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Students were thrilled to learn and were engaged.

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Graphic organizer for walking out with plan

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Graphic organizer for walking out with plan

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Battelle for Kids Portrait of a Graduate Guide

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Battelle for Kids Portrait of a Graduate Guide

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The Role of Leaders in 21st Century Education

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The Role of Leaders in 21st Century Education

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The Role of Leaders in 21st Century Education

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The Four Cs: Making 21st Century Education Happen

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The Four Cs: Making 21st Century Education Happen

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The Four C's: Making 21st Century Education Happen

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Engaging Communities Around a Vision of 21st Century Learning

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Engaging Communities Around a Vision of 21st Century Learning

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Engaging Communities Around a Vision for 21st Century Learning

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What is 21st Century Learning? How Do We Get More?

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What is 21st Century Learning? How Do We Get More?

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Written By: Tom Vander Ark

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Almost of the nearly 8 billion of us on Earth are connected to the Internet; adding the next 4 billion people to the Internet is the biggest learning opportunity in history.

In the last two decades, we became a planet of cities. About 55% of the world's population lives in cities and by mid-century-when there are 10 billion of us-it will be more than two thirds, so we'll need to invent ways to make cities workable, livable, and sustainable.

Extreme poverty was reduced from more than a third to less than 10%, with a shot at eradicating extreme poverty by 2030-there is enough wealth if there is enough will.

Around mid-century, there is a pretty good chance that there will be super intelligent computers (often called artificial general intelligence ) that will help solve our most vexing problems-and pose several existential risks.

It will be the hottest century on record, and the last century during which there is a chance to do something about it.

What kind of education would prepare young people for this amazing and terrifying period of history? For 40 years, we've been talking about the aims and strategies of 21st century learning. Now that we're a couple decades in, we have a pretty good view.
What is 21st Century Learning?
"All students have an educational experience preparing them to be effective lifelong learners and contributors." That's how Battelle for Kids thinks about 21st century learning. They encourage communities to develop a Portrait of a Graduate embracing key skills including critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity that young people need to thrive in this complex rapidly changing world.

Holding community conversations about what is happening, what it means, and how to prepare creates a shared sense of urgency and what Battelle calls "a North Star for system transformation."
What does 21st Century Learning Look Like?
Learning for the 21st century is both personal and personalized. It is purposeful and honors learner variability . It combines skill sprints and extended challenges. It combines learner voice and choice with thoughtful guidance to shape learning journeys.

As Ron Berger recently said , learners do their best work when 1) there is a culture of respect and belonging, where students can be their true selves, 2) where work is meaningful and will impact the world, 3) where professionals provide expert critique and guidance, and 4) where there is a genuine audience.

With the community as classroom, 21st century learning happens anywhere, anytime. It addresses complexity with design thinking and embraces an entrepreneurial mindset in an effort to spot opportunity and deliver value.
Why 21st Century Learning?
The best preparation for a complex and rapidly changing future is learning to make a contribution today. Extended community-connected challenges build agency, design thinking and entrepreneurial mindset.

Well-resourced students often have access to powerful learning experiences. Equity demands that all young people have access.

In addition to being vital for individual learners, 21st century learning builds vibrant communities. The ecosystems that skill-up will win in the innovation economy.

And given the pressing issues of our time, it's critical that we mobilize the ingenuity of our youth to meet society's growing challenges.
Progress toward 21st Century Learning
There are many signs of progress: new schools have been formed, schools are being transformed, districts and communities are embracing 21st century learning.

About 5,000 new schools have been formed around new learning goals. At least that many existing schools are being transformed around 21st century goals. Many of these new and transformed schools belong to networks that share goals, tools, and strategies.

As part of Future Ready Schools , more than 3,400 school districts representing 20 million learners have pledged a commitment to innovative learning practices.

Hundreds of communities have updated their learning goals, leading to a deeper understanding of the desired skills and characteristics
Accelerating 21st Century Learning
There are four ways to expand access to 21st century learning to help more young people thrive-both now and as adults.

1. More projects: integrated, community-connected projects with valuable products;

2. More leadership: opportunities to serve and make a difference;

3. More work-based learning: job shadows, client projects, internships and accelerated pathways to high wage employment; and

4. More guidance: sustained adult relationships that guide learning journeys and expand opportunities.

21st Century Policy
The two decade fixation with grade level proficiency in math and reading as measured by end-of-year standardized tests locked in traditional grade level structures, encouraged whole group (rather than personalized) learning, and reduced extended community-connected learning experiences.

Like Virginia and South Carolina, states should adopt a high-level portrait of a graduate , and encourage school districts and networks to develop outcomes frameworks that value leadership and problem solving.

States can address the fixation on grade level proficiency by reducing (and eventually eliminating) standardized testing. They can accomplish this by asking districts and networks to demonstrate how students are growing and achieving.

States also can create incentives for new school development (the way and did) and support innovation zones , where schools have the flexibility to develop 21st century school models.

