What Knowledge & Skills Do 21st Century Teachers Need?

We often hear about 21st century learners and the knowledge and skills our students will need in the future. What about teachers? What are essential 21st century instructional skills that teachers will need to prepare our students? How are they different than the skills teachers have needed in the past?

As ASCD's Annual Conference approaches, the big question on my mind is: how do we make sure teachers are prepared to meet the needs of 21st century learners?

Post submitted by Margaret Clauson, administrator for human resources at Wilmette Public Schools in Illinois and an 2011 ASCD Annual Conference Scholar.

In Case You Missed It

Hot fodder to geek out your Oscar party:

• The March issue of Educational Leadership is online; find out "What Students Need to Learn."
• Discover what school leaders can learn from the democratic protests in the Middle East and why dissenting opinions and ideas can strengthen your leadership team. 
• Curriculum defines all other roles in the school, and student achievement depends on it. Learn about five business books that can guide your ongoing curriculum development.
• Are you on ASCD EDge yet? Our social networking site just hit 19,000 members.
• Heidi Hayes Jacobs says we are "Preparing Our Kids for 1982: Time Traveling Through Testing."  
• Good leaders are good listeners.
• A teacher in China pilots a 1:1 iPad program for high schoolers.
• Taught curriculum trumps the written curriculum every time. 
• Get eight ideas to support higher expectations for all.
• Robyn Jackson asks, "Are you making these four differentiated instruction mistakes?"

Check this spot for our regular weekly digest of ASCD activities!

What's the Point of High School?

If a diploma is nothing more than a standardized passport to the 20th century, then it's time to abolish the high school diploma as we know it, says Grant Wiggins in "A Diploma Worth Having."

Diploma requirements focus on content coverage, not meaningful learning; crowd out personalized and engaged learning; and make high school boring, Wiggins opines. Standards committees, including the common core, merely "replicate the past that they feel comfortable with rather than face the future" and are out of touch with what should be the fundamental lens for requirements: how well does high school curriculum prepare all students for their lives?

Is requiring two years of Algebra more important than classes on parenting, wellness, or ethics? Is learning textbook chemistry more useful than understanding economic systems?

Vocational courses can be as demanding as upper-level science and math courses, and greater student choice in high school curriculum can be a gateway to opportunity, Wiggins says. He proposes a forward-thinking, client-centered, flexible approach to high school requirements, with a new set of key courses that prepare any student, regardless of career or college path, for successful adulthood.

What would you drop, add, or change about high school curriculum?

Humanizing STEM: A Different Kind of Relevance

For the last two years I've been deeply involved in the national movement to align K-12 schooling more tightly with the competitive interests of U.S. industry by giving more prominence to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). It's exciting and important work. Yet I privately fret over the way STEM advocacy, and current reform efforts in general, inadvertently devalue the humanistic and civic dimensions of a basic education.

To their credit, the most thoughtful STEM advocates resist narrowing the curriculum by emphasizing how valuable arts education is to STEM career preparation. The arts are essential, they say, because they cultivate imagination, creativity, and design sense, which are indispensable to STEM career fields and an economy fueled by innovation. I think they're right.

This justification is incomplete, however, because it doesn't really do justice to the arts, or to the civic or humanistic purposes of schooling that the arts and humanities serve. I unpack these concerns and propose adaptive strategies for teachers who share them in "The Humanities: Why Such a Hard Sell?" in the March issue of Educational Leadership.

Meanwhile, because the workforce development/economic competitiveness imperative so dominates the STEM movement, it's easy to forget that the STEM disciplines can also be studied as part of a humanistic education. It's worth recalling, for example, that math is beautiful, true, and good in its own way; that the development of the physical and natural sciences over the centuries has been motivated in part by a universal human desire to make sense of the world; and that technological innovations throughout history have been fueled not only by economic necessities but also by a basic human restlessness and the quest for mastery over nature.

