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The term 21st century skills refers to a broad set of knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits that are believed-by educators, school reformers, college professors, employers, and others-to be critically important to success in today's world, particularly in collegiate programs and contemporary careers and workplaces. Generally speaking, 21 st century skills can be applied in all academic subject areas, and in all educational, career, and civic settings throughout a student's life.

It should be noted that the "21 st century skills" concept encompasses a wide-ranging and amorphous body of knowledge and skills that is not easy to define and that has not been officially codified or categorized. While the term is widely used in education, it is not always defined consistently, which can lead to confusion and divergent interpretations. In addition, a number of related terms-including applied skills, cross-curricular skills, cross-disciplinary skills, interdisciplinary skills, transferable skills, transversal skills, noncognitive skills, and soft skills, among others-are also widely used in reference to the general forms of knowledge and skill commonly associated with 21 st century skills. While these different terms may not be strictly synonymous, and they may have divergent or specialized meanings in certain technical contexts, these diverse sets of skills are being addressed in this one entry for the purposes of practicality and usefulness.

While the specific skills deemed to be "21 st century skills" may be defined, categorized, and determined differently from person to person, place to place, or school to school, the term does reflect a general-if somewhat loose and shifting-consensus. The following list provides a brief illustrative overview of the knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits commonly associated with 21 st century skills:

Critical thinking, problem solving, reasoning, analysis, interpretation, synthesizing information

Research skills and practices, interrogative questioning

Creativity, artistry, curiosity, imagination, innovation, personal expression

Perseverance, self-direction, planning, self-discipline, adaptability, initiative

Oral and written communication, public speaking and presenting, listening

Leadership, teamwork, collaboration, cooperation, facility in using virtual workspaces

Information and communication technology (ICT) literacy, media and internet literacy, data interpretation and analysis, computer programming

Civic, ethical, and social-justice literacy

Economic and financial literacy, entrepreneurialism

Global awareness, multicultural literacy, humanitarianism

Scientific literacy and reasoning, the scientific method

Environmental and conservation literacy, ecosystems understanding

Health and wellness literacy, including nutrition, diet, exercise, and public health and safety

While many individuals and organizations have proposed definitions of 21 st century skills, and most states have adopted learning standards that include or address cross-disciplinary skills, the following are three popular models that can serve to illustrate the concept and its applications in education:

For related discussions, see content knowledge and learning standards.

Reform

Generally speaking, the 21 st century skills concept is motivated by the belief that teaching students the most relevant, useful, in-demand, and universally applicable skills should be prioritized in today's schools, and by the related belief that many schools may not sufficiently prioritize such skills or effectively teach them to students. The basic idea is that students, who will come of age in the 21 st century, need to be taught different skills than those learned by students in the 20 th century, and that the skills they learn should reflect the specific demands that will placed upon them in a complex, competitive, knowledge-based, information-age, technology-driven economy and society.

While 21 st century skills are relevant to all areas of schooling and academic study, and the skills may be taught in a wide variety of in-school and outside-of-school settings, there are a few primary ways in which 21 st century skills intersect with efforts to improve schools:

Teachers may be more intentional about teaching cross-disciplinary skills in subject-area courses. For example, in a science course students might be required to learn research methods that can also be applied in other disciplines; articulate technical scientific concepts in verbal, written, and graphic forms; present lab results to a panel of working scientists; or use sophisticated technologies, software programs, and multimedia applications as an extension of an assigned project.

States, accrediting organizations, and schools may require 21st century skills to be taught and assessed in courses. For example, states can adopt learning standards that explicitly describe cross-disciplinary skills, and assessments may be designed or modified to evaluate whether students have acquired and mastered certain skills.

Schools and teachers may use educational approaches that inherently encourage or facilitate the acquisition of cross-disciplinary skills. For example, educational strategies such as authentic learning, demonstrations of learning, or project-based learning tend to be cross-disciplinary in nature, and students-in the process of completing a research project, for example-may have to use a variety of applied skills, multiple technologies, and new ways of analyzing and processing information, while also taking initiative, thinking creatively, planning out the process, and working collaboratively in teams with other students.

Schools may allow students to pursue alternative learning pathways in which students earn academic and satisfy graduation requirements by completing an internship, apprenticeship, or volunteer experience, for example. In this case, students might acquire a variety of practical, job-related skills and work habits, while also completing academic coursework and meeting the same learning standards required of students in more traditional academic courses.

Debate

While there is broad agreement that today's students need different skills than were perhaps taught to previous generations, and that cross-disciplinary skills such as writing, critical thinking, self-initiative, group collaboration, and technological literacy are essential to success in higher education, modern workplaces, and adult life, there is still a great deal of debate about 21 st century skills-from what skills are most important to how such skills should be taught to their appropriate role in public education. Given that there is no clear consensus on what skills specifically constitute "21 st century skills," the concept tends to be interpreted and applied in different ways from state to state or school to school, which can lead to ambiguity, confusion, and inconsistency.

Calls for placing a greater emphasis on cross-disciplinary skills in public education are, generally speaking, a response to the perception that most public schools pay insufficient attention to the postsecondary preparation and success of students. In other words, the concept has become a touchstone in a larger debate about what public schools should be teaching and what the purpose of public education should be. For example: Is the purpose of public education to get students to pass a test and earn a high school diploma? Or is the purpose to prepare students for success in higher education and modern careers? The push to prioritize 21 st century skills is typically motivated by the belief that all students should be equipped with the knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits they will need to pursue continued education and challenging careers after graduation, and that a failure to adequately prepare students effectively denies them opportunities, with potentially significant consequences for our economy, democracy, and society.

A related debate centers on the distinction between "knowledge" and "skills," and how schools and teachers may interpret-or misinterpret-the concepts. Some educators argue that it's not possible to teach cross-disciplinary skills separately from knowledge and conceptual understanding-for example, students can't learn to write well if they don't have ideas, facts, principles, and philosophies to write about. The basic idea is that "21 st century skills" is an artificial concept that can't be separated out from subject-area knowledge and instruction. Other educators may argue that cross-disciplinary skills have historically been ignored or under-prioritized in schools, and the push to give more emphasis and attention to these skills is simply a commonsense response to a changing world.