Now that we're nearly 20 years into this new century and a couple years into the AI-driven innovation economy, it's time for all youth worldwide to have access to leadership opportunities and community-connected challenges. It's the best chance we have of enabling them to contribute to a vibrant planet that they can leave for their kids.

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What Is 21st Century Learning? How Do We Get More?

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Almost of the nearly 8 billion of us on Earth are connected to the Internet; adding the next 4 billion people to the Internet is the biggest learning opportunity in history. In the last two decades, we became a planet of cities.

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Columbus City Schools Preparing to Create their Portrait of a Graduate

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Columbus City Schools Preparing to Create their Portrait of a Graduate

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Podcast: Dr. Karen Garza and Superintendent Dr. Talisa Dixon

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Episode 3: Columbus City Schools Preparing to Create Their Portrait of a Graduate

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Battelle for Kids CEO, Dr. Karen Garza, talks with Columbus City Schools Superintendent, Dr. Talisa Dixon.

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Every school system is unique, but they are connected by a shared aspiration: that all students have an educational experience preparing them to be effective lifelong learners and contributors.

Now more than ever, that experience must not only provide for the acquisition of rigorous academic content, but it must also be more intentional about fostering critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, and other 21st century skills our young people need to thrive in this complex, rapidly changing world.

Many school systems across the country have engaged their larger community in developing a Portrait of a Graduate, a collective vision that articulates the community's aspirations for all students.

Locally developed, but globally positioned, the Portrait of a Graduate serves as a North Star for system transformation. Providing strategic direction for the redesign of the overall educational experience for students, this collective vision reinvigorates and re-engages students, teachers, and community stakeholders.

As education leaders, it is important to ask:

What are the hopes, aspirations, and dreams that our community has for our young people?

What are the skills and mindsets that our children need for success in this rapidly changing and complex world?

What are the implications for the design of the learning experiences-and equitable access to those experiences-we provide in our school systems?

The Portrait of a Graduate is the first step in framing a new vision for your school system. Once you create your Portrait, the exciting work of implementing this new vision begins.

learn about the design process

Which student will be best prepared to contribute and compete in this global economy?

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Now more than ever, that experience must not only provide for the acquisition of rigorous academic content, but it must also be more intentional about fostering critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, and other 21st century skills our young people need to thrive in this complex, rapidly changing world.

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What Should Graduates Know And Be Able To Do?

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What Should Graduates Know And Be Able To Do?

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Written By: Tom Vander Ark

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Ken Kayhas been advocating for 21st-century skills since they were a prediction. As past president of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and founder of EdLeader21 (now part of Battelle for Kids), he's led a lot of conversations about what high school graduates should know.

EdLeader21 launched the Profile of a Graduate project in 2017 to provide examples of updated graduate profiles and a roadmap that school districts can adapt to host their own conversations (see Battelle's PortraitofaGraduate.org).

After a recent conference, Ken and I corresponded about the role of community engagement:

Ken Kay:It is very productive and important to have community conversations around vision and goals like the portrait of a graduate.

Tom Vander Ark:Like you, we've found it very important for school districts to engage their community in discussion about how the world is changing, what that means for the employment landscape and, as a result, what graduates should know and be able to do. In fact, prioritizing new outcomes (like collaboration) and then changing practices and parent reporting without having the conversation is a good way to get fired.

Kay: Critical issues that are part of the vision or direction, like equity, need to be part of the community conversation.

Vander Ark: Right. I find the question of equity to be particularly challenging now that everyone is talking about career and technical pathways, some of which are very attractive alternatives to traditional higher education while others lead to dead end jobs. The distinctions between high potential and dead end job cluster are fine grained and localized and require well informed guidance.

It is much more difficult, and in some cases counter productive, to have community conversations with the idea of getting consensus around implementation strategies. For example, I wouldn't try to get a community consensus on whether or how to deploy PBL. Many in the community don't know what it is and I consider pedagogies to be the domain of the educators.

Vander Ark: We need coherent school models that work well for teachers and students--and those aren't designed by consensus, they are the product of research-backed learning engineering. Designs are complicated by the fact that ed tech hasn't caught up with aspirations of personalized and competency-based learning--it's still really hard to build a tech stack that supports new models. (Our new book,Better Together, suggests schools consider joining school networks to reduce the degree of difficulty to offer high quality personalized learning.)

However, as Paul Hill noted in his 1997 classic,Reinventing Public Education, governing bodies have an obligation to lead conversations about the kinds of schools the community needs and wants-classical or high tech schools, college and/or career prep, big schools with selective sports or small supportive schools.

One problem with this dialog is that people only know the schools they experienced. Most educators haven't had the chance to visit a lot of schools and see what kinds of options exist.

To inform this sort of dialog in Kansas City, the Kauffman Foundation has sponsored visits to great schools around the country-over 300 people have visited 70 schools in 12 cities.