Just as the arts can serve STEM and industry, the study of STEM can serve the humanistic and civic aims of education. It can deepen and expand students' self-understanding by exposing them to key subplots in the human story--subplots that intertwine with those of politics, religion, literature, philosophy, and the arts. This is another way to make STEM--and the rest of the curriculum--"relevant" to students. It's a kind of relevance that, along with the humanities, seems to have been forgotten.

Do you agree that this sort of relevance is still relevant? Or am I simply being nostalgic for a time when educational aspirations beyond careers and competitiveness mattered?

Post submitted by David J. Ferrero, who supports STEM and other college- and career-ready initiatives at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (The views expressed in this post are those of the author and are not in any way intended to reflect those of the foundation.)

How Can We Promote Teacher Collaboration?

I'm interested in ways to encourage teachers to analyze their own instructional practices. What strategies does your school use to invite teachers to collaborate with one another through classroom observations and feedback outside of performance appraisal or review?

--Andre Potvin, Principal,Lester B. Pearson Catholic High School, Glouchester, Ontario, Canada

 

Videotape and Discuss Lessons

At Price Lab School, we spent more than two years participating in training through the Center for Authentic Intellectual Work (http://centerforaiw.com). Each teacher in our school videotaped himself or herself teaching a lesson, and teachers shared these videos in small focus groups. The group watched the lesson and provided the instructor with feedback. Although it’s not always easy seeing yourself teaching or getting feedback from colleagues, it gave us time to have constructive conversations about the quality of instruction, teacher assignments, and student work.  Ultimately, these discussions led to changes in instruction and student assessments (both formative and summative). I believe that feedback from other teachers, who know the complexities of teaching, is one of the best ways to improve instruction. 

--Amy Lockhart, Teacher, Malcolm Price Laboratory School, Cedar Falls, Iowa

 

Start with the Staff Room

A good place to begin spontaneous interaction and sharing is the staff room. Teachers can connect in a comfortable way, and conversations often lead to colleagues getting interested in what is being done in other classes. That's what takes place at our school, where such informal observations have become popular. Sometimes I step into a class and find three teachers observing because they are interested in the successful strategy they heard about in the staff room. The teacher who is being observed does not feel threatened at all because it is not part of any appraisal system; it's just one colleague sharing her know-how. Some of our teachers have become experts in different areas, and share their knowledge and expertise with colleagues. It's a give-and-take interaction that benefits not only teachers, but also students. 

--Patsy Pouiller, Deputy Head, Primary, St. Andrew's Scots School, Buenos Aires, Argentina

 

NYC Marathon Starts in Kindergarten

While reading instruction is mandated in public kindergartens, private schools have more flexibility to set their own curriculum. A recent New York Times article looks at differences in curricular pacing in early education at some of New York City's elite private schools. Some schools favor a social emphasis in kindergarten, saving formal academic instruction until 1st grade.

If you've seen Race to Nowhere, you know where this story goes—the pressure to compete begins earlier, and programs that seem less rigorous are abandoned by certain parents. Honestly, does it matter if some elite schools start reading later? Rich parents will always be empowered to choose what they think is best for their kids. And their kids already have a huge advantage over low-socioeconomic-status peers applying to selective colleges, and in life in general.

Might students in public school benefit from a variety of curricular options in kindergarten, as well?

Sometimes You Just Need a Hug . . .

Formerly a teacher, now an administrator-in-training, Chris Canter blogs about his yearlong assistant principal internship at Fulton County Public Schools in Atlanta, Ga.

**Warning for readers: I just felt the need for a pick me-up! This won't be earth-shattering, but perhaps it will encourage you.**

Last Wednesday was such a bad day! It actually began on Monday, when my car blew up on the way home from school. It had been in the shop for nearly four days (for the second time since January), and I had had it out for less than 24 hours. Then, boom! Radiator fluid was everywhere and the car sputtered all the way down I-75 toward my apartment.

Then came Wednesday. Not only was a major report on my agenda (which, by the way, was not pulling from our database correctly), but the day seemed to be one of those where the e-mails kept filling my inbox and the work piled up. Finally, about 1:30 p.m., as I was trying to finish the report, the auto shop called to say it would cost more than $1,000 to fix my car. Exasperated and stressed, I called my mother at work. Before I could finish whining with my "poor me" story, she simply stated, "You know what you need? A hug!" She suggested before the kids leave that I walk the hallways and see all the kids off with a smile at dismissal. "It will do you a world of good," she said.