The following list provides a few additional examples of representative arguments that may be made in support of teaching 21 st century skills:

In today's world, information and knowledge are increasing at such an astronomical rate that no one can learn everything about every subject, what may appear true today could be proven to be false tomorrow, and the jobs that students will get after they graduate may not yet exist. For this reason, students need to be taught how to process, parse, and use information, and they need adaptable skills they can apply in all areas of life-just teaching them ideas and facts, without teaching them how to use them in real-life settings, is no longer enough.

Schools need to adapt and develop new ways of teaching and learning that reflect a changing world. The purpose of school should be to prepare students for success after graduation, and therefore schools need to prioritize the knowledge and skills that will be in the greatest demand, such as those skills deemed to be most important by college professors and employers. Only teaching students to perform well in school or on a test is no longer sufficient.

Given the widespread availability of information today, students no longer need teachers to lecture to them on the causes of the Civil War, for example, because that information is readily available-and often in more engaging formats that a typical classroom lecture. For this reason, educators should use in-school time to teach students how to find, interpret, and use information, rather than using most or all of the time to present information.

The following list provides a few examples of representative arguments that may be made against the concept of 21 st century skills:

Public schools and teachers have always taught, and will continue to teach, cross-disciplinary skills-they just never gave it a label. The debate over "content vs. skills" is not new-educators have been talking about and wrestling with these issues for a century-which makes the term "21st century skills" somewhat misleading and inaccurate.

Focusing too much on cross-disciplinary skills could water-down academic courses, and students may not get "the basics." The more time teachers spend on skill-related instruction, the less time they will have for content-based instruction. And if schools privilege cross-disciplinary skills over content knowledge, students may be denied opportunities because they are insufficiently knowledgeable. Students need a broad knowledge base, which they won't receive if teachers focus too much on skill-related instruction or "learning how to learn."

Cross-disciplinary skills are extremely difficult to assess reliably and consistently. There are no formal tests for 21st century skills, so the public won't know how well schools are doing in teaching these skills.

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The term 21st century skills refers to a broad set of knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits that are believed—by educators, school reformers, college professors, employers, and others—to be critically important to success in today’s world, particularly in collegiate programs and contemporary careers and workplaces. Generally speaking, 21st century skills can be applied in all […]

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There are so many forces at work that make educators grade, and grade frequently. For sports eligibility, coaches constantly look at grades to see if a student is at an academic level that will allow him or her to play. Colleges review transcripts to examine what type of courses students took and their corresponding grades. Teachers must follow policy that demands them to enter a certain amount of grades every week, month, or marking period. There's no stopping it. However, we need to reflect upon policies and practices like this -- and possibly consider regulating them. Is grading the focus, or is learning the focus? Yes, grades should and can reflect student learning, but often they can get in the way and actually harm student learning.

The Dreaded Zero

I used to give out zeros in the hopes that it would force students to do work and learn. This was a terrible idea! I'm so happy that I received the professional development and resources to challenge my thinking on how I was graded as a student. Myron Dueck notes that students need to care about consequences, and many students simply don't care about zeros. In fact, some of them will say, "Fine, I'll take the zero," which totally defeats the intended purpose and in fact destroys any leverage that I have to help students learn. Zeros do not reflect student learning. They reflect compliance. Instead of zeros, we should enter incompletes, and use these moments to correct behavioral errors and mistakes. Often, one zero can mathematically destroy a student's grade and pollute an overall metric that should reflect student learning. Here, grading is getting in the way of truly helping a student, as well as showing what that student really knows.

Points Off for Late Work

I'm guilty of this one as well. Similar to using zeros, when students didn't turn in work on time, I threated them with a deduction in points. Not only didn't this correct the behavior, but it also meant that behavioral issues were clouding the overall grade report. Instead of reflecting that students had learned, the grade served as an inaccurate reflection of the learning goal. Well, I certainly learned from this experience, and instead began using late work as a time to actually address the behavioral issue of turning in late work. It was a teachable moment. I had students reflect on what got in the way, apply their problem-solving skills to these issues, and set new goals. Students should learn the responsibility of turning in work on time, but not at the cost of a grade that doesn't actually represent learning.

Grading "Practice"

Many of our assignments are "practice," assigned for students to build fluency and practice a content or skill. Students are often "coming to know" rather than truly knowing. Consequently, these assignments are formative assessments, reflecting a step in the learning process and not a final outcome or goal. Formative assessment should inform instruction. It should not be graded. If we assign a grade to failed practice, the overall grade won't reflect what they learned. It won't be a reflection of success, and it may even deter students from trying again and learning. Practice assignments and homework can be assessed, but they shouldn't be graded.

Grading Instead of Teaching

As mentioned earlier, many teachers are required to enter grades on a frequent basis. While this policy may be well intended, in practice it can become a nightmare and run afoul to the intent. Districts and schools often call for frequent grades so that students, parents, and other stakeholders know what a child knows, and what he or she needs to learn next. This is a great intent. In fact, we should formatively assess our students and give everyone access to the "photo album" of learning rather than a single "snapshot." However, if we educators do nothing but grade, we rob ourselves of the time that we need to teach. We've all been in a situation where grading piles up, and so we put the class on a task to make time for grading. This is wrong, and it should be the other way around. Teaching and learning should take precedence over grading and entering grades into grade books. If educators are spending an inordinate amount of time grading rather than teaching and assessing students, then something needs to change.

Hope

Our work as educators is providing hope to our students. If I use zeros, points off for late work, and the like as tools for compliance, I don't create hope. Instead, I create fear of failure and anxiety in learning. If we truly want our classrooms to be places for hope, then our grading practices must align with that mission. Luckily, standards-based grading, mastery-based grading, and competency-based learning are making strides in many schools, districts, and states. These methods more accurately align with the premise that "it's never too late to learn." If you want to learn more about equitable grading practices, read work by Ken O'Connor, Myron Dueck, Dylan Wiliam, and Rick Wormeli.

With that, I will leave you with an essential question to ponder: How can we grade and assess in a way that provides hope to all students?

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When Grading Harms Student Learning | Edutopia

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There are so many forces at work that make educators grade, and grade frequently. For sports eligibility, coaches constantly look at grades to see if a student is at an academic level that will allow him or her to play. Colleges review transcripts to examine what type of courses students took and their corresponding grades.