Kay: I agree a great deal of outreach and knowledge building is required with parents and students around topics like report cards and "interface" issues. But I view these as outreach, listening and refining sessions rather than consensus building. I am not sure one can ever build a consensus around topics like report cards.

Vander Ark: I remember, as a new superintendent, introducing a big standards-based report card on our teachers and parents without much input and it blew up. You're right, you can't develop these system by consensus, but it sure requires some outreach.

We're big fans of design thinking, a process that starts with understanding the problem and a phase of "empathy research," an effort to deeply understand customer values, needs and use patterns. (Human-centered design calls it participatory action research.) Design thinking continues with iterative design-starting small and failing small, and making improvement in rapid cycles.

It's worth differentiating innovation, something new and different, from improvement, an improvement to an existing system. It takes a lot more political capital to innovate that it does to improve. A school faculty could decide to focus on an area of improvement without much input but if they want to do something radically different, they need to facilitate a community agreement especially if it costs a lot, involves risk, or threatens long held values. (Listen to discussion of innovation vs. improvement.)

Kay: I hope this distinction is helpful between those topics that the community should have a major role in setting direction and those where the public needs to be informed and engaged but should defer to the experts.

It's interesting to note that we are transitioning from school choice, to course choice, to experience choice-a new era where each learner will have customized pathways guided by algorithms, advisors, and learner choices. Add lots of anywhere anytime learning options and the engagement challenge shifts from where to build the next $100 million high school to how to scale quality guidance.

Kay: I found your keynote on the implications of AI compelling and provocative. How would it impact your view of what should be in a district or school's portrait of a graduate? So, if most districts are using the 4 Cs as the starting point, what would you recommend that they do to refine it based on their taking your AI concerns and reflections into consideration?

I interviewed Michael Fullan recently and he made two friendly amendments to what he calls "life readiness" rather than college and career readiness. He adds character and citizenship to collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking. I think those are great additions, but communities will have different ways of expressing them as priorities.

Collaboration is more important than ever. The application most important is the ability to lead a diverse project team to a defined goal. That adds leadership and project management to success skills.

Young people will face a lot more novelty and complexity than we did. As I wrote with Jonathan Rochelle from Google and Katherine Prince from KnowledgeWorks, "What we most desire for young people is confidence in the face of complexity."

Design thinking, popularized by the Stanford Design School, is a structured approach to facing complexity. Potential solutions are prototyped and improved through iteration. Computer scientists use a similar approach to design called computational thinking (see how South Fayette schools teaches it). Design skills should not be relegated to a coding class; it should (like writing) be integrated across the curriculum.

Is critical thinking still a good frame, would you use a different term, or would you just make sure that complex problem solving, numerical literacy, design thinking, and systems thinking were essential elements of critical thinking?

Vander Ark:Critical thinking is more critical than ever, but it's so packed with multiple meanings, it's hard to assess across the curriculum. It is important to break it into component parts. Minerva, a new university based on learning science, makes "thinking critically" one of four core competencies but they break it down into "evaluating claims, analyzing inference, weighing decisions, and analyzing problems." This breaks down into more than 50 specific concepts and habits that are assessed in socratic seminars and projects (more than half of the total).

Kay: Given your thoughts about "free agency" would you be more explicit about "self-direction" as a 21st century competency?

The Nellie Mae Education Foundation says "Student-centered learning engages students in their own success-and incorporates their interests and skills into the learning process. Students support each other's progress and celebrate success."

Our friends at New Tech Network assess student agency in every project. They explain, "We help students see effort and practice in a new light and associate both as growth paths and, ultimately, success. We can provide students with the skills to rebound from setbacks and build confidence as they welcome new challenges. Instilling the principles of "agency" helps students find personal relevance in their work and motivates them to participate actively, build relationships and understand how they impact themselves and their communities."

Self-direction is a very important concept to me and I am not certain it is adequately covered within "student agency" or "student-centered." In my view, "student-centered" and "student agency" are strategies that educators use to steer education in the right direction. But self-direction is a competency student themselves need to aspire to. I often get asked where "work ethic" belongs in the portrait of a graduate and I contend it is a 20th-century concept. When we were growing up work ethic was a critical skill but it was often under somebody else's direction. In the "flat" world each person must be able to independently direct their own work wherever they sit in the organization or whatever context they are in. It is not enough to be open to doing more; you yourself need to determine what is the best next step. "Student agency" and "student-centered" may lead to more contexts that require self-direction, but self-direction itself needs to be aspired to and honed as an essential skill by students.

Vander Ark: That's a great distinction. I think the MyWays outcome framework from NGLC does the best job of describing these self-direction capabilities as Habits of Success (self-direction, perseverance, positive mindset, and learning), Wayfinding Abilities (e.g., surveying, identifying opportunity, developing plans, finding help, and navigating) and Creative Know How (e.g., entrepreneurship and practical life skills).

