21st Century Curriculum: A Case For Action
Schools are buying new hardware in record numbers. Now it’s time to upgrade the operating system.
We’re on the verge of a big transformation in education. Today, nearly every school in America is upgrading (or wanting to upgrade) to blended learning environments where Chromebooks, iPads, and Bring Your Own Device programs promise to connect them to a new world of possibility on the internet. In 2013, President Obama announced a $2 billion investment to increase high speed internet access from 40% up to 99% of schools by 2018. But how will we upgrade the operating system of school?
The almost certain future
As access to the internet and hardware increase, our dominant tendency so far has been to transfer elements of traditional school — lectures, worksheets, and standardized tests — onto these new mediums. As a result, a great deal of new education technology is highly focused on rote memorization and assessment of content, gamifying behavior management, and a form of “personalized learning” where students sit in front of laptops all day solving multiple choice problems in isolation. These types of technology can make the old model of school more efficient, but do not adequately address the growing irrelevance of school’s outdated operating system.
“If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.”
— John Dewey
The dominant paradigm we have for school today was introduced during the Industrial Revolution, before electricity and personal computing, to train kids from farms to be good factory workers. Everything from the lectures and worksheets to the rows of desks were designed to prepare students 19th Century factories. Is it any wonder that today 63% of high school students report being bored with school and 40% of new teachers leave the profession within their first 5 years?
If we do nothing to upgrade our curriculum along with our devices, we risk failing to prepare today’s students for the immense challenges and opportunities of the 21st Century. School may cultivate students who are adept at answering multiple choice questions, but lack the creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication skills that leading educators believe are essential to thriving through one of the most massive periods of technological and societal shifts in human history.
What’s possible?
A small but growing number of creative schools are experimenting with curriculum that empowers students to become innovative makers and doers in the classroom. Schools that teach with Project Based Learning and other creative methods are engaging students by connecting academic content with solving real world problems.
“When we say transformational learning experiences powered by technology, we are talking about authentic, project-based learning, where students have agency, ownership and commitment to a relevant and meaningful goal that allows them to use digital tools to take on roles of creators, problem solvers, and learner-teachers working with and alongside peers, instructors, and other mentors to accomplish something bigger than themselves.”
- Joseph South, Director of the Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education
From STEM and Makerspace projects to taking on social and economic challenges, students doing Project Based Learning in the classroom are discovering their passions and mastering 21st Century skills that are hard to address through a conventional lecture and test. Some project-based schools even report 20% higher standardized test scores than conventional classrooms. However, only an estimated 1% of US schools are committed to teaching with it today. Why are schools not upgrading their operating systems along with their hardware?
One of the biggest reasons is that the status quo of K-12 education, rooted in the 19th Century, is hard to change. Teachers tend to teach the way they were taught, and it may take decades to upgrade education if we rely on conventional professional development and teacher training alone. How can we accelerate the leap to 21st Century school?
At CrowdSchool, we believe that crowdsourcing curriculum is the key to upgrading school for the 21st Century. We’re building a platform where any teacher in the world can intuitively create project-based lessons for their own classrooms and then share them with teachers around the world. Students not only use technology to access lessons; we empower students to use 21st Century technology to become makers and doers— designing everything from 3D printed objects to apps, presentations, and podcasts.
Our thesis is that if one teacher shares a lesson that took 2 hours to create, teachers around the world can copy and remix that lesson for their own classrooms in 20 minutes. Imagine what could be possible if teachers remix student-facing lessons that challenge students to learn through designing 3D print prosthetic hands, programming drones, and creating policy solutions to solve climate change. Plug and play curriculum can amplify and accelerate best teaching practices and help schools rapidly become 21st Century classrooms.
Join us in building 21st Century curriculum:
- Sign up for our free newsletter. You’ll be the first to learn about the launch of our lesson sharing community as well as curriculum building meetups.
- If you’re a teacher, school, or district, you can also sign up for an account to start building 21st Century curriculum today.