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#Proficiency Based
#PE
#healthandwellness

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Exercise Physiology Health Multiple Functions Delivery of Content Flipped Classroom Activities Work Sessions Review Summative Assessments FLiP Student Voice & Choice Choice

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Skill Heart Rate Monitors & Pedometers Individual Assessments Students

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Student Choice Seminars Personal Program Completed Customized & Student Generated Development of Personal Fitness Programs Fitness Skill-Based Injury Rehab Higher-Level Learning Skills Programs

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Student Voice & Choice Effort Based Point System Heart Rate Monitors & Pedometers Seminars Personal Programs Proficiency Based Strategies Incorporation of Technology That

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Google Drive Google Sites Online Forms Video Lectures Skill Analysis

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Skill Assessments in Personal Program Students

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PSAHPERD / FLiP: Proficiency Based Physical Education

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Understanding eLearning is simple. eLearning is learning utilizing electronic technologies to access educational curriculum outside of a traditional classroom. In most cases, it refers to a course, program or degree delivered completely online.

There are many terms used to describe learning that is delivered online, via the internet, ranging from Distance Education, to computerized electronic learning, online learning, internet learning and many others. We define eLearning as courses that are specifically delivered via the internet to somewhere other than the classroom where the professor is teaching. It is not a course delivered via a DVD or CD-ROM, video tape or over a television channel. It is interactive in that you can also communicate with your teachers, professors or other students in your class. Sometimes it is delivered live, where you can "electronically" raise your hand and interact in real time and sometimes it is a lecture that has been prerecorded. There is always a teacher or professor interacting /communicating with you and grading your participation, your assignments and your tests. eLearning has been proven to be a successful method of training and education is becoming a way of life for many citizens in North Carolina.

To find out more about eLearning, simply select from the links on the left menu.

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Understanding eLearning is simple. eLearning is learning utilizing electronic technologies to access educational curriculum outside of a traditional classroom. In most cases, it refers to a course, program or degree delivered completely online. There are many terms used to describe learning that is delivered online, via the internet, ranging from Distance Education, to computerized electronic learning, online learning, internet learning and many others.

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Competency Based Learning and Why it Matters

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Competency Based Learning and Why it Matters

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#proficiencybasededucation
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New Hampshire and educator John Martin are at the forefront of the competency-based learning movement. In today's show, we'll give you an overview of competency-based learning including some of the benefits and the problems. Whatever your school situation, by having teachers agree upon standard competencies that students master, schools can be more certain of what students know. Listen Now.

Think about it. As John says in the show, high school teachers say the kids are coming to them unprepared and blame the middle school teachers. Middle school points down to elementary. Elementary points to kindergarten. And kindergarten blames the parents. Who is responsible?

But, wow, are there some challenges! Competencies by nature remove the class rank and the coveted valedictorian's spot. Learners are working at a different pace. Even assessment changes with competency-based learning. And when students master things quickly, in some ways, they need to be pushed to level up past the competency. John has a frank conversation about the pros and cons of competency-based learning and how his district is working through the challenges. This is an important conversation to share with curriculum directors, policy makers, and those looking to level up past standards to competencies.

Essential Questions: What Is Competency-Based Learning, Why Does It Matter?

What is competency-based learning?

What are some of the challenges teachers experience with moving to competency-based learning?

What are some of the parent complaints about competency-based learning?

What are some of the challenges for college admissions from students graduating from school that uses competency-based learning?

How does teaching change when a school moves to competency-based learning?

Educator Resources from this Episode
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Categories: Common Core, Education Trends and Topics, Every Classroom Matters Show, Teachers

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

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What Is Competency-Based Learning, Why Does It Matter?

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New Hampshire and educator John Martin are at the forefront of the competency-based learning movement. In today's show, we'll give you an overview of competency-based learning including some of the benefits and the problems. Whatever your school situation, by having teachers agree upon standard competencies that students master, schools can be more certain of what [...]

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How Project Based Learning Fosters Community Change

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How Project Based Learning Fosters Community Change

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Solving real world issues that matter is important to us as adults-and it's important to our students. When we bring real world issues to the classroom and allow students to lead, we can foster community change. One school in South Carolina is doing this by tackling a daunting and important subject: human trafficking.

Westwood High School is in its third year working on a project called Globalize 13. Globalize 13 is a service-learning project for secondary schools that presents lessons about slavery within the context of the 13th Amendment, the amendment that abolished slavery 150 years ago.

How does project-based learning foster community change?

What started with a dialogue around slavery and reading the texts of Frederick Douglass resulted in students recognizing and doing something about modern day slavery in their own community. The students now call themselves Modern Day Abolitionists . As a result of the project, students have started a Facebook page and a Twitter account ( ) to document and share the work of their campaign to create awareness of human trafficking.

Ken Morris, President of Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives , and direct descendant of both Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, visited the school to launch Globalize 13 and support students' efforts to raise awareness of human trafficking in South Carolina. At the event, a Richland County councilman attended and was so inspired by the students' projects that he started a task force to investigate human trafficking and has invited students and teacher Stacey Plotner to be members of that task force.

One of the student projects from Ms. Plotner's English class won honorable mention in the White House Student film festival. (Warning: This video is short and moving. If you have kids, know kids or love kids, you may be moved to act).

Two students also planned a session for other students from around the country who were acting as modern day abolitionists at the "Historians Against Slavery" conference located at Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati.

We recently had a chance to talk to the lead teacher on the project, Stacey Plotner, about the project. As a teacher in her 19th year, Ms. Plotner said:

Students have to see that their work is doing something. I have taught the narrative of Frederick Douglass for years. It's so important for the work in the classroom to connect to a real problem today. What started out as a student project has inspired me as a teacher. And the students see that they can really create change.

To begin this project, we had to actually create a campaign. Students had to research and figure out what a campaign is and how to actually launch a campaign. None of us had done this before, so it was kind of chaotic at times.