Because most high school graduates will enter the freelance/gig economy or manage their careers as a series of projects, everyone will be an entrepreneur in the new economy. Taking initiative to spot opportunity, pursue partnerships, and deliver value will be critical for success.

The key to answering the "What should grads know and be able to do?" question is community conversations that shape a high level vision (a grad profile) and some detailed work to turn those into meaningful and measurable learning objectives.

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What Should Graduates Know And Be Able To Do?

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Ken Kayhas been advocating for 21st-century skills since they were a prediction. As past president of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and founder of EdLeader21 (now part of Battelle for Kids), he's led a lot of conversations about what high school graduates should know.

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5 Suggestions for Leaders Developing A Portrait Of A Graduate

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5 Suggestions for Leaders Developing A Portrait Of A Graduate

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Written by: Dan Domenech

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Some of the most exciting and impactful work happening in school systems across the country is around the development of a Portrait of a Graduate, a collective vision articulating a community's aspirations for all students. We have observed a growing energy and interest in the Portrait of a Graduate among superintendents and other district leaders nationwide. In fact, the cover story of the August 2018 issue of American School Board Journal featured the stories of school systems that are implementing a Portrait of a Graduate.

As more school systems explore the development of a Portrait of a Graduate, we wanted to share 5 lessons we have learned in working with leaders of districts aspiring to prepare their students for 21 st century challenges.

1. The Portrait of a Graduate must be locally developed. Every school system's Portrait will be unique, reflecting the shared vision of its community. This is not a cookie-cutter, "one-size-fits-all" strategy. For example, some communities have included personal responsibility as an essential component of their Portrait of a Graduate, while others have made global citizenship a focus in preparing graduates for the 21st century. In Virginia Beach, we included the idea of balance in our portrait because of our community's interest in ensuring that our students live well-balanced lives. Every community must discover the language and the competencies that are important to them.

2. Engage a diverse group of community stakeholders-including parents and families, students, educators, higher education faculty, faith-based leaders, policymakers, and other community leaders-in the process of developing a Portrait of a Graduate. Many school systems have engaged a community advisory group of key stakeholders in a months-long process to reach consensus. The best advisory groups have strong representation from the business community, including leaders from the local chamber of commerce, workforce development organizations, trade associations, and HR directors from local organizations who can explain what they look for in hiring. Parents who are members of the 21st century workforce can provide important insight for educators and others about what future jobs will require from our students. Students play a key role in these advisory groups, bringing a unique perspective that can help to anchor discussions in what is best for kids.

3. The Portrait of a Graduate is not just another initiative. It serves as the North Star for system transformation. Every part of the school system, and every decision made-from the school board's strategic plan, to curriculum, budget, technology, and human resources-should be aligned to the Portrait of a Graduate and working toward making it a reality for every student (as well as for the adults in the system). In particular, consider how the system is supporting the professional learning needs of educators to design and implement 21st century learning experiences, and how the Portrait impacts the culture and policies of the district.

4. View your Portrait of a Graduate through an equity lens to ensure ALL students have access to a 21st century education. As district and school leaders, we must challenge ourselves to create the environment, processes, and support structures necessary to give every child, in every classroom, the opportunity to engage in 21st century learning experiences. An equity audit can help leaders identify, for example, why some students are getting opportunities to cultivate creativity while others are not. Then, you can begin to address the root causes of this disparity and eliminate it.

5. All stakeholders in a community should have input on what competencies are included in your Portrait, but educators-including teachers, principals, and other support staff-must own the process of implementing it. Educators are the experts on what classroom practices can bring the dreams and aspirations of the community's Portrait of a Graduate to life for all students in the system.

Every community is unique, but we all aspire for our kids to grow up to become happy, healthy, and productive adults. We need to challenge our communities to bring education into the 21 st century, and the Portrait of a Graduate process is a great way to start that journey.

Does your district have a Portrait of a Graduate? Visit www.PortraitofaGraduate.org to learn more and access resources to begin the journey in your school system.
Aaron Spence is superintendent of Virginia Beach City Public Schools. Connect with him at Aaron.Spence@vbschools.com or on Twitter at . Ken Kay is CEO of EdLeader21, a network of Battelle for Kids, which includes nearly 200 member school systems from across the country. Connect with him at kkay@edleader21.org or on Twitter at .

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5 Suggestions for Leaders: Developing a Portrait of a 21st Century Graduate

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Some of the most exciting and impactful work happening in school systems across the country is around the development of a Portrait of a Graduate, a collective vision articulating a community's aspirations for all students. We have observed a growing energy and interest in the Portrait of a Graduate among superintendents and other district leaders nationwide.

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How the Portrait of a Graduate Can Help Communities Explore the Future of Learning

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How the Portrait of a Graduate Can Help Communities Explore the Future of Learning

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Written By: Jillian Kuhlmann

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In what ways does a tool like the Portrait of a Graduate serve a learning community in planning for their desired future for their students and their community?
Jason: I think that it is a powerful tool for helping to develop a desired future or a vision for their community. It allows a learning community to develop a sense of "why" and a destination.

