty membership organizations, including the National Education Association and its 3.2 million members.

We took the framework on road tours, reaching out to policymakers, educators, business people, community organizations, and parents. We listened to their comments and strengthened the themes and skill sets. We surveyed business people and parents, who strongly agree that 21st century skills are vital for success today (Casner-Lotto & Barrington, 2006; Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2007). They also believe by overwhelming margins that schools should teach 21st century skills.

Their beliefs are based in reality—the expectations of workplaces, the demands of citizenship, and the challenges of life that they face every day. We’ve been informed by the surveys and reports of other organizations, which confirm our findings.

This is not a small point. A major difference between 21st century skills advocacy and other improvement initiatives, such as the 1980s push to revamp education, is that the leaders of this movement include policymakers, educators, and the business community. We are speaking with a united voice.

Together, we have taken the time to gauge the interest and attitudes of key stakeholders in public education.

And we have strived to build broad-based support for our model from the top down and the bottom up. In many states, governors, leaders in state education agencies and state boards of education, local school boards, business people, community organizations, educators, parents, and the voting public are engaged and energized by our model.

There is much more work to do to build public understanding nationwide—in every district, community, and family. Yet the support we already have, plus the accomplishments of our fourteen leadership states, gives us the opportunity to engage in a vigorous national conversation about new student outcomes for the 21st century—and to bring more supporters on board.

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State, district, and school leaders and their communities will want to examine the changes their economies have experienced over the past twenty years. They’ll want to think through the new skills students will need for the next twenty years and beyond. And once they articulate these new skills in their own words, they will be ready to align their education systems to make their vision a reality.

The Future of Learning

This book is another telltale sign that we’ve reached a tipping point in education. That so many notable minds are thinking hard about the future of learning is a signal that we just might be on the cusp of bold action.

At stake at this moment are the nation’s competitiveness and all that goes along with it: a strong democracy, international leadership, lasting prosperity, and better prospects for generations to come. It is as true today as ever in our history that the American people are the engine of economic growth. In this time, for this era, however, they need to be equipped with knowledge and skills to compete in the 21st century.

In meeting rooms and classrooms across the country, I have met thousands of people who are ready to take on this challenge. The broad public support for the Framework for 21st Century Learning suggests the strong potential for building political will for a 21st century education system. It is exciting that the framework has generated this kind of interest, but it is far too early to proclaim victory.

We need to move from consensus about the vision of 21st century learning to a thorough understanding of and commitment to the outcomes of 21st century learning. There is a danger, in fact, that a “21st century education” or “21st century skills” could mean anything.

Many people equate technology-rich classrooms or modern schools or rigorous core subjects with 21st century learning, regardless of whether students are mastering 21st century skills. In reality, the ability to use digital devices in no way means that students know anything about global awareness or health literacy, learning and innovation skills, life and career skills, or even media literacy skills. Similarly, many educators claim that they already teach 21st century skills, even though these skills are not systemically infused into standards and assessments, curriculum and instruction, or professional development and learning environments.

The most important next step is to agree on outcomes in terms of proficiency in 21st century skills. And it’s not enough to want these outcomes—it’s essential to plan the entire education system intentionally and transparently around them. A great place to start is to use the lens of 21st century outcomes to aggressively pursue the ideas in this book.

References For article references, please click here.

About the Author Ken Kay is president of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the nation’s leading advocacy organization focused on infusing 21st century skills into education. The Partnership brings together the business community, education leaders and policymakers to ensure every child’s success as citizens and workers in the 21st century. He also serves as the CEO and co-founder of e-Luminate Group, an education consulting firm specializing in marketing communications and 21st century skills services.

Mr. Kay will be a keynote and special session presenter at the 2010 Texas ASCD Annual Conference in Houston, Texas on October 24th.

October 2010 Leaders of Learners

12

The Need for Leadership in a Digital Age

by Hall Davidson

In military history, the truism holds that nations perpetually prepare for the last war, not the next one. There is a similar tendency in

education to teach the last generation, not the current one. We must break that tendency. There are forces, new and emerging, that threaten to push many schools and school systems off the board like game pieces.

Those in leadership roles must vigorously fight for teaching and learning in a new way, or education as we knew it as students will be gone. The old battles of budget and collective bargaining, textbook and hardware costs should not distract us from the mission.

them in your pocket like transistors. The tinny sound won, and only afterwards improved. That should be a scary thought for an education system that likes to stay rooted in a building.

This dynamic is already at work in education. Distance learning used to be something we put up with when we had to: courses for world languages or Calculus that a district could not staff. No one thought they were better than a teacher in a room. Then in June of 2009, the US Department of Education released the findings of the “Evaluation of EvidenceBased Practices in Online Learning” a meta-study of more than a thousand empirical reports.