I was skeptical, but gave it a try.

At my current elementary school placement, I've noticed hugs are very much part of the culture. We have awesome kids, many with whom I have already formed very positive, appropriate relationships in my short time here. As I was standing in the hallways, one of my kindergartners came up and gave me the biggest hug I think a student has ever given me. I squatted down and hugged her back and said, "Thank you so much, sweetheart! I needed that! Have a great weekend!" Tears almost instantly came to my eyes!

It's so easy in all of the business we conduct all day long to forget why we are in our profession. It's not for the reports or e-mails, and it's certainly not for the stress. It's knowing that we are making a difference for even just one child! My mom was right: the hug did me a world of good!

Race to the Top Spreading Beyond, but Not Within, Ed

Ezra Klein adds some great insight that directly relates to one of my previous posts about the shift from traditional education formula grant programs (think Title I) to more competitive funding models (think Race to the Top) in the Obama administration's FY12 budget request.

Klein reports that the administration's two big theories of action are

• Connecting funding to evidence, as modeled by the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) grant program's three-tiered approach: development, validation, scale up.
• Connecting funding to systemic reforms, as modeled by Race to the Top, a competitive grant program in which, to qualify for funds, states must submit a reform plan and pass it through their state legislatures.

Klein expounds on what makes Race to the Top such an attractive approach to funding:

 . . . it proved so highly "leveraged." Only 12 states actually got grants. But more than 40 states adopted a common set of K–12 standards. Dozens more lifted the caps on charter schools and agreed to more rigorous teacher evaluation programs. The money and the competition proved effective at breaking the political logjams that had frustrated reformers, giving them the momentum to pass their packages through state legislatures. And even if a state didn't end up getting the money, it still kept the reforms it had passed while trying to get the money.

Klein goes on to note that the Race to the Top approach to funding is moving beyond education: "There are Race to the Tops everywhere [in the FY12 budget]."

Yet while this approach started in education and may be spreading beyond—within education, it's still just limited to K–12 general education. For example, three White House budget cycles later and no Race to the Top equivalent for higher education? "Sclerotic bureaucracies," if ever there were ones. And I'm not sure competitive funding lends itself to such a legally bound program like IDEA.

In Case You Missed It

Here are some highlights from ASCD:

• Check out the archived brain-based learning webinars from Judy Willis.
• The latest issue of ASCD Express talks about challenging the status quo and how educators can lead change.
• Would you like to have drinks and discuss what's happening in education with Dr. Robert Marzano? A few lucky people will have that opputunity during Annual Conference. Click here for contest details.
• How can technology help students excel?
• Learn about the Dropbox web tool and how educators are using it.
• Steven Weber discusses ways to support struggling learners.

Add your own highlights in the comments, and check this spot for our regular weekly digest of ASCD activities.

Principalship Preparation at the Crossroads (1955)

How best to prepare new principals? It's a debate that rages today, with proposed legislation in the U.S. Congress and George W. Bush making reform of principal training and recruitment the first major initiative of his new institute located at Southern Methodist University in Texas. What did this discussion look like a few generations ago?

Henry J. Otto, writing in the October 1955 issue of Educational Leadership, laments the low standards that existed in many schools for principal recruitment and hiring. "The majority of superintendents rely on the 'old eagle eye' to discover those members of local staff who might make good principals." He describes the low to nonexistent certification requirements in many states and scant opportunities for principal professional development, and he calls on colleges and professional associations to collaborate for higher excellence and rigor in the profession.

Read the article: "Principalship Preparation at the Crossroads" (PDF)

Although certification requirements have certainly increased since Otto's article was published, the question of whether principals receive adequate preparation and professional development is still an open one.

In "My Back Pages," we look at important issues through the historical lens of the Educational Leadership archives. ASCD members can access EL issues from 1943 to the present by signing in at the right.