Valerie: The power of local decision-making is critical. We can't presume to know how each community will prioritize the economic and societal landscape shifts, or how they will align the Portrait competencies to those shifts. That's why we encourage school systems to invite a combination of local students, family members, business leaders and other community members into the Portrait design team conversation.
How does a tool like the Portrait of a Graduate function in a community where migration patterns, small-scale production and efforts to grow place-based and cultural assets are reshaping local geographies?
Jason: With its emphasis on being locally developed, the Profile of a Graduate allows for communities to really think about what these kinds of changes mean for their students. As geographies are reshaped, it allows learning communities to think about how those trends and changes might manifest themselves locally, develop a vision for learning through the Profile of a Graduate and create strategies that respond to change in service of that vision.

Valerie: The point of the Portrait process is to stay very closely aligned with each community's contexts, needs and values. The Portrait process encourages discussion and prioritization of student supports that will be needed for each child to be successful in college, career and life-regardless of the challenges surrounding their education. With an asset-based approach to building the Portrait, there is opportunity to leverage strengths inherent in each community on behalf of its students.
The Portrait of a Graduate is a truly cross-sector developed vision for a community's future and goes beyond academic success. Considering the shifting metrics of success and achievement that shape people's aspirations, choices and behaviors becoming increasingly detrimental to individual and social health, how might stakeholders from education, communities and businesses collaborate to create new definitions of success that ensure good health across diverse populations?
Jason: The Portrait of a Graduate is a powerful tool for thinking about the implications of change! Ideally, if you could have a diverse array of stakeholders sit down together and build an awareness of change, then develop Portraits of a Graduate that respond to the changes the group surfaced, the definitions of success would probably look different than they do today. Will they ensure good health? I am not sure you can guarantee anything, especially in terms of the future, but you can put into place learning experiences that help to cultivate good health, and given what we have seen about the uncertain futures of work prioritizing the development of resilient, healthy young people with high levels of self- and social-awareness will be a key component for thriving in whatever future of work comes to fruition.

Valerie: The portrait helps to mitigate our cultural "arms race" around high stakes testing tied to college admissions. When a broad and diverse group of stakeholders comes together to define the Portrait, students come to understand that skills like the 4Cs (critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity), along with competencies like citizenship and empathy, are highly valued.

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A Portrait of a Graduate Helps Communities Explore the Future of Learning

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In what ways does a tool like the Portrait of a Graduate serve a learning community in planning for their desired future for their students and their community? Jason: I think that it is a powerful tool for helping to develop a desired future or a vision for their community.

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Written By: Michelle Healy

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Sturdy backpacks stocked with school supplies are synonymous with the start of a new school year. In Kentucky's Jefferson County Public Schools, that backpack theme is being used to usher in a new initiative aimed at increasing learning and equipping students for success in college, careers, and citizenship in the 21st century.

When classes resume in August, the state's largest school district officially will launch its Backpack of Success Skills program. Designed to ensure that graduates leave Jefferson County schools equipped with "a virtual backpack" of key skills and experiences necessary for success in a rapidly changing world, the program is part of a multiprong plan to transform and advance the 101,000-student school system. (In May, the Jefferson board of education voted to appeal a recommendation by the Kentucky Department of Education to place the district under state management.)

Five skills identified for the Jefferson backpack include being an effective communicator, emerging innovator, prepared and resilient learner, globally and culturally competent citizen, and productive collaborator. These skills emerged from conversations with educators, administrators, parents, students, and community and business leaders, says Chief Academic Officer Carmen Coleman.

Drawing from those suggestions - while also emphasizing the mastery of academic content - Jefferson has crafted a portrait of what it wants for its graduates. From there, it plans to "work backwards to build the systems and experiences most likely to produce that outcome," Coleman says. "The Backpack of Success Skills is our graduate profile."

Profile as Tool

Designing a graduate profile - turning to community partners for help envisioning the key skills, attributes, or competencies, and then tying them into the curriculum - is not new.

What is new is a growing movement to make a profile or portrait of a 21st century graduate into a tool that can help school leaders transform educational opportunities for all children, not just those students in a handful of innovative and forward-thinking school districts, says Karen Garza, executive director of Battelle for Kids, a Columbus, Ohio-based education consulting nonprofit.

When done well, defining a vision for a school system's graduates serves as a North Star for a district's overall work and provides a framework, Garza says. "In the absence of having it, sometimes the initiatives in a district seem random and not connected. This helps create some coherence to the focus of the district."

In partnership with the professional learning community EdLeader21, "our goal is to accelerate the scaling of this across the United States," she says. Portrait of a Graduate programs "present an exciting opportunity for people to step back and really spend some time re-envisioning what they want for their children in their communities."