For the first time, online environments outperformed traditional ones. This under-heralded study was a shot across the educational bow. In follow-ups, experts noted that online education seriously changed with the introduction of collaborative and communication tools, and online media libraries. One expert stated education was at “an inflection point”, that moment in time where the springboard is pulled down and ready to launch the diver off in a new direction.

“... experts noted that online education seriously changed with the introduction of collaborative and communication tools, and online media libraries.”

The problem is not that better things come along.

It’s that worse things come along. As Christensen and Horn neatly laid out in summer of 2008 in “How Do We Transform Our Schools?” (ednext_20083_12.pdf), products that are inferior by old standards succeed by attracting a market of previous non-consumers. The inferior products improve and eventually push out the established ones. The classic example is the transistor radio, which pushed my grandmother’s tube-based console radio into extinction. Tubes were superior in nearly every way for sound reproduction. But you couldn’t take them to the beach or on a bicycle or put October 2010 Leaders of Learners

The threat to school systems is not theoretical. In the 2009-2010 school year, an online learning company approached Hawthorne School District in California with an offer to take over a school that missed many 13

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of its AYPs. In exchange for the state education monies, the school would administer a different kind of teaching and learning using an existing computerbased curriculum. It didn’t require the old staffing or infrastructure. The board accepted the offer.

For schools without such economic or academic troubles, remember the disruptive lesson: the new model comes in not from the top, but from the bottom.

Thereafter it becomes the new norm.

But, very happily, there is still time to absorb these lessons. The online media libraries, collaborative tools, and social networking tools that boosted distance learning can be tapped in tradition classrooms—with the incalculably valuable addition of the classroom teacher. The USDE-commissioned metastudy showed blended environments of face-to-face instruction combined with online learning performed best of all. We humans are hardwired for social groups. By maximizing engagement for the social, tool-using, problem solving animals students naturally are, the blended environments of classroom teachers, schools, and oversight will work and work exceptionally well.

Prescription: Begin with the assets schools already have. Well more than half the schools in the country have digital media libraries, the dominant one being Discovery Education’s Discovery Education streaming.

Make sure teachers are using it—and using it effectively. This is not your grandfather’s VHS media library. It is an asset toolbox for creating content, branching lessons, and individualized, modality-based instruction—but only when used that way. The 21st Century administrator can—and should—monitor digital asset usage from a laptop. Then, with social networking tools, administrators can—and should— promote effective asset use by sharing top ten media lists, highlighting created content, etc. Bite the bullet and get the staff development necessary. Before buying more hardware, boost the warmware—the people. Finally, create a minimum technology profile for the student teachers you host, or change institutions of higher education. We must get higher education engaged.

Students are ready: for media, for content creation, for anytime, anywhere learning. Make sure our local schools are the ones that bring it to them.

About the Author Hall Davidson began teaching in 1971. He taught middle and high school English, mathematics, Spanish, and bilingual mathematics. He has been on the faculty of two colleges teaching technology for teacher credential candidates. He left the classroom to teach math on television in Los Angeles on an Emmy-winning program and spent 20 years at Los Angeles area PBS stations teaching, leading staff development, championing content creation by students and teachers, and ultimately producing television series on education, technology, parenting, and live theater. He frequently contributes articles to national education publications and co-authored TechWorks, an internationally distributed classroom technology kit and with a team founded Kitzu.org, a resource of free online kits to encourage project-based learning with media. He was elected to the board of Computer-Using Educators where he served for six years.

Mr. Davidson will be a keynote and special session presenter at the 2010 Texas ASCD Annual Conference in Houston on October 25th.

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10 Critical Things You Should Know About Brain Based Education

by Eric Jensen

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he brain is involved in everything we do and it takes many approaches to understand it better. Brainbased education has withstood the test of time and an accumulating body of empirical and experiential evidence confirms the validity of the new paradigm.

Many educationally significant, even profound, brainbased discoveries have occurred in recent years such as neurogenesis, the production of brain new neurons in the human brain. It is highly likely that these discoveries would have been ignored if the education profession hadn’t been primed, alerted and actively monitoring cognitive neuroscience research and contemplating its implications and applications.

Schools can and should influence these variables.

This discovery came straight from neuroscientists Gerd Kempermann and Fred Gage. Practical school application: Support more, not less physical activity, recess and classroom movement.

TWO 2. Social conditions influence our brain in ways we never knew before. The discovery of mirror neurons by Iaccomo Rizzolati (and colleagues) at the University of Parma in Italy suggests a vehicle for an imitative reciprocity in our brain. School behaviors are highly social experiences, which become encoded through our sense of reward, acceptance, pain, pleasure, coherence, affinity and stress. This emerging discipline is explored in Social Neuroscience - a new academic journal exploring how social conditions affect the brain. This understanding suggests we be more proactive in managing the social environment of students, since they are more affected by it than we earlier thought. It may unlock clues to those with autism, since their mirror neurons are less active.