I am a big advocate of a mix of more traditional teaching and also project-based learning, allowing students to solve real world problems. For teachers, it's all about how to combine the two which is the true formula for success. A real world problem creates a real deadline. The students know they have to get their work done because there is an authentic audience.

implementation. Westwood High School is in Richland School District Two, which has a strategic partnership with Buck Institute for Education (BIE) , a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing project-based learning. BIE coaches have led project-based learning workshops for teachers and also meet individually with teachers on project-based learning best practices. BIE provides systemic PBL implementation services to more than 25 U.S. school districts, supporting more than 10,000 teachers and leaders nationwide. With this three-year partnership, BIE not only supports teachers with professional development but also focuses on the leadership and organizational development needed to sustain system-wide Gold Standard PBL Deeper learning environments such as these help students think critically, solve real world problems, work collaboratively, master academic content and hone and develop academic mindsets that support college and career readiness. (See this in action in the film Most Likely to Succeed).

If you are a teacher thinking about implementing project-based learning in the classroom or ways to do it even more effectively, Ms. Plotner suggests allowing students to tackle social issues that they really care about:

If we want to teach students to write persuasively, why not have them persuade about something in the real world?

You can pick labor rights, whatever modern day problem exists, and you can do this in history class, you can use your curriculum you already have, and you can tie in real world issues and let the kids use the skills they are learning.

For more specific information on the Globalize 13 curriculum, see on the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives.

For more on project-based learning see,
Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update. This post includes mentions of a Getting Smart partner. For a full list of partners, affiliate organizations and all other disclosures please see our Partner page.

Bonnie Lathram is a student advocate and former teacher. Follow her on Twitter: @belathram

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How Project-Based Learning Fosters Community Change

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When we bring real world issues to the classroom and allow students to lead real work, through powerful project-based learning, students can have a big impact. How does project-based learning foster community change? What started with a dialogue around slavery and reading the texts of Frederick Douglass resulted in students doing something about modern day slavery in their own community.

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Why Social and Emotional Skills are VItal

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Why Social and Emotional Skills are VItal

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The academic skills that were taught as part of Fast Track turned out to have less of an impact on crime and delinquency rates than soft skills, which are associated with emotional intelligence. Soft skills might include teaching kids to work cooperatively in a group or teaching them how to think about the long-term consequences when they make a decision, whereas teaching physics is an example of a hard skill.

"The conclusion that we would make is that these [soft] skills should be emphasized even more in our education system and in our system of socializing children," says Kenneth Dodge, a professor of public policy and of psychology and neuroscience at Duke who was a principal investigator in this study as well as in the original Fast Track project. Parents should do all they can to promote these skills with their children, Dodge says, as should education policymakers.

"To the extent we can improve those skills, we can improve outcomes in delinquency and juvenile crime," says Dodge, who is also director of Duke's Center for Child and Family Policy. The study was published Wednesday in the journal Child Development.

To Neil Bernstein, a psychologist in Washington, D.C., who specializes in child and adolescent behavior disorders, the researchers' findings seem consistent with he's seen on the ground in working with children for more than 30 years. And while he says agrees with the importance of teaching self-control and social skills, he would add empathy to the list, too.

"Empathy is what makes us aware of the feelings of others and when you're empathic, you're much less likely to hurt someone else's feelings," says Bernstein, who serves on the advisory board for the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and is the author of multiple books, including How to Keep Your Teenager Out of Trouble and What to Do if You Can't.

Being in tune with how someone else feels might also make adolescents steer clear of bullying and other "behaviors of concern," Bernstein says.

Empathy was not one of the skills that were directly measured in this study, according to Lucy Sorensen, a Ph.D. student at Duke and lead author of the study. But there were several measures of "prosocial behavior," Sorensen says, defined as voluntary behavior intended to benefit others.

While Bernstein thinks the study's findings are meaningful and could potentially serve as a model for schools, he says that collectively getting a school system, teachers, parents and students all motivated enough to take part in an intervention like Fast Track is challenging.

Several parts of the Fast Track study have been picked up successfully in other school settings, Sorensen says, such as a social-emotional learning curriculum called Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, or PATHS. Programs like Fast Track need buy-in from school systems, teachers and parents, she says, and that can be a tough sell. But she adds that it's a strength of Fast Track that the students get support both at school and at home.

"There's a growing and new understanding of what it takes to be successful as an adolescent and an adult," Dodge says. "It used to be that what we thought all it took was academic skills. Reading and math are very important for tasks that require reading and math. Self-control is important for life tasks that require self-control - that's what avoiding arrest and violent crime is all about."

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Why Social and Emotional Skills Are Vital to Keep At-Risk Students on Track

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The academic skills that were taught as part of Fast Track turned out to have less of an impact on crime and delinquency rates than soft skills, which are associated with emotional intelligence.

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President Pledges $4Billion for Computer Science in Schools

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President Pledges $4Billion for Computer Science in Schools

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Some of those leaders include companies that have already promised support for the President's educational initiatives. Apple, Cartoon Network, Code.org, Facebook, Microsoft, Salesforce and Qualcomm are all widening their education efforts, investing in programs or both to help improve computer science in the country.

Throwing cash at a problem won't make it go away, of course, and there aren't any guarantees that the money will make a difference. However, the effort at least tackles one of the core issues head-on: getting computer science into schools in the first place. Roughly three quarters of schools go without any CS programs, and 22 states don't accept these classes as credit toward a high school diploma. If the extra funding works as planned, it'll get CS courses into more schools and help create a generation of kids that know how to code before they reach college.

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President pledges $4 billion toward computer science in schools

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Some of those leaders include companies that have already promised support for the President's educational initiatives. Apple, Cartoon Network, Code.org, Facebook, Microsoft, Salesforce and Qualcomm are all widening their education efforts, investing in programs or both to help improve computer science in the country.

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Starting out with ScratchJr often means telling cartoon characters to dance, sing and act out lines of dialogue. It feels more like play than learning, and that's by design, says Resnick.

"Coding is not just a set of technical skills," he tells NPR Ed. "It's a new way of expressing yourself. It's similar to learning to write - a way for kids to organize, express and share ideas. But instead of putting words into sentences, now they can create animated stories."

Many popular apps for teaching programming are structured more like games, with a simple set of instructions to reach a predefined outcome. But that's unnecessarily dull, Resnick argues.

"If you have kids put blocks together to solve the puzzle, that can be useful for learning basic computing concepts. But we think it's missing an important part of what's exciting about coding. If you present just logic puzzles, it's like teaching them writing by only teaching grammar and punctuation."

