Changes in Education: the 21st Century Classroom

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How Changes in Education Influence the 21st Century Classroom in an Ideal World I’ve been considering changes in education and what the ideal 21st century classroom would look like, and I’ve come up with ten possible things that would revolutionize education. Some of them are simple changes; others are costly and time consuming (and therefore unlikely). But I’m interested to see if other teachers and authors of education articles agree. What is 21st Century Learning? I read a lot of education articles. One thing I see quite often comes from homeschoolers and other opponents of the public education system, and it is basically the argument that schools don’t adequately prepare kids for the modern world, focusing on test scores and deliberately abandoning students who seem destined to failure. I can’t deny that there’s some truth in those claims. Governments and schools often put undue focus on test scores. The common argument of “don’t teach to tests: just teach the curriculum and the tests will take care of themselves” doesn’t work, either. For example, in our province we have a standardized test in creative writing (yeah, wrap your head around that one) where students are expected to write a story in the space of one hour. Since an effective writing curriculum certainly doesn’t teach kids to write an entire story in the space of an hour (as a writer myself, I can say with some assurance that very few people will EVER use that skill), it means that I do have to take time out of the curriculum to ready my students for the test. However, like most responsible teachers, I try very hard not to make the year about “teaching to the test.” I work hard to create a 21st century classroom where education, creativity, and exploration carry the day. So what is 21st century learning? Sir Ken Robinson describes it well: Now more than ever, it is vital to
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