Practical school application: Do NOT allow random social groupings. Use mentoring, teams and buddy systems. Work to strengthen prosocial conditions.

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Why Brain-Based is a “No-Brainer”

Let’s start this discussion with a simple, but essential premise: the brain is intimately involved in and connected with, everything educators and students do at school. Any disconnect is a recipe for frustration and potentially, disaster. Brainbased education is best understood in three words: engagement, strategies and principles. Here you will learn the principles of how the synergy of biology, cognitive science and education can support better education with direct application to schools. Here are some of the powerful connections for educators to make in our new understanding of the new brain-based paradigm.

ONE 1. Highly relevant is the recent discovery that the human brain can and does grow new neurons. Many survive and become functional. Now we now know that new neurons are highly correlated with memory, mood and learning. Of interest to educators is that this process can be regulated by our everyday behaviors, which include exercise, lower stress, and nutrition.

October 2010 Leaders of Learners

THREE

3. The ability of the brain to rewire and remap itself via neuroplasticity is profound. The new Journal of Neuroplasticity explores these and related issues. We now know the brain can rewire itself to repair damage to the vestibular, from strokes, loss of hearing, loss of eyesight, from learning delays and more. Schools can influence this process through skill building, reading, meditation, arts, career and technical education and thinking skills that build student success. The evidence is compelling that when the correct skill-building protocol, verified by the work 15

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of neuroscientists Michael Merzenich and Paula Tallal is used, we educators can make positive and significant changes in our brain in a short time. Without understanding the “rules for how our brain changes” educators can waste time, money and students will fall through the cracks. You can upgrade a student’s capacity for memory, processing, sequencing, attention and impulsivity regulation. Why not teach these skills to give students the tools to succeed? Practical school application: give teachers a mandate of 30-90 minutes a day and 3-5x per week to upgrade student skill sets.

Less than that and you delay progress.

FOUR 4. Chronic stress is a very real issue at schools for both staff and students. Homeostasis is no longer a guaranteed “set point.” The discovery championed by neuroscientist Bruce McEwen is of a revised metabolic state called “allostasis”…an adjusted new baseline for stress in the brain evident in brains of those with anxiety and stress disorders. These pathogenic allostatic stress loads are becoming increasingly common and have serious health, learning and behavior risks.

This issue affects attendance, memory, social skills and cognition. Acute and chronic stress is explored in the Journal Stress, the International Journal of Stress Management, the Journal of Anxiety, Stress and The Journal of Traumatic Stress. Practical school application: Increase student perception of choice, build coping skills, quit ignoring this issue, strengthen arts and physical activity and mentoring.

FIVE 5. Old school was “environment versus genes” in deciding the outcome of a student. We now know that there’s a third option for change: gene expression. This is the capacity of our genes to respond to chronic or acute environmental input. This new understanding highlights a new vehicle for change in our students.

Neuroscientist Bruce Lipton and Ernest Rossi have written for the laypersons how our everyday behaviors October 2010 Leaders of Learners

can influence gene expression (Lipton, 2005 and Rossi, 2002). New journals called Gene Expression, Gene Expression Patterns and Nature Genetics explore the mechanisms for epigenetic (outside of genes) changes. Evidence suggests that gene expression can be regulated by what we do at schools and that these can enhance or harm long-term change prospects.

Practical school application: Raise expectations for every student. But give them the skill sets, relationships and hope to succeed.

SIX 6. Good nutrition is about far more than avoiding obesity. The journal of Nutritional Neuroscience and the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition explore the effects of what we eat on our brain. The effects on cognition, memory, attention, stress and even intelligence are now emerging. Schools that pay attention to nutrition and cognition (not just obesity) will likely support better student achievement. Practical school application: Serve healthier foods, but focus on boosting cognition as much as reducing obesity.

SEVEN 7. The role of the arts in schools continues to be under great scrutiny. Five neuroscience departments and universities (University of Oregon, Harvard, Univ. of Michigan, Dartmouth, and Stanford currently have completed projects studying the impact of arts on the brain. Arts and Neuroscience is a new journal that tracks the connections being made by researchers.

This is a serious topic for neuroscience and it should be for educators also. Issues being explored are whether arts have transfer value and the possibility of developmentally sensitive periods for arts. Practical school application: made arts mandatory and give students the support and time to excel at it.

EIGHT 8. The current high stakes testing environment means some educators are eliminating recess, play or physical education from the daily agendas. The 16

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value of exercise to the brain was highlighted in a recent cover story in Newsweek. More importantly, there are continual studies in The Journal of Exercise or Pediatric Exercise Science or Journal of Exercise Physiology Online. The discovery is that exercise is strongly correlated with increased brain mass, better cognition, mood regulation and new cell production.

