Chapter 8 Retooling Schooling

The focus of this chapter is creating a 21st century school system. First in our global movement toward a 21st century education system we need to work in a Partnership for 21st Century Skills. These include vision, coordination, official policy, leadership, learning technology, and teacher learning (p. 121). Vision needs to be a common and well-articulated vision that is shared among government officials, educators, parents, students, and the business community (p.122). Coordinated changes need to happen in the educational support systems like curriculum and instruction, standards, assessments, learning environments, and professional development (p. 122). All of them need to work together toward a common goal for the 21st century student. An official policy that will be governed by an education authority. Leadership in a 21st century education will require a technology based communication that works efficiently. Learning technology is very important with Internet access in every classroom that allows implementation of handheld devices, laptops, and other learning technologies (p. 124). Teacher learning or professional development will be one of the most important aspects of the 21st century retooling of schools.

Basically the retooling or schools or the structuring of five important support systems that need to work together efficiently in schools consist of: 1. Standards 2. Assessments 3. Curriculum and instruction 4. Professional Development and 5. Learning environments (p. 119). In the 21st century standards will emphasize "what students should be able to do with this content". Assessments that are suggested for the 21st century include: Extended student essays, Observation rubrics on a teacher's handheld device, Online instant polls, quizzes, voting, and blog commentaries, Progress tracking on solving online simulation challenges and design problems, Portfolio evaluations on project work, Expert evaluations on ongoing internship and service work in the community (p. 134). I was drawn to this quote by Lauren and Daniel Resnick, "The problem is not that teachers teach to the test, but that teachers need tests worth teaching to" (p. 130). Hopefully in the 21st century we can move away from "teaching to the test".

It is suggested in the book that in the 21st century for curriculum and instruction that as teachers we move away from direct instruction to more inquiry based learning. It is suggested that 50% of instruction time in inquiry, design, and collaborative project learning and 50% for direct and traditional instruction (p. 135).

Teachers professional development in the 21st century will consist of training teachers to use technology and incorporate inquiry and collaborative projects in instruction in the classroom every day. Learning environments will support technology space and environments. It will also provide space for project work, group presentations, and labs for experiments (p. 140).

The final aspect of the chapter was the holistic (rainbow) model that puts the learner in the center of a larger community of learning support. This rainbow models depicts the student in the center with the next ring being peers, teachers, experts, and parents, followed by the whole learning environment that includes technologies, classroom, home, and community resource. The outer 2 rings consist of learning communities and learning societies. This would include the students national and international services that support the student's learning (p. 148). After reading this chapter I realize that we are definitely moving toward a more global learning community.