ScratchJr takes more of a "sandbox" approach: Students can make greeting cards, or build games themselves, but the project is up to them.

This week, in concert with Hour of Code, a new version of ScratchJr is launching that features characters from PBS Kids cartoon shows, like Wild Kratts and Odd Squad. PBS, with the backing of the federal Department of Education and Verizon, will over the coming year be working on related outreach to high-poverty schools, including in-person after-school programs and summer camps.

Sara DeWitt, vice president of PBS Kids Digital, said PBS has been looking for an opportunity to get involved in coding and programming for a while, but in a way that matched how children already engage with their characters.

"All of this came together with ScratchJr," she said, "because MIT and Tufts' approach to coding is really about creative self-expression and storytelling, and looking at code as a literacy - a way to tell a story."

It's significant that PBS, the leading brand in educational media, is now lending its characters to the cause of teaching computer science to children as young as kindergarteners. Yet this shift comes at a time of rising anxiety about the ubiquity of screens in childhood.

For Resnick, a good litmus test is to ask, "Does this support creativity and expression?" The answer, he says, can determine whether a technology is truly educational and developmentally appropriate.

"As children spend more and more time interacting with digital devices, they don't have very many opportunities to create and experiment," he explains.

"Oftentimes it's playing, clicking, consuming, as opposed to designing and expressing. I would tell parents to look for either the apps or the toys where the child is in control. If it feels that the toy or tablet is in control, then I'd be much more cautious about it."

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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Engage Kids With Coding By Letting Them Design, Create, and Tell Stories

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Starting out with ScratchJr often means telling cartoon characters to dance, sing and act out lines of dialogue. It feels more like play than learning, and that's by design, says Resnick. "Coding is not just a set of technical skills," he tells NPR Ed. "It's a new way of expressing yourself.

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Meeting the 10 Expectations Students Have of School

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Meeting the 10 Expectations Students Have of School

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#experientiallearning
#projectbasedlearning

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Last August, NPR covered about a student-17 year old Nick Bane-who found himself bored at his fairly prestigious, Denver-based independent school-Colorado Academy. Having seen Sugata Mitra's famous , Bane convinced his school administrators and his parents that he should be able to build his own curriculum as well as travel outside of the school to learn from local experts in the field of his interests.

In my days as Director of the College & Work Readiness Assessment ( ), I had the great pleasure of working closely with Colorado Academy, so I'm not surprised by the flexibility they've shown to meet students at their own best place of learning. Head of School Mike Davis is a thoughtful and innovative leader, and he also has the luxury of not being burdened by state assessment and curriculum mandates, and his school-like many other independent schools-is a resource-rich environment. This is not a judgment, just an observation. Which leads to this question:

Why can't all schools meet students at the center of their own learning?

There are many answers to this question, but one that comes to mind is that schools simply self-impose pressures on themselves that keep them from finding the flexibility within whatever structure (either literal or figurative) that confines them.

For instance, one very specific self-imposed barrier is an insistence that schools themselves set the expectations for learning, which students must adhere to. Desks must be positioned a certain way. Classrooms must last a certain time period. The level of volume in the room must always hover around a certain (quiet) decibel. And, above all, teaching must occur at school.

But while we often hear of the expectations that schools have of students, we rarely get a chance to hear about the expectations that students have of schools. These get less attention, but are essential to keeping students engaged and in school.

At Big Picture Learning, we have been working steadfastly for over 20 years designing and assisting schools who are interested in finding ways to put students at the center of their own learning. And you can't do that without first asking hard questions like: "

Do I know about my students' individual interests and talents?

Do I help my students understand how learning contributes to our community and the world?

Can my students learn things in an order that fits their own learning style(s)?

Do my students have opportunities to tinker and make guesses?

Do my students have real choices about what, when and how to learn and demonstrate their abilities?

So we've developed a set of tools for educators which lay the path toward a more student-centered approach to learning, a path that-remarkably-is open to both resource-rich and underserved communities. Through the 10 Expectations portal , we've made available (for free!) videos, rubrics and interactive surveys (in partnership with ) that can help , and determine whether their school is truly an engaging learning environment, one which asks the essential question:

"Have we considered students' own expectations of us?"

Rubrics and assessments like these, which are designed not to measure students' mastery of content but rather something a bit less tangible, are not particularly new. Tools like the Gallup Student Poll , the Hope Survey , the Mission Skills Assessment , and the aforementioned have all been designed and implemented as ways of stressing that there are things in school more important than content mastery.

We introduce the 10 Expectations Survey into this bowl of potpourri as a way of stressing that we can all be better. We can all find ways to help the Nick Bane's and Paul Alves' of this world find learning environments that take their expectations and their interests to heart. We can engage our students in the types of learning, both inside and outside of school, that increase their motivation and-frankly-happiness.
Elliot Washor, co-founder (with Dennis Littky) of Big Picture Learning and co-author (with Charles Mojkowski) of Leaving to Learn , will be hosting a free webinar on Thursday, February 4, from 2-3PM ET on " " Meeting Students Expectations for School.
For more, see:
Chris Jackson is Chief Communications Officer at Big Picture Learning. Follow Chris on Twitter, @CJacksonj13. Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update

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Meeting the 10 Expectations Students Have of School - Getting Smart by Guest Author - Big Picture Learning, Blog, student-centered learning

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By: Chris Jackson. Have we considered the expectations students have of school? Chris Jackson writes that the real paradigm shift may be in asking the question to students: What do you expect from school? We can take students' expectations and interests into classrooms--and outside of them. By doing so, we will increase student motivation.

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How A Bigger Purpose Can Motivate Students

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How A Bigger Purpose Can Motivate Students

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#projectbasedlearning

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Can Drudgery Be Eliminated from Learning?

The idea of drudgery in schoolwork is anathema to many progressive educators these days. Game-based approaches to learning are far favored over "drill-and-kill" exercises. And while an emphasis on fortifying students' academic "grit" and self-discipline in their study habits has been explored in depth, it's controversial. Along with criticisms about deeper implications relating to race and poverty, some observers say the buzz over grit neglects the need to make dull classroom lessons more compelling to today's learners. As education author Alfie Kohn has written, "not everything is worth doing, let alone doing for extended periods, and not everyone who works hard is pursuing something worthwhile."