Coleman led such an effort when she previously served as superintendent of Kentucky's Danville Independent Schools. The 1,900-student district continues to use project-based learning and performance-based assessments to meet the goals of its 10-point graduate profile, dubbed the Danville Diploma. "Students knew they were going to have to demonstrate where they were in terms of these competencies," she says. "It changed everything. It took us far above the turbulence of simply focusing on test scores."

Research around future workforce needs and the connection to 21st century teaching and learning "is tightly aligned," says Garza, the former superintendent of Virginia's Fairfax County Public Schools. "Any time we've done this work in communities, it really resonates with the business community. It resonates with all of the constituents, but most specifically the business community."

It resonates with Cheakita Webster, human resources manager for the Louisville, Kentucky-based packaging machinery company Lantech. Call them soft skills or life skills, it's those "human interaction skills," in conjunction with solid literacy and numeracy skills, that the company seeks in potential employees, says Webster. "It's what makes us successful. Those are all important."

Through Lantech's role as a partner with the Academies of Louisville (Jefferson County Schools' recently launched small learning communities focused on careers and industries), Webster participated in the Backpack of Success Skills community strategy session.

"We may not know exactly what the jobs 20 years out are, but we know we need folks who can work together in a team environment, and we know we need young folks who can communicate," says Jefferson County School Board Chair Diane Porter. "Those two skills will never go away."

21st Century Skills

To illustrate the value of 21st century learning, EdLeader21's Ken Kay offers a comparison of two students: Student A has been trained to be proficient in math, science, English, and social studies. Student B has been trained to be proficient in content mastery, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, and other abilities that have been identified by education researchers as "21st century" skills.

Everyone wants student B, but we're stuck in the student A model, he says. Graduates like student A made good factory workers in the 1950s, but the 21st century workplace needs students who have skills like student B, he says.

Recent reports highlight this need, including:

The National Association of Colleges and Employers "Job Outlook 2018" survey. When employers were asked which attributes - beyond a strong GPA - were of most value, respondents put problem-solving and the ability to work in teams jointly at the top of the list for the second consecutive year. Written communication, leadership, and a strong work ethic were also highly valued.

The Pew Research Center's 2017 "The Future of Jobs and Job Training." Among 1,400 technologists, scholars, strategic thinkers, and education leaders surveyed, "soft" and "human" skills were cited by most respondents as crucial for survival in the age of artificial intelligence and robotics.

The PayScale "2016 Workforce-Skills Preparedness Report." Of the 64,000 workplace managers surveyed, 60 percent said new college graduate hires lacked critical-thinking and problem-solving skills; 56 percent cited lack of attention to detail; 44 percent pointed to a lack of leadership qualities; 36 percent cited lower-than-needed interpersonal and teamwork skills.

Battelle and EdLeader21 have set a goal to have 21 percent of the nation's school districts adopt a Portrait of a Graduate by 2021.

Calling it an "audacious goal," Garza says it's "necessary to draw attention to this important work. Every school in the United States should work to have their collective vision for the students in their community."

The partners also have created a website with how-to-guides, videos, blogs, research, and recommended reading about graduate profiles and the "4 Cs" - critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity, or what Kay calls the "basic-building blocks of a 21st century education."

Local Values Reflected

The 4 Cs must be customized to "reflect the language, concepts, and goals of individual communities," Kay says. With that in mind, some school districts settle on a graduate profile 10 items deep. Where one deems compassion an essential skill, another may opt for healthy living.

That was the case for Virginia Beach City Public Schools when it set out to develop its Graduate Profile in conjunction with its strategic plan, Compass to 2020. Among the eight competencies identified, being "Balanced" is defined as "making healthy choices to achieve well-being and create a well-rounded educational experience."

"In our community, there are a lot of conversations about the need to make sure that students are healthy and leading an emotionally and academically well-balanced life," Superintendent Aaron Spence says. That's illustrated by the school board's recent decision to eliminate class ranking for graduating seniors out of concern it feeds into "an unhealthy imbalance," Spence says.

Discussions focused on students' pursuit of weighted academic credit and high grade-point-averages over academic growth and pursuing their passions and interests.

The Graduate Profile helps inspire and guide the district "when thinking about our strategic work," Spence says. "We're constantly asking ourselves, 'Will the things we're doing, will the activities we're engaged in as a leadership group, lead to the outcomes we've expressed in the Graduate Profile?"

In Washington's Everett Public Schools, what started with the 4 Cs grew to six 21st century skills necessary for being "college, career, and life ready," including Citizenship (respectfully and positively impact others; active involvement in community, national and/or global issues) and Growth Mindset (working through challenges showing tenacity, perseverance, resilience, self-regulation, and self-advocacy).

The district does not formally use the term "profile of a graduate," but during think tank sessions with an array of interested parties, "We asked the same question: 'What does it mean to be a successful Everett Public Schools graduate?" says Peter Scott, associate superintendent. Afterwards he says the challenge was: "How do we grow these, teach these, and then measure these?"