When the studies are well designed, there is support for physical activity in schools (Pellegrini and Bohn 2005) and (Sibley and Etnier, 2002). P.E. actually raises test scores in the district, not lowers them. Read John Ratey’s new book SPARK. Physical activity triggers the release of glycogen, which gets glucose into the bloodstream and the brain. Practical school application: Make it mandatory for at least 30 minutes a day for 5 days a week.

NINE 9. Stunning strides in rehabilitation of brain-based disorders including fetal alcohol, autism, retardation, strokes and spinal cord injury. The discovery that aggressive behavioral therapies, new drugs and revolutionary stem cell implantation can be used to influence, regulate and repair brain-based disorders.

Now we have the Journal of Rehabilitation and The International Journal of Rehabilitation Research. These journals showcase innovations suggesting special education students may be able to improve far more than we earlier thought. Practical school application: make sure all special ed teachers learn the latest in dealing with learning delay recovery.

TEN 10. The discovery that environments alter our brains is profound. The physical environment we are in can rise or lower critical brain chemicals such as cortisol, acetylcholine and serotonin. This can influence behavior. This research goes back decades to the early work of the first trailblazing biological psychologists Mark Rosenzweig at UC Berkeley and Bill Greenough at the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana.

In fact, a new collaboration has emerged between neuroscientists and those who design environments October 2010 Leaders of Learners

(architects). Their website reads… “The mission of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture is to promote and advance knowledge that links neuroscience research to a growing understanding of human responses to the built environment.” This is highly relevant for administrators and policymakers who are responsible for school building designs. Practical school application: Upgrade the school environment with enrichment such as music, arts, movement and social spaces.

Brain-Based Education Defined This is a new paradigm which establishes connections between brain function and educational practice. In a groundbreaking book, Human Brain, Human Learning, Leslie Hart argued, among other things, that cognitive processes were significantly impaired by classroom threat (Hart, 1983). While not an earthshaking conclusion, the gauntlet was thrown down as if to say, “If we ignore how our student brain works, we will risk student success.” Many have tied brain function to either new models of thinking Gardner, (1983) or classroom pedagogy Caine and Caine (1991), Sousa (2005) and Jensen (2005). A field has emerged known as “brainbased” education and it has now been well over twenty years since this “connect the dots” approach has begun. In a nutshell, brain based education says, “Everything we do uses our brain; let’s learn more about it and apply that knowledge.” What in fact, are the new disciplines and relevant issues that educators should be concerned about and made aware of? I will suggest that the issues that educators should care should be multidisciplinary. Evidence will show that “brain-based” is not a loner’s fantasy or narrow-field paradigm; it’s a significant educational paradigm of the 21st century. Brain-based education is the “engagement of strategies based on principles derived from an understanding of the brain.” Notice it does not say, “Based on strategies given to us from neuroscientists.”

That’s not appropriate. Notice it does not say, “Based on strategies exclusively from neuroscience and no other discipline.” The question is, “Are the approaches and strategies based on solid research from brain17

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related disciplines or are they based on myths, a wellmeaning mentor teacher or from “junk science?” We would expect an educator to be able to support the use of a particular classroom strategy with a scientific reasoning or studies.

Each educator ought to be professional enough to say, “Here’s why I do what I do.” I would ask: Is the person actually engaged in using what they know, or simply having knowledge about it, but not actually using it?

Are they using strategies based on the science of how our brain works? Brain-based education is about the professionalism of knowing why one strategy is used over another. The science is based on what we know about how our brain works. It’s the professionalism to be research-based in one’s practices. Keep in mind that if you don’t know why you do what you do, it’s less purposeful and less professional. It’s probably your collected, refined wisdom.

Nothing wrong with that, but some of the “collected, refined wisdom” has led to some bad teaching, too.

While I have, for years, advocated “brain-based” education, I never have promoted it as the “exclusive” or only discipline for schools to consider. That’s narrow-minded. But, on the other hand, the brain in involved in everything we do at school. To ignore it, is irresponsible. Now, an appropriate question is, “Where exactly is this research coming from?”

Brain-Based Teaching Is Well Research Based Today’s knowledge base comes from a rapidly emerging set of brain-related disciplines. It wasn’t just highly regarded journals such as Nature, Science and the Journal of Neuroscience. Every people-related discipline involves the brain. As an example, psychiatry is now guided by the journal Biological Psychiatry and nutrition is better understood by educators in Nutritional Neuroscience. Sociology is guided by the journal of Social Neuroscience. Some critics assert that sociology, physical fitness, psychiatry, nutrition, psychology, cognitive science are not “brainbased.”

That’s absurd because if you removed the brain’s role October 2010 Leaders of Learners

from any of those disciplines, there is no discipline.

There is no separation of brain, mind, body, feelings, social contacts or their respective environments. That assertion is all old school “turf-based” and outdated. If the research involves the brain in any way, it is “brainbased.” The brain is involved in everything we do.