"If you think about it the right way, you can actually be motivated and you can find it interesting, even if on the surface it's not fun."

It's complicated, though. At Stanford's Project for Education Research that Scales, Paunesku believes that teachers and educators should make learning more engaging wherever possible. "However, the reality is that schoolwork is often neither interesting nor meaningful," he said -- at least, not in a way that students immediately get. "It's hard for students to understand why doing algebra, for example, really matters or why it'll help them or why it will make a difference in their life." Yet, he noted, such work is often key in building basic skills and knowledge they'll need for a successful future.

With that in mind, Yeager and Paunesku designed an intervention that subtly guides students to connect their academic efforts with pro-social long-term goals, to see whether it might help inspire them to plow through assignments that are "boring but important."

As a baseline, the research team first investigated a mindset of "self-transcendent" purposeful learning by surveying 1,364 low-income high-school seniors at 10 urban public schools in California, Texas, Arkansas and New York. The teenagers sat down at a computer and took an "academic diligence task" devised by Duckworth and Sidney D'Mello of the University of Notre Dame. For a few minutes, the participants had the choice of either doing lots of simple, tedious math subtraction problems, or watching YouTube video clips or playing Tetris.

The students with a purposeful-learning attitude (who agreed with socially oriented statements like "I want to become an educated citizen that can contribute to society") scored higher on measures of grit and self-control than classmates who only reported self-oriented motives for learning such as wanting to get a good job or earn more money. The purposeful learners were also less likely to succumb to the digital distractions, answering more math problems on the diligence task -- and they were more likely to be enrolled in college the following fall, the researchers found.

The Potential of a Purposeful Mindset

Next, a pilot experiment tested the sense-of-purpose intervention to see if it would improve grades in math and science (two subjects often seen as uninteresting): The researchers asked 338 ninth graders at a middle-class Bay Area high school to log online for a 20- to 30-minute reading and writing exercise. The teenagers read a brief article and specific quotes from other students, all conveying the message that many adolescents work hard in school not just to gain knowledge for, say, pursuing a career they like -- but also because they want to achieve "something that matters for the world."

Study participants then wrote short testimonials to other, future students describing how high school would help them become the kind of person they want to be or make an impact on society. As one teen explained, "I believe learning in school will give me the rudimentary skills to survive in the world. Science will give me a good base for my career in environmental engineering. I want to be able to solve our energy problems." Another ninth grader wrote that having an education "allows me to form well-supported, well-thought opinions about the world. I will not be able to help anyone without first going to school."

A few months later, at the end of the grading quarter, the researchers observed positive effects from the intervention, most notably in the weakest students: Underachieving pupils saw their low GPAs go up by 0.2 points. That's a helpful improvement, said UT Austin's Henderson, because many pivotal educational decisions hang in the balance based on a GPA cutoff. A few tenths of a point can make or break a student's acceptance into a program or a school, which could in turn affect what type of job she ends up getting and ultimately, the salary she earns, Henderson said.

"GPA is really a better long-term predictor of not just educational outcomes but all kinds of positive life outcomes," commented education researcher Camille Farrington of the University of Chicago. A 0.2 point gain in GPA could bump a B to a B+ or a B+ to an A-, she noted, which is an important impact given how brief and relatively inexpensive the sense-of-purpose treatment was. Many other education interventions take a lot more time, energy and money, yet "don't give any more of a bump than that," she said.

How Does It Work?

As with other kinds of academic mindset strategies, the benefit from the sense-of-purpose intervention "almost seems like magic," Henderson said. But it's not, (as Yeager and Walton have previously elaborated). The research team ran two other experiments (with college undergrads) that helped unpack how the intervention might work: by motivating students to engage in deeper learning, and by bolstering self-control in resisting tempting distractions from schoolwork (as measured again by Duckworth and D'Mello's diligence test).

What a purposeful mindset does for students is that "when they encounter challenges, difficulty or things that could potentially be roadblocks to learning, it motivates them to persist and barrel through," Henderson said. The psychology researchers don't know how long the positive effects last, but they speculate that just a small shift in students' attitudes could spark a chain reaction of stronger academic performance and confidence that builds upon itself and endures over time.

"People are motivated by, they care about having meaning in their life."

Such a payoff can be hard to believe. After all, grownups have forever been telling children any number of reasons why a good education is important for their future. But here's the thing: The technique for nurturing a sense-of-purpose mentality is designed so that "the student owns that and kind of puts those pieces together in their own heads, for themselves," Farrington noted. "And that is a different thing than your mom or your teacher telling you, it's important to do this because blah, blah, blah, blah."

Other, self-oriented goals such as making money or getting out of their parents' house didn't seem to inspire students as much as the self-transcendent goals did in the studies. That's worth noting, Farrington said, especially considering that youths from low-income backgrounds are often exhorted to study hard so that they can get out of their disadvantaged neighborhoods and go to college or find a good job. If the research results are right, these kids may get more motivational mileage out of the goal of making a meaningful contribution to the world. "That's consistent with what we know in social psychology: that people are motivated by, they care about having meaning in their life," she said.

The sense-of-purpose work is just in its beginning stages, Henderson said, with the psychologists still tinkering to improve the intervention. They want to explore whether the technique can reduce student cheating, and whether teachers can "activate" the purposeful-learning mindset by writing simple, subtle and carefully tailored messages of feedback on classwork, he said.

Finding Meaning in Schoolwork

The experiments with the new strategy beg the question of whether the researchers are implicitly endorsing drill-and-kill-style learning. They aren't, Paunesku is quick to say. He's all for project-based learning and other efforts to make school more relevant and alluring for students. Yet, he added, it isn't practical or possible to render every lesson or assignment in K-12 "super fun and game-y" for kids -- and even if it were, doing so could be a disservice to them later. What would they do when they get to law school and are faced with having to memorize long lists of laws? Or when they land a job that calls for mastering information that no one has "gamefied" to make it exciting to learn?

Students go to school not just to learn specific facts, he pointed out. They're learning how to learn, how to practice self-discipline and motivate themselves through frustrating roadblocks, and thus are preparing for adulthood. That's important even if it isn't always fascinating, he said. But having that bigger sense of purpose, that personal mission of making a positive difference in the broader world, might help students to find meaning in difficult or mundane schoolwork. "If you think about it the right way, you can actually be motivated and you can find it interesting, even if on the surface it's not fun," Paunesku said.