Everett School Board member Pam LeSesne praises the district for focusing on how best to integrate the selected skills into teaching plans, "not just layering them on top."

There must be "intentional leveraging" of the skills and attributes into the district's instructional work, Scott says."What really drives this work is it must be authentic, and with that comes opportunities for deeper learning."

Transforming Potential

Because Jefferson's backpack initiative outlines the skills and knowledge that students need to acquire, requires students to show evidence of development in each of these areas each year, and will measure "transition readiness" on a regular basis, Coleman believes it holds the potential to transform teaching and learning in the large, urban district.

Students will make presentations at key transition periods - the end of fifth grade, eighth grade, and 12th grade - demonstrating the acquisition of skills and their readiness to move on to the next grade. They will be able to upload, store, and access evidence of those skills - including photos, videos, reports, essays, and test results - on a digital platform.

These presentations "lead to great conversations about where in your schools do students have the chance to really cultivate the skills you want them to have?" she says. "And does every child get that opportunity," not just those who participate in select programs, such as robotics club or accelerated classes?

Too often, that answer is no, Coleman says, so the demonstration component requires that schools ensure that deep, rich learning opportunities are in place for every student. "It's a great leveler for equity and for meaningful learning experiences. Worksheets are not going to be good evidence in the backpack."

Not every school with a "profile of a graduate" program opts for a demonstration requirement. "We decided if we build our curriculum well enough, if we create a learning environment in the classroom that supports the goals of our strategic plan-high expectations, multiple pathways, and social and emotional development - that by default we are creating opportunities for kids to demonstrate the attributes throughout their high school experience," says Don Robertson, chief strategy and innovation officer for Virginia Beach City schools.

Come this fall, the district is introducing elementary and middle school students to the Graduate Profile initially introduced to high school students, and making sure all students are demonstrating and mastering the skills needed to be future ready.

In anticipation of the graduate profile rollout in Jefferson County, several schools got on board early, staging defense presentations and exhibitions last spring. Some even began personalizing their Backpacks of Success Skills with "signature items" or competencies. Think about a backpack with three main compartments, Coleman says: one for literacy and numeracy, one for success skills like communication and collaboration, and one for skills or qualities that speak to an individual school.

At Dunn Elementary, the personalization effort took some work, says Principal Tracy Barber. Early suggestions for the school's signature items included, "studying spelling words, putting names on the right side of paper, things like that," Barber says. "We had to stop and ask, 'Are these the really important goals and issues for us?' It took a shift in thinking to think big."

In the end, Dunn teachers and school leadership decided to add a virtual compass to their virtual backpacks. "Critical Thinker" is placed at the center of the compass, surrounded by a circle of other skills - communicator, self-directed learner, collaborator, and academic learner - all essential for students preparing to take "the hike of life."

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Sturdy backpacks stocked with school supplies are synonymous with the start of a new school year. In Kentucky's Jefferson County Public Schools, that backpack theme is being used to usher in a new initiative aimed at increasing learning and equipping students for success in college, careers, and citizenship in the 21st century.

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Making 21st Century Education a Reality for Every Student

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Making 21st Century Education a Reality for Every Student

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Written By: Battelle for Kids

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Granville Schools Working to Paint Ideal 'Portrait of a Graduate'

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Granville Schools Working to Paint Ideal 'Portrait of a Graduate'

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Written By: Craig McDonald

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Schools Superintendent Jeff Brown told Granville Area Chamber of Commerce members his district is in the final stages of gathering input in an effort to shape a "Portrait of a Graduate."

The aim, he said, is to arrive at the ideal mix of educational and interpersonal characteristics best suited to adapt and thrive in a rapid and constantly changing work and social environment.

Brown's presentation at the Feb. 20 monthly chamber lunch meeting was the latest edition in what he described as "a road show" explaining the district's initiative to reshape its public education approach.

At base, the project is directed at meeting "landscape shifts and how they impact the future of our schools," as Brown framed his presentation.

Pointing to Granville Township Trustee Bryn Bird, cradling her recently born daughter in her arms, Brown said, "Margo will graduate in the year 2039. What will the future of our schools look like then? Where is the intersection of rich academics and real-world implications?"

He continued, "In K-through-12 public school education the past 20 years, our emphasis has been on report cards, testing...memorization. We've kind of gotten lost in our attention to test results and high AP scores as a final outcome (of the educational process)."

Brown presented a series of videos depicting devices that promise to pipe into users' heads instant access to the web and therefore all of the accumulated and recorded data in the world. Other videos depicted a future already unfolding that threatens massive job losses to artificial intelligence and automation.

Consequently, students coming up through public schools across the country face a "more complex" and quickly changing world than any of the generations before them.

In this world already revealing itself, Brown said, "If you can a write an algorithm for a task, that job is gone."

The ability to source information immediately through devices is forcing educators to grapple with more effective and valuable ways to apply application of knowledge that no longer relies on rote memorization or past educational approaches to gathering data.