The current model of brain-based education is highly interdisciplinary. Antonio Damasio is the Van Allen Distinguished Professor and head of the department of neurology at the University of Iowa Medical Center and is an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. He’s the recipient of numerous awards and has been inducted into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Damasio says, “…the relation between brain systems and complex cognition and behavior, can only be explained satisfactorily by a comprehensive blend of theories and facts related to all the levels of organization (italics added) of the nervous system, from molecules, and cells and circuits, to large-scale systems and physical and social environments…we must beware of explanations that rely on data from one single level, whatever the level may be” (Damasio, 2001, pg.2). Any single discipline, even cognitive neuroscience, should be buttressed by other disciplines. While earlier writings did not reflect it, today we know that brain-based learning is cannot be founded on neuroscience; we have learned that it requires a multidisciplinary approach.

How the “Doubt Industry” Has Clouded Judgment Yet you may have heard of critics of the brain-based movement. Here is how they work: They locate and bundle questionable or esoteric research and bundle it into a quasi-argument. It’s an argument dressed up in the clothes of science, but it’s the furthest thing from it.

It’s actually a cleverly articulated public relations effort to confuse the public so that any reasonable response is delayed indefinitely.

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Examples of doubt industries include the tobacco industry that managed to convince consumers that there were two sides to the “smoking as unhealthy” claim. The cigarette industry never challenged that their products were bad for you; they simply questioned the scientific findings to create uncertainty. The global warming critics did the same. There are over 900 published papers on global climate change. Not one disagreed with the finding that our climate is changing fast. Yet, over and over Congress acts to delay or weaken the automaker’s MPG standards, which were set much higher even 20 years ago. In the area of brain-based education, multiple critics such as John Bruer and others have managed to confuse the public by arguing over esoteric scientific studies in an effort to stall progress.

How You Can Put Brain-Based Education in Action

Bruer and other critics claim: 1) “We have no unequivocal findings” Yet science is always being upgraded and very little is unequivocal in any intellectual domain.

2) “There are no direct classroom applications” Yet every example given is dismissed as belonging to another domain (e.g. medicine, sociology, psychology, as if those have no relationship to the brain either) 3) “There is no proof that it works” In science, you cannot “prove” but you can disprove other studies. Yet there are many, many success examples.

Critics of using neuroscience for educational decisionmaking assert that the gap is too great from basic science to the classroom. I agree with that assertion; education must be multidisciplinary. I never have and never will propose that schools be run solely based on neuroscience. But to ignore the research is equally irresponsible. But how can you learn it when you have little background and very little time?

This “doubt industry” spokesperson is playing off of scientists’ fears. Most scientists are allergic to making strong claims of certainty. In fact, no matter how strong the evidence, someone can nearly always come up with an alternative explanation. That fear even haunts educators (especially administrators) into following the NCLB pathway, no matter how pedantic it seems.

Bruer and others have bullied others into thinking that the brain is irrelevant or that educators are just too dumb to understand anything that would be useful.

They’re wrong and here’s why.

October 2010 Leaders of Learners

An essential understanding about brain-based education is that most neuroscientists don’t teach and most teachers don’t do research. It’s unrealistic to expect neuroscientists to reveal which classroom strategies will work best. That’s not appropriate for neuroscientists and most don’t do that. Many critics could cite this as a weakness, but it’s not. Neuroscience and many related disciplines (e.g. genetics, chemistry, endocrinology) are what we refer to as basic science.

The work is done in labs and the science is more likely to provide general guidelines or suggest future directions for research. Of the all the neuroscience studies published each month, only a small fraction of them have potential educational relevance.

Can our student’s brains actually change?

Since our brain is involved in everything we do, then the next question is, “Is our brain fixed, or is it malleable? Is our brain shaped by experience?” An overwhelming body of evidence says, “Yes!” Research shows our brain is altered by everyday experiences, such as how we teach reading (Temple, et al. 2003), learning vocabulary (Lee, et al., 2007) by studying for tests (Draganski, et al, 2006) or by learning to play a musical instrument (Gaser and Schlaug, 2003).

Studies confirm the success of software programs using the rules of brain plasticity to retrain the visual and auditory systems to improve attention, hearing and reading (Simos, et al., 2002). In short, altering our experiences will alter our brain. This is a simple, but profound syllogism: our brain is involved in all we 19

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do, our brain changes from experience therefore our experiences at school will change our brain in some way. The brain is involved with everything we do at school and educators who understand this take this into consideration in the decision-making process.

Validation of Brain-Based Education Today, as a result of years of exposure by brainbased educators, educators are a far more informed profession. They are more professional, they look more for research, and they are increasingly more capable of understanding and incorporating new cognitive neuroscience discoveries than they were ten years ago.

his research team interested in autism solutions. It’s likely critics will say that the product comes from a long history of human face recognition, ergo, it’s not really a breakthrough. Other neuroscientists have recently penned “translational” books showing a “science to the classroom” connection. They include the luminary Michael Posner (2006) on attention and Sally Shaywitz on Dyslexia (2004) and Helen Nevills with Pat Wolfe on reading (2005).