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How a Bigger Purpose Can Motivate Students to Learn

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The idea of drudgery in schoolwork is anathema to many progressive educators these days. Game-based approaches to learning are far favored over "drill-and-kill" exercises. And while an emphasis on fortifying students' academic "grit" and self-discipline in their study habits has been explored in depth, it's controversial.

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WHAT'S LOST WHEN KIDS ARE UNDER-CONNECTED

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WHAT'S LOST WHEN KIDS ARE UNDER-CONNECTED

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"What's it really like to do your homework on a smartphone you're having to borrow from your mom, but she needs it for something else? Are you really able to do your research paper?" asked Rideout.

Schools have improved their connections on campus, but home has been a major hurdle for learning as assignments and communication go online. "Schools getting wired was the task of the previous decade," said Rideout. "Getting wired at home is the task of the current decade."

While low-income families may appear connected, they come across obstacles that undermine access to information. For the survey, 1,191 parents with children ages 6 to 13, considered lower-income or "low- and moderate-income families," were asked questions about how they use technology.

The researchers found that only 6 percent of families with incomes that qualify for discounted Internet services had ever signed up for such programs. A combination of lack of services provided, hurdles in qualifying for discounts (such as having no missed payments), and a lack of awareness of discount programs often stood in the way. Schools can have a role in educating families about discounted Internet programs, said Vikki Katz, co-author of the report .

"We found some really interesting differences between what happens when the school focuses on the relationship and uses tech to expand the relationship, and some districts that put the technology first," Katz said. School districts that had stronger relationships with families were able to better inform families about discount programs.

Of the parents surveyed, 33 percent of those living below poverty level and 23 percent of those living below median-income level rely on mobile-only Internet access. And keeping their mobile devices connected is a struggle, as 24 percent of that group had their service cut off because of payment issues. Of those surveyed who do have home Internet, 20 percent have had their Internet cut off due to lack of payment within the last year and 26 percent say too many people share the same computer.

"If they have a home computer and Internet access, their Internet access is slow," said Rideout. "Their computer is slow and their service has been cut off in the last 12 months because they can't pay their bill. If they have mobile-only plans, they run up against their data plan. Or there are too many people using a single device. These are all elements of people being under-connected."

In some districts, schools have paid for families to have Internet at home so they wouldn't have to rely on Wi-Fi at local businesses or stay on campus after hours to do homework. Having reliable Internet at home could mean more capacity to learn computer coding skills, stream video tutorials or take an online language course.

"It's not just doing the homework, but learning the skills needed to compete -- the design, the coding skills, etc.," said Rideout. "You don't do that as much on a smartphone as you would on a computer."

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What's Lost When Kids Are 'Under-connected' to the Internet?

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"What's it really like to do your homework on a smartphone you're having to borrow from your mom, but she needs it for something else? Are you really able to do your research paper?" asked Rideout. Schools have improved their connections on campus, but home has been a major hurdle for learning as assignments and communication go online.

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A middle school wellness program removes the social rigors from gym class.

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Three different credit recovery programs help high school
students develop the academic and personal skills necessary
to become productive members of their communities

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Three different credit recovery programs help high school
students develop the academic and personal skills necessary
to become productive members of their communities

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#pathways
#blendedlearning
#alternativeeducation

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Volume 28, Number 1
January/February 2012

How can schools inspire and teach students to be moral people-to care about and take responsibility for others, to think clearly about and pursue justice, to sacrifice for important principles? This is not a trivial question. Polls indicate that about 70 percent of public school parents want schools to teach "strict standards of right and wrong," and 85 percent want schools to teach values. And research suggests that many overworked, frayed parents, doubting their capacities as moral mentors, are looking to schools to take on a larger role in their children's moral growth.

In response to this demand, a billion-dollar character education industry has cropped up in the last few decades, including myriad organizations marketing packaged character education programs to schools. Many of these programs are devoted to inculcating values such as self-discipline, responsibility for others, and honesty. Some of these initiatives are carefully considered, rigorous, and tuned in both to children's developmental experiences and to teachers' needs and capacities. But most of these undertakings appear to have little or no impact on children's moral lives.

What is moral development, and what types of school programs and efforts are likely to promote it? Why do some school efforts succeed while others fail, and what are the essential principles and ingredients of successful efforts? How can these principles and ingredients realistically be implemented and scaled in a school reform era intensely focused on academic achievement?

Cultivating a Moral Identity
Several years ago, I asked my six-year-old daughter and a few of her friends a question posed in a popular character education program: "Should you be honest with your teacher if you forget your homework?" One of my daughter's friends hesitated slightly but then piped up: "Do you want me to tell you what you want to hear, or do you want me to tell you the truth?" Emboldened, another friend stated flatly, "I know that you want me to say I should be honest, but nobody is honest about that."

Many schools post values on walls and reiterate the importance of values in classrooms, during assemblies, and at other school events. But the challenge is not simply moral literacy-in fact, research indicates that most students, like my daughter's friends, know values such as honesty and respect by the time they are five or six years old. Because they know these values, many children-especially adolescents-feel patronized by lectures about values. And some children, as the question asked by my daughter's friend suggests, become nimble at simply parroting back what adults want to hear.

This is an excerpt from the Harvard Education Letter. Subscribers can click here to continue reading this article.

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Volume 28, Number 1 January/February 2012 How can schools inspire and teach students to be moral people-to care about and take responsibility for others, to think clearly about and pursue justice, to sacrifice for important principles? This is not a trivial question.

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HOW SCHOOLS BUILD A POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT THROUGH ADVISORY

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HOW SCHOOLS BUILD A POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT THROUGH ADVISORY

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#student motivation

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School leaders are increasingly recognizing that a strong, positive school culture is key for students to experience academic and social success. How to establish that culture and build buy-in from staff and students is often less clear. The Teaching Channel has profiled several schools in the Deeper Learning Network that use an advisory period to offer students a smaller community of support and trust within the larger school.