Leveraging Change Where it Matters Most: In the Classrooms

Policy matters. Just ask anyone who has endured the consequences of not achieving annual yearly progress (AYP) in one category of No Child Left Behind. Policy has a long reach. However, when it comes to effecting change in classroom practices, its leverage is relatively short.

Despite decades of effort to reform public education, today's pedagogical practices very much resemble yesterday's. Teachers still employ many of the same methods of instruction they grew up with, and regardless of the ballyhooing of this score or that score, this program or that program, student "achievement" has remained relatively stagnant.

James W. Stigler and James Hiebert, authors of The Teaching Gap, attribute this to two factors:

1. Teaching is a system. It is made up of numerous pieces that work together to create an atmosphere of learning (or not). Changing or altering any one piece of that system without regard to how it relates to the others will fall short of achieving its goal.
2. Teaching is a cultural activity. “Teaching, like other cultural activities, is learned through informal participation over long period of time. It is something one learns to do more by growing up in a culture than by studying it formally” (p. 86).

Which leaves me wondering: Will policy be enough of a lever for me to improve my instruction? Am I more likely to change because someone tells me to, or because I see a need for it? Will more laws and mandates have a greater effect on my students or will more collaboration and reflective application between me and my colleagues?

I'm reminded of a piece by researcher Virginia Richardson in which she concludes, "Teachers often resist change mandated or suggested by others, but they do engage in change that they initiate." If that is so (and it is certainly true for me), how do we as leaders and classroom practitioners cultivate conditions in our schools and districts that lead to teachers initiating change? Where can we find effective models already in place (like this program in rural Wyoming)?

At our school, Cornerstone Learning Community, we are just beginning to train and learn about Lesson Study, the Japanese approach to professional development that develops teachers as researchers who investigate questions central to their students’ success. Our hope is that Lesson Study will build our professional knowledge about the systems that work, while also shaping our cultural norms around shared best practices.

What are you doing in your schools and districts to leverage real change and cultivate professionals in the classroom?

Post submitted by Jason Flom, 5th grade lead teacher at Cornerstone Learning Community in Tallahassee, Fla., contributor to Ecology of Education blog, and ASCD Emerging Leader.

Rebel 6 Ramblings

School administrators increasingly use blogs and other similar online platforms to communicate with their many constituencies. One fine example is Rebel 6 Ramblings, the blog of Grand Rapids, Mich., school superintendent David Britten. Shortlisted for the 2010 Edublog Awards in the School Administrator category, it covers an impressive range of topics in a smart and breezy fashion.

As you might expect, Britten addresses news and developments in his district, such as updates on the health of students injured by a pickup truck's snowplow blade and reaction to a lawsuit against the district about a recent teacher contract. But the blog also shares insight and personal reflections on superintendent practice. A recent post describes "No Office Day," which Britten established as the one day a week he spends entirely in the schools—an acknowledgment that blogging and other electronic communication can't substitute for visits in person. Britten also shares reflections on school reform and educational technology and discusses his broad reading list—128 books and counting!

The ease with which the author speaks on such a wide range of topics without ever seeming disjointed makes Rebel 6 Ramblings an administrator blog that truly stands out.

An iPad for Every Student; Now What?

An iPad for every student? That's exactly what software developer and educator Fraser Speirs had in mind when he launched his iPad Project, a pioneering attempt to give every teacher and student in his Greenock, Scotland, school Apple's much-talked-about new tablet.

Starting in August 2010, Speirs—who is head of computing and information technology at his school—distributed iPads to teachers and students alike, and he has been tracking the results in his eponymously titled blog, Fraser Speirs. Speirs addresses everything from high-level implementation strategy to the nitty-gritty of rolling out new operating system updates.

Although there have been stumbling blocks, like defective iPads, thus far the project has been an overwhelming success, with both teachers and students working the iPads into their daily routines. Speirs even reports that some students were so wrapped up with the devices that their teacher couldn't get them to "stop doing maths and go for lunch."

For forward-thinking educators interested in watching an education technology experiment unfold in real time, this is a blog to visit.