More schools of education are incorporating knowledge from the brain sciences than we would have if we followed the critic’s advice and crawled into an intellectual cave for the next 25 years. Many forward-thinkers have stayed tuned to sources like Dr. Bob Sylwester’s monthly column in Brain Connection, Scientific Learning’s Internet journal (http://www. brainconnection.com/) that’s regularly read by many thousands of educators and parents. Sylwester, a former biology professor, and highly published authority, has been “connecting the dots” for educators for a decade.

Two major conference organizations, (the Learning Brain EXPO is one) have produced “science to the classroom” events for ten years. These four times a year events have engaged over 100 highly reputable, often award-winning, neuroscientists to speak in translational terms to educators. The list of conference neuroscientists has been a veritable “who’s who” in cutting edge interdisciplinary neuroscientists from Harvard, Yale, UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, UCSF, University of Texas at San Antonio, University of Chicago, UCSD, Rutgers, Georgetown and the Salk Institute. This has only come about as a result of the collaboration of educators and scientists linking the research directly to those in the schools. Whether the presenter was a biological psychologist, neuroscientist or cognitive scientist is irrelevant; they’ve all been science to the classroom speakers.

One of the better-publicized examples of “science to the classroom” is the phonological processing software program Fast ForWord based on the work of many neuroscientists including Paula Tallal and Michael Merzenich (Temple et al., 2003). Both Merzenich and Tallal are solid, if not eminent researchers who have done groundbreaking work on neuroplasticity. Again, the critics assert that a long history of psychological research on reading and an even longer one in clinical neurology on dyslexia trumps the fact that the resulting product was produced by neuroscientists for educators. They don’t get it; it’s all about being interdisciplinary. Another breakthrough is the new face recognition software for learning social skills called “Let’s Face it.” It developed by Jim Tanaka and

How reputable is brain-based education? Harvard University now has both a master’s and doctoral degrees in it known as the Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) program. Every year, it produces about 40 graduates with masters and two to four doctors of education, who go on to interdisciplinary positions in research and practice. “Our mission is to build a movement in which cognitive science and neuroscience are integrated with education so that we train people to make that integration both in research and in practice,” says Professor Kurt Fischer, director of the program.

This intersection of biology and cognitive science with pedagogy has become a new focus in education.

Interest in the program is enthusiastic in Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea, England, South Africa,

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New Zealand, Argentina, and other countries. There’s also a peer-reviewed scientific journal on brain-based education. The journal, which is published quarterly by the reputable Blackwell Publishers and the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society (IMBES), features research reports, conceptual papers, reviews, debates, and dialogue.

Brain-based teaching is the active engagement of practical strategies based on principles derived from brain-related sciences. All teachers use strategies; the difference here is that you’re using strategies based on real science, not rumor or mythology. But the strategies ought to be generated by verifiable, established principles. An example of a principle would be…”Brains change based on experience.”

The science tells us HOW they change in response to experience. For example, we know that behaviorally relevant repetition is a smart strategy for skill learning.

We know that intensity and duration matter over time.

Did anyone know the optimal protocol for skill building to maximize brain change twenty years ago? Yes, some knew them, through trial and error. But at issue is not whether any educator has learned a revolutionary new strategy or not from the brain research. Teachers are highly resourceful and creative; literally thousands of strategies have been tried in the classrooms around the world.

Conclusion Today, ten years after the mudslinging criticism of brain-based education, it’s appropriate to say, “We were right.” In fact, because of the efforts of the brainbased community to inform educators, thousands are currently using this knowledge appropriately to enhance educational policy and practice. There are degree programs in it, scientific journals, conferences and the peer-reviewed brainrelated research now supports the discipline. There are countless neuroscientists who support the movement and they demonstrate their support by writing and speaking at educational conferences.

October 2010 Leaders of Learners

As an author in the brain-based movement, I have reminded educators that they should never say, “Brain research proves....” because it does not prove anything. It may however suggest or strengthen the value of a particular pathway.” These studies suggest that XYZ may be true about the brain. What educators should say is the following... Given that insight, it may makes sense for us, under these conditions, to use the following strategies in schools.” This approach, which is cautionary and not causal, sticks with the truth. When one is careful, the connections are there for those with an open mind.

The science may come from a wide range of disciplines. Brain-based education is not a panacea or magic bullet to solve all of education’s problems.

Anyone who represents that to others is misleading them. It is not yet a program, a model or package for schools to follow. The discussion of how to improve student learning must widen from axons and dendrites to the big picture. That bigger picture is that our brain is involved with everything we do at school, The brain is the most relevant feature to explore, because it affects every strategy, action, behavior and policy at your school. New journals explore essential topics such as social conditions, exercise, neurogenesis, arts, stress and nutrition. A school cannot remove arts, career education and physical education and at the same time, claim to be doing what’s best for the brain of their students. These are the issues we must be exploring, not whether someone can prove whether a teacher’s strategy was used before or after a neuroscience study provided peer-reviewed support for that strategy.

