z LESSONS FROM RESEARCH
By Michael T. Martin, ASBA Research Analyst
The Three P’s of Tomorrow’s Schools
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s the 21st century unfolds, the dominance of electronic technology is becoming ever more evident. Computers increasingly perform the repetitious and procedural tasks once performed by individuals. The Internet enables instantaneous communication and collaboration among individuals located around the globe so that typical technical functions, engineering and production can be easily outsourced to developing nations. This leaves the critical thinking skills of innovation, creativity and marketing as crucially important in the modern world. As a consequence, what adults will need in the future to thrive in this environment is likely to be as distinctly different as the environment itself. To prepare students for this future requires a transformation of the education system to meet the demands of “21st century learning.â€? Exactly how that transformation will occur, and what it will evolve towards, necessarily requires knowledgeable governing board members implementing and empowering the changes as they evolve. One of the difďŹ culties in explaining this new kind of learning is that people tend to think it is just a different version of what is already happening, just like computers were ďŹ rst used largely as overly sophisticated typewriters. There is also a tendency to regard it as some “techieâ€? educational fad. But 21st century learning is not some radical education program dreamed up in an ivory tower. Twenty-ďŹ rst century learning is an imperative imposed on education by the rapid technological transformation of society now underway. First and foremost, it is a recognition that this rapid transformation will continue and even accelerate in the foreseeable
future. We must, thus, teach the skills that students will need to adapt to this foreseeable world where careers may change two or three times in their lives. The emphasis of 21st century learning on creativity and innovation is because in the future anything that is repetitive, routine or easily categorized will be done by computers. Twenty-ďŹ rst century learning stresses logical thinking and critical analysis toward subject matter to prepare students for problem solving, and it envisions multidisciplinary learning rather than the static subject areas that were developed in 1892 to modernize the education system that existed 120 years ago. The “three R’sâ€? are obsolete. Students still must be able to read, but that reading may be pernicious without critical reasoning skills that enable them to parse the truth from what is written. Writing is inadequate for multi-lingual, multimedia communication. Students still need math, but the skill now is to set up the question, and let computers provide the answer: Quantitative thinking means understanding answers more than deriving them. Much was illuminated about 21st century learning at the National School Boards Association 2008 Technology and Learning (T+L) conference. +EYNOTE SPEAKER 0AUL 3AFFO EXPLAINED that “the information revolution is over.â€? We are now in a media revolution and schools must shift from teaching information to teaching how to parse information and to employ media for wielding information. With Google and Wikipedia, information is everywhere, but the key is the ability to ďŹ nd, validate and package information to communicate persuasively. In essence, the 3 R’s are being REPLACED BY THE 0 S THE ABILITY TO 0ARSE
0ACKAGE AND 0ERSUADE 4HE SKILLS OF ST century learning are informative inquiry, critical thinking, self responsibility, the ability to collaborate with others in a team, and the ability to communicate persuasively with multimedia, regardless of the subject matter. A presenter at the T+L conference, Marianne Hauser of the Fayetteville (Ark.) School District, described how the concept of 21st century learning was introduced to her district. A teacher inservice program was used to model these new techniques, but the teachers weren’t told what the aim of the session was. During this “retreat,â€? the teachers were assigned to teams in a “geo-cachingâ€? exercise that involved ďŹ nding “cachesâ€? at latitude and longitude locations that contained clues based on nursery rhymes that they had to acquire and resolve. There was no teaching. There was no TRAINING ON HOW TO USE '03 OR MAP READING The participants had to use teamwork, initiative, communication, critical thinking, and problem solving to complete the exercise. Afterward, they were told that “thisâ€? is 21st century learning.The teacher developed the project but the students did the learning on their own. Twenty-ďŹ rst century learning is fundamentally based on the students being involved in directing their own learning. To clarify, students don’t just goof off or study what they want; they have goals and expectations somewhat like a corporate employee. It is just that they are given greater freedom in getting their job done, but the point of that freedom is self responsibility that is monitored and motivated by teachers as supervisors. Jaime Escalante, the teacher made famous by the movie “Stand and Deliver,â€? averred, “It’s very important for us to Winter 2010 I ASBA Journal 17