Win the Funding to Win the Future

Two weeks ago, President Obama laid out a vision in his State of the Union address to "win the future" by out-educating other countries to produce high-paying domestic jobs. Later in that same speech, he said the Race to the Top (RttT) state grant competition "should be the approach we follow this year as we replace No Child Left Behind with a law that's more flexible and focused on what's best for our kids."

Now that his administration's FY12 budget request is available, we can see just how serious he is in replicating the RttT model for larger K-12 reform efforts. The short answer is very serious. Clearly educators, schools, and students will have to "win the funding" before they can "win the future."

The mainstays of federal K–12 funding—Title I and IDEA—would see only slight increases in FY12 over current levels according to the president's budget plan. There would be an additional $300 million in Title I to reward successful schools and a meager 1.7 percent increase ($200 million) for IDEA that would keep the federal share of special education costs at about 17 percent.

Instead of supporting these traditional formula-driven grant programs, the Obama budget represents a remarkable shift in emphasis toward competitive grant funding. By my cursory count, there are at least 10 new or consolidated programs that would allocate funds based on state or local grant competitions, totaling more than $3.65 billion:

• Race to the Top—$900 million (because RttT was a one-time activity under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, it is considered a new program in the FY12 budget.)
• Investing in Innovation—$300 million (see RttT note above.)
• Early Learning Challenge Fund—$350 million
• Teacher and Leader Innovation Fund—$500 million
• Teacher and Leader Pathways—$250 million
• Effective Teaching and Learning: Literacy—$383 million
• Effective Teaching and Learning: STEM—$206 million
• Effective Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education—$246 million
• Promise Neighborhoods—$150 million
• Successful, Safe, and Healthy Students—$365 million

Nowhere is the new competitive funding emphasis more evident than in the programs designed to help teachers. The FY12 budget cuts $400 million from Teacher Quality State Grants, what had been a nearly $3 billion program under No Child Left Behind, to more robustly fund two relatively new  teacher grant programs: the Teacher and Leader Innovation Fund (formerly known as the Teacher Incentive Fund) and "Teacher and Leader Pathways."

Unfortunately, amid all of this resource shifting and despite talk about the importance of highly effective teachers, the FY12 budget reduces overall funding for teacher programs, or what the administration calls "Excellent Instructional Teams," by $244 million.

Competitive funding has its place, and the department obviously sees this method of funding as providing extra leverage for reform in a time of fiscal constraints. But the administration needs to be careful that programs aren't being competed for competition's sake and doubly sure that the funding available is at least the same amount as previously provided under traditional means. Otherwise, educators will eventually find themselves at a point of diminishing returns as they compete against each other for ever smaller pieces of the school improvement pie.

What If Students Had to Opt Out of AP?

In Washington state's Federal Way Public Schools every student in grades 6-12 who passes the state test in a specific subject area is signed up for advanced placement, International Baccalaureate, Cambridge International, or honors classes in that subject. It's the district's effort to open up classes that have traditionally served only a handful of privileged students to all students, regardless of their economic background, gender, and race.

Assistant superintendent and former ASCD Emerging Leader Joshua Garcia describes the effort as an attempt to break institutional limitations on students and the ultimate form of parent engagement. Instead of the school determining whether a student can enroll in an advanced placement course, parents are empowered to make that choice along with their children.

There are logistical challenges to serving and supporting a larger number of students in accelerated courses, but so far the policy (part of the district's broader commitment to educating the whole child) seems to be working. The number of students enrolled in advanced academic classes nearly doubled in the district this year, skyrocketing from 1,214 students to 2,078, more than half of whom are students of color. More than 65 percent of the district’s juniors and seniors now take at least one advanced class, compared to last year’s 38 percent.

What do you think about Federal Way's automatic enrollment policy for students who qualify for accelerated courses? Read more about it on the Whole Child Blog.

How Do We Identify Good Teaching?

As ASCD's Annual Conference approaches, I'm excited to talk with colleagues about the many different ways we make a difference in the lives of children and, more specifically, how we identify good teaching.