Today, there is still criticism, but voices are no longer a chorus, they’re a diminishing whine. For the critic, it’s still “my way or the highway.” That’s an old, tired theme among critics; the tactic of dismissing another’s research by narrowing the discussion to irrelevant issues such as whether the research is cognitive science, neurobiology or psychology. They’re all about the mind and brain. The real issues that we should be talking about are what environmental, instructional 21

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and social conditions can help us enrich the student’s lives that we have been entrusted with developing. To answer that, it’s obvious that everything that our brain does is relevant and that’s what should now be on the table for discussion. Yes, we are in the infancy of brain research--there’s so much more to learn that we don’t know.

But dismissing it is not only shortsighted but also dead wrong. At this early stage, that would be like calling

the Wright Brothers first flight at Kitty Hawk a failure because it only went a few hundred yards. And let’s remember, the Wright brothers had no credibility either; they were actually bicycle mechanics, not aviators. The future belongs not to the turf protectors, but to those with vision who can grasp interdisciplinary trends, as well as the big picture. Nothing is more relevant to educators than your brain or the brains of your students, parents, or staff. Brainbased education is here to stay.

References. For article references, please click here.

About the Author Eric Jensen is a leading proponent of brain-based education. He’s the author of over 20 books on the brain in learning including, most recently, Enriching the Brain and Teaching with the Brain in Mind (2nd ed.). He has taught as adjunct faculty at three California universities, co-founded the first brain-based residential enrichment program for youth (www.supercamp.com), founded the first neuroscience to education conference (www. brainexpo.com) and has made over 45 visits to neuroscience laboratories. He is a former classroom teacher who is currently completing his Ph.D. in Psychology.

Mr. Jensen will be a special session speaker at the 2010 Texas ASCD Annual Conference in Houston, Texas on October 25th and the keynote on October 26th.

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October 2010 Leaders of Learners

TBC7.2010_TXASCDLeaders_Fall_6.75x4.75_2c. 1

22 7/15/10 4:18 PM

Education and the Role of the Educator in the Future

Excerpt from Living on the Future Edge

by Ian Jukes, Ted McCaine, and Lee Crockett

I

n a world experiencing exponential change, clearly there will be new demands on schools to prepare students for the dynamically new environment they will face upon graduation. The key to successfully changing the system is to have a clear goal in mind. We must look at education the same way that the quarterback looks at the football field. We must perceive where things are headed so we can respond appropriately. We must accept that we have a paradigm for how we expect life to unfold; that in times of radical change, we all suffer from some degree of paradigm paralysis; and that change requires us to let go of ideas and ways of doing things that we hold dear. Keep this in mind as we outline the future goals for education. We envision a shift from textbooks, brick-and-mortar classrooms, lectures, worksheets, and standardized tests—in fact, everything we grew up expecting of school—to learning whenever and wherever it can best happen.

Learning Is Customized for the Learner and Based on Discovery Young children learn intuitively. Learning in school, however, is quite a different matter. In a typical classroom of 30 students there is a wide range of abilities, interests, maturity, and learning styles. A teacher has to teach to the middle in terms of student ability. This has a real cost in terms of meeting the needs of all the students. Given the current model and assumptions on which education operates, customization is an unrealistic goal.

October 2010 Leaders of Learners

Any teacher will tell you that engagement is the key ingredient to real learning. By not addressing the individual abilities and interests of each student, we have created an educational system that works against the ultimate goal of fostering a love for learning in every student. Technology will empower individual students to master course material at their own pace. With individualized instruction the delivery of course content can be adjusted to the individual abilities of student. When this occurs, there will be a major shift in the focus of schooling away from achievement based on age and grade level to the mastery of content and skills.

Because of the increasingly disposable nature of information, the importance of memorizing specific content will decrease. Instead, students must learn to apply processes for writing, researching, and problem solving in order to accomplish tasks. To succeed in the modern world, students must be able to: • determine the relative importance of various pieces of information that may be contradictory or incomplete, then make personal evaluations of that information to develop informed opinions • articulate informed opinions through writing, presentations, debates, and various multimedia communications • use imagination to produce creative expressions of ideas and feelings through story, poetry, music, visual art, and performing art • combine technical skill and creativity to cook a meal, build a desk, perform an experiment, and so on.

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Education and the Role of the Educator...continued from page 23

Learning Is Both Virtual and Physical Let’s consider that young people already participate in discovery learning every day. It happens as they search the Internet for information on topics that interest them. They are getting online guitar lessons, searching Google for advice on how to fix a mountain bike, and learning how to alter images in Photoshop through YouTube. They are discovering all kinds of things about the world around them. Technology has already made virtual relationships part of our lives.