In a setting where information is "open-sourced," the need becomes more about how knowledge is applied. At the same time, Brown said, "How do you prepare students when you don't how life looks?"

This is particularly challenging, he noted, when the pace of human information gathering and recorded knowledge is doubling in geometric proportions.

At the same time, social media is eroding human interaction skills and coarsening students, actually stripping them of empathy and simple human interaction skills, something not lost on educators.

"Empathy, compassion and care has eroded from society," Brown said, "and schools need to pick up that teaching, too. Studies among college students show they are (rapidly) declining in empathy."

Granville Schools is one of 200 districts networking to try and identify a constructive balance between educational, human and interpersonal skills that will give students the ability to cope with a future where most are expected to face a "mercenary" work reality. One in which today's students will likely hold six or more distinctly different sorts of jobs across their employment life as tech continues to impact vast sectors of the work force by erasing existing trades.

That mix of skills being sought constitutes the new "North Star" by which educators and parents will navigate, Brown explained.

To find and fix this North Star, the district has been conducting online polling of students, staff, and presently, parents and other district stakeholders.

The objective is to arrive at the mix of character and educational traits that make up a "portrait" of the Granville High School graduate best suited to move ahead and succeed in a fast evolving world.

In a few days, the parent/community polling will close and the process of finalizing the ideal graduate "portrait" will commence, Brown said.

"For us, high-quality education is an equity issue: we want all students to experience it," Brown said.

To that point, one meeting attendee asked about prospects and options for those Granville youths who may not want or stand to benefit from a college path, seeking instead a career that might endure against or even thwart automation threats.

"We have a phenomenal resource in C-TEC," Brown said. "EMS, firefighting, robotics, plumbing and welding... You can walk out with a certificate for welding and make $80,000 in your first year (of employment)... There is a feeling in Granville 'My kid can't go to a JVS,' or they think they must be in 12 AP classes. No, they don't."

Brown said too often for students and parents, "Illusion of perfection is the ideal result," But he continued, "Success is not a straight line" and the number of AP classes enrolled in not a proper measure of success... "Success is not final and failure is not fatal.

"Some of this requires building into parents a tolerance not to intervene," Brown continued. Parents and educators need to give children room to grow and explore on their own.

Brown cited a book, "How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success," by Julie Lythcott-Haims, which he said he has considered urging parents of incoming district kindergartners to seek out and study.

"Right now, everything is structured for kids," Brown said, "even their playtime, by parents."

As one attendee who seemed attuned to Brown's message put it, "We want our kids to be great, but not in the way it's been previously defined."

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Granville Schools working to paint ideal 'Portrait of A Graduate'

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Schools Superintendent Jeff Brown told Granville Area Chamber of Commerce members his district is in the final stages of gathering input in an effort to shape a "Portrait of a Graduate." The aim, he said, is to arrive at the ideal mix of educational and interpersonal characteristics best suited to adapt and thrive in a rapid and constantly changing work and social environment.

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Unifying the District and Broader Community through a Portrait of a Graduate

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Unifying the District and Broader Community through a Portrait of a Graduate

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Podcast: Dr. Karen Garza and Superintendent Michael McCormick

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Episode 5: Unifying a District and its Initiatives through their Portrait of a Graduate

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Battelle for Kids CEO, Dr. Karen Garza, talks with Michael McCormick, superintendent at Val Verde Unified School District, about how their Portrait of a Graduate became the North Star they follow to realize a 21st century education for every student in their district.

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Diversity and Equity in 21st Century Learning

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Diversity and Equity in 21st Century Learning

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Podcast: Dr. Karen Garza and Stephen Chang

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Episode 4: Diversity & Equity in 21st Century Learning

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Battelle for Kids CEO, Karen Garza, and Stephen Chang from The National Equity Project discuss the important role equity, diversity, and inclusion play in realizing 21st century learning for every student.

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Podcast: Dr. Karen Garza with Superintendent Jeff Brown and Superintendent Mario Basora

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Episode 1: Why They Do It. (Superintendents Mario Basora and Jeff Brown)

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Battelle for Kids CEO, Karen Garza, talks to Jeff Brown, Superintendent of Granville Exempted Village Schools, and Mario Basora, Superintendent of Huber Heights City Schools.

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Our Students Present at a National Conference

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Our Students Present at a National Conference

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Starts at about minute 5:35

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The CSES Certified Garden

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Coyote Springs Elementary spinach tasting for Farm to School Month

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Coyote Springs School's Pesto Pizza with Crispy Cauliflower Crust

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Coyote Springs Elementary School - IGNITE 2015

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What did you see or hear that demonstrated communication?

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What did you see or hear that demonstrated creativity?

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What did you see or hear that demonstrated collaboration?

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What did you see or hear that demonstrated critical thinking?

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What did you see or hear that demonstrated community connection?

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The 21st Century Competencies