When I first started teaching, the difference between "superior," "satisfactory," and "needs improvement" teachers usually boiled down to whether or not the principal liked you. Not very useful or objective.

Today, many districts are experimenting with new ways to evaluate teachers. Meanwhile, teachers constantly self-evaluate by engaging in their own action research; they reflect on their days and decide what strategies helped students learn and what strategies could have been more effective. How can and should evaluations by administrators or master teachers add to this?

Does evaluation look the same for all teachers at all grade levels? Should it include test scores? Do we evaluate and also support teachers through the evaluation process? How do we use teacher evaluation to not just improve one teacher but education across the nation?

Post submitted by Sabrina Silverstein, master teacher in District of Columbia Public Schools and an ASCD Annual Conference Scholar.

What's Fair and Accountable for Assessing ELLs?

English language learners (ELLs)take the same high-stakes standardized tests as their English-fluent peers. Assessing ELLs under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is contentious.

On the one hand, schools should be accountable for all students' learning. On the other, for ELLs these tests often tell more about students' language ability than their content knowledge. Even the most motivated nonnative speaker takes three years to learn English well enough to test in it. Districts with large numbers of ELLs are under enormous pressure to expedite fluency, or else face stiff penalties for missing AYP.

Are current NCLB guidelines for assessing ELLs unrealistic? How might they be improved while maintaining accountability for ELLs? 

Competitive Funding Continued in FY12 Ed. Budget

There will be more details about education funding in the administration's just-released FY12 budget request later this afternoon, but here is a quick top-line review of spending levels for education programs as compared to current figures.

Title I would get a $300 million increase, to $14.8 billion total. This additional money would be used to reward schools for increasing student achievement and closing the achievement gap. Funding for school turnaround grants would be increased by $54 million ($600 million total). Special education state grants would only see a $200 million increase, bringing total Part B funding to $12.57 billion. On the negative side, the Career and Technical Education program (including Tech Prep) would be cut by $264 million (down to $1.008 billion total).

The budget earmarks $150 million for the Promise Neighborhoods initiative and $372 million for charter schools and other school choice options for students. The administration is also seeking to continue the one-time funding for the Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation (i3) programs that were created in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The budget includes $900 million for Race to the Top and $300 million for i3.

Indeed, the common thread throughout the education budget is an emphasis on competitive funding. The budget eliminates 13 programs and consolidates 38 others into 11 more comprehensive grant competitions.

Check here later for more specifics about the FY12 education budget.

In Case You Missed It

Here are some highlights from this week at ASCD:

• Alan Matan writes about using state standards as a foundation for differentiation.
• Klaudia Janek responds to a recent Educational Leadership article and defends the role of school librarians.
• Read sample chapters from Ron Wolk's new book, Wasting Minds: Why Our Education System is Failing and What We Can Do About It.
• Hear from educators about how to connect and empower the whole child in this podcast.
• A recent attendee of the LILA conference discusses his experience in this op-ed.
• Check out this webinar on media literacy.

Add your own highlights in the comments, and check this spot for our regular weekly digest of ASCD activities.

Bridging the Research-to-Practice Gap

To bridge the gap between education research and classroom practice, Johns Hopkins education professor Ed Pajak says that both sides need to adapt.

In the classroom, including research perspectives in teacher preparation and professional development is a good way to bridge the research-to-practice gap. Action research that encourages teachers to use research techniques to improve their own practice and research initiatives that collaborate with teachers are also shrinking the gap.

But the research side needs to change too, Pajak says:

It's my belief research becomes less applicable the narrower its focus. Anyone who works in a school deals with a holistic reality, with a lot of complex concerns and interacting factors. Researchers tend to avoid those kinds of questions—they're hard to explain and study. But those are the kinds of issues educators are really working with. That's where I think researchers need to change and broaden their focus so that [education research] has more applicability to the real problems practitioners face.

What would make education research more useful to your practice?

We talked to Pajak about his work chairing the ASCD Annual Conference Research-Review Commission, the group that vets juried and peer-reviewed sessions at the conference. Listen to the full conversation here.