As virtual worlds become more realistic, they will blur the lines between real life and virtual reality. Virtual communication with people from around the world will approach the ease of real-world communications.

This will have profound implications for education. Teachers and students will no longer have to be in the same place for learning to occur. Furthermore, the quality of the virtual interaction between teacher and student will be sufficiently natural so that the communication will not suffer simply because they are not face-to-face. The advantages of this kind of interaction will make its use compelling in the near future.

ease working with virtual partners and functioning in workgroups separated by time and distance.

Technology will also empower students to accomplish learning when and where it is convenient or practical for a particular student. The staggering growth in the capabilities of technology and wireless communication to handle all types of information, have huge implications for where learning will take place.

Education will take place in parks, on buses, on boats, in museums, on football fields, at the ocean shore, and so on. Learning will take place almost anywhere the student has a teachable moment, which makes learning more relevant.

“The staggering growth in the capabilities of technology and wireless communication to handle all types of information, have huge implications for where learning will take place.”

Likewise, students must acquire collaboration skills if they are to succeed in 21st-century life and the modern workplace. Students will have to become at October 2010 Leaders of Learners

Students will still be able to meet, discuss, play basketball, and interact with others in smaller, community-based schools that are close to their homes; but the need for a large school building with all its resources will be greatly diminished due to access to virtual learning resources.

In the future, thanks to the exponential growth in technological power, learning will shift from secondhand experiences through lectures and books to firsthand discovery experiences. New online tools and SMART tutors will allow experts in various fields 24

Education and the Role of the Educator....continued from page 24

to virtually enter the school environment to meet with students and assist teachers with course content.

Web sites will run intelligent software that presents learning material in a variety of formats, responds to student questions, and tailors instruction to the individual learning style of a particular student.

Simulations will empower students to discover how the world around them works through amazingly realistic virtual experiences of the microscopic, outer space, and everything in between. Students will have access to information sources that will allow them to experience current events firsthand.

The focus of teachers will shift to creating learning tasks that challenge students to develop higher-level thinking skills through discovery.

Teacher Training and Retraining We must recognize that the current educational system has been set up to prepare students perfectly for a world that no longer exists. Massive, ongoing retraining for educators is essential if schools are to

be made relevant to the modern needs of all students.

The kinds of changes we are suggesting will never happen within the current model of professional development for teachers. Retraining will require regular classes for teachers if we want to see the kinds of changes necessary to bring schools in line with the new reality, then we have no option but to radically reprioritize and restructure professional development for teachers.

A shift of this magnitude will force teachers to examine their role in student learning. Without a doubt, how educators do their daily tasks will change. We must identify the broader roles that will endure as the world continues to change dramatically. The essence of what educators must do in the future is the very same as it has always been: to help students learn the relevant skills, knowledge, attitudes, attributes, and behaviors that they will need to be good and productive citizens, parents, and workers.

For more information, visit www.21stcenturyfluency.com

About the Authors Ian Jukes is the founder and director of the InfoSavvy Group, an international consulting firm.

He has been a teacher at all grade levels; a school, district, and provincial administrator; a university instructor; and a national and international consultant. To date he has written or co-written 12 books and 9 educational series and has had more than 200 articles published in various journals around the world.

Ted McCain is an educator who has taught high school students for 25 years. He has been an innovator and pioneer in technology education, designing courses in computer science, data processing, desktop publishing, computer networking, web site design, digital animation, digital film effects, and sound engineering. In 1997, he received the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence and has written or co-written seven books on the future, effective teaching, educational technology, and graphic design.

Lee Crockett is a national award-winning designer, marketing consultant, entrepreneur, artist, author, and international keynote speaker. He is the director of media for the InfoSavvy Group and the managing partner of the 21st Century Fluency Project. He has co-authored three books with writers and educators Ian Jukes and Ted McCain. Lee will be a keynote speaker at the Texas ASCD 2010 Annual Conference in Houston, TX on October 25th.

October 2010 Leaders of Learners

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CALENDAR OF Events October 2010 October 23rd Pre-conference Session with Alan November Texas ASCD Annual Conference Westin Galleria - Houston

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October 26th - 27th Curriculum Leadership Academy III Westin Galleria - Houston November 2010 November 3th - 4th Using Graphic Organizers and Assessment Tools to Make Mathematics Content More Accessible to Struggling Students Beatrice Moore Luchin Session Two of Three Frisco ISD January 2011 January 31st, 2011 Preparing for the High School Math TAKS using Reading Strategies CaLandra Pervis San Antonio ISD

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Designing Boundless Futures for 21st Century Learners Mark your calendar for the 2010 Annual Conference!

This year’s conference will focus on best practices through: Curriculum and Technology Integration Curriculum Design Addressing Challenges and Change Multiple Measures of Assessment Instructional Coaching and Leadership Building Community College and Career Readiness

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