Advisory at Envision Schools is a space to check in on how life is going, share fears and joys, and often to get reassurance that many peers are feeling similarly. While the conversation might touch on how to manage time or stress related to schoolwork, it doesn't have to be about academics. Instead, this time allows students to "let their shoulders down," get to know their teachers in a different way and the space to ask for help. Students practice presenting their portfolios and get feedback from peers.

At Expeditionary Learning (now known as EL Education) schools, a similar small community called "Crew" serves as a student's family while at school. The group and teacher remain the same for several years, creating a reassuring consistency and a deep trust. The crews meet every morning for 30 minutes or an hour. During crew students set personal and academic goals, reflect on challenges and set plans for how they'll overcome obstacles. "The public explanation of their growth as scholars is built into the day here," said Expeditionary Learning chief academic officer Ron Berger.

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How Schools Build A Positive Culture Through Advisory

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School leaders are increasingly recognizing that a strong, positive school culture is key for students to experience academic and social success. How to establish that culture and build buy-in from staff and students is often less clear.

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WHY KIDS CAN'T SIT STILL IN SCHOOL TODAY

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WHY KIDS CAN'T SIT STILL IN SCHOOL TODAY

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The Centers for Disease Control tells us that in recent years there has been a jump in the percentage of young people diagnosed with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, commonly known as ADHD: 7.8 percent in 2003 to 9.5 percent in 2007 and to 11 percent in 2011. The reasons for the rise are multiple, and include changes in diagnostic criteria, medication treatment and more awareness of the condition. In the following post, Angela Hanscom, a pediatric occupational therapist and the founder of TimberNook, a nature-based development program designed to foster creativity and independent play outdoors in New England, suggests yet another reason more children are being diagnosed with ADHD, whether or not they really have it: the amount of time kids are forced to sit while they are in school. This appeared on the TimberNook blog.

By Angela Hanscom

A perfect stranger pours her heart out to me over the phone. She complains that her 6-year-old son is unable to sit still in the classroom. The school wants to test him for ADHD (attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder). This sounds familiar, I think to myself. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I've noticed that this is a fairly common problem today.

The mother goes on to explain how her son comes home every day with a yellow smiley face. The rest of his class goes home with green smiley faces for good behavior. Every day this child is reminded that his behavior is unacceptable, simply because he can't sit still for long periods of time.

The mother starts crying. "He is starting to say things like, 'I hate myself' and 'I'm no good at anything.'" This young boy's self-esteem is plummeting all because he needs to move more often.

Over the past decade, more and more children are being coded as having attention issues and possibly ADHD. A local elementary teacher tells me that at least eight of her twenty-two students have trouble paying attention on a good day. At the same time, children are expected to sit for longer periods of time. In fact, even kindergarteners are being asked to sit for thirty minutes during circle time at some schools.

The problem: children are constantly in an upright position these days. It is rare to find children rolling down hills, climbing trees, and spinning in circles just for fun. Merry-go-rounds and teeter-totters are a thing of the past. Recess times have shortened due to increasing educational demands, and children rarely play outdoors due to parental fears, liability issues, and the hectic schedules of modern-day society. Lets face it: Children are not nearly moving enough, and it is really starting to become a problem.

I recently observed a fifth grade classroom as a favor to a teacher. I quietly went in and took a seat towards the back of the classroom. The teacher was reading a book to the children and it was towards the end of the day. I've never seen anything like it. Kids were tilting back their chairs back at extreme angles, others were rocking their bodies back and forth, a few were chewing on the ends of their pencils, and one child was hitting a water bottle against her forehead in a rhythmic pattern.

This was not a special-needs classroom, but a typical classroom at a popular art-integrated charter school. My first thought was that the children might have been fidgeting because it was the end of the day and they were simply tired. Even though this may have been part of the problem, there was certainly another underlying reason.

We quickly learned after further testing, that most of the children in the classroom had poor core strength and balance. In fact, we tested a few other classrooms and found that when compared to children from the early 1980s, only one out of twelve children had normal strength and balance. Only one! Oh my goodness, I thought to myself. These children need to move!

Ironically, many children are walking around with an underdeveloped vestibular (balance) system today-due to restricted movement. In order to develop a strong balance system, children need to move their body in all directions, for hours at a time. Just like with exercising, they need to do this more than just once-a-week in order to reap the benefits. Therefore, having soccer practice once or twice a week is likely not enough movement for the child to develop a strong sensory system.

Children are going to class with bodies that are less prepared to learn than ever before. With sensory systems not quite working right, they are asked to sit and pay attention. Children naturally start fidgeting in order to get the movement their body so desperately needs and is not getting enough of to "turn their brain on." What happens when the children start fidgeting? We ask them to sit still and pay attention; therefore, their brain goes back to "sleep."

Fidgeting is a real problem. It is a strong indicator that children are not getting enough movement throughout the day. We need to fix the underlying issue. Recess times need to be extended and kids should be playing outside as soon as they get home from school. Twenty minutes of movement a day is not enough! They need hours of play outdoors in order to establish a healthy sensory system and to support higher-level attention and learning in the classroom.
In order for children to learn, they need to be able to pay attention. In order to pay attention, we need to let them move.
Here's a follow-up piece from the same author, titled, "The right - and surprisingly wrong - ways to get kids to sit still in class

More from Answer Sheet:
How hard is teaching? How much teachers get paid state to state LIST: Famous people who grew up with dyslexia

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Why so many kids can't sit still in school today

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The Centers for Disease Control tells us that in recent years there has been a jump in the percentage of young people diagnosed with Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, commonly known as ADHD: 7.8 percent in 2003 to 9.5 percent in 2007 and to 11 percent in 2011.

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In the novel, Squeers is hell-bent on making sure that his students leave school with the knowledge they need to be "serviceable" in the adult world. It's not so different today. Everyone is worried about whether kids are "learning what they need" to get into college, finding good jobs, getting along in a big company, and learning new trades. The country's whole school system seems geared toward solving large-scale economic woes and producing future workers. It's most definitely not geared toward children. In fact, the prevailing view is that if teachers focus too much on students' pleasure they will somehow be encouraging wanton self-indulgence and dangerous hedonism.

A look at what goes on in most classrooms these days makes it abundantly clear that when people think about education, they are not thinking about what it feels like to be a child, or what makes childhood an important and valuable stage of life in its own right. This may explain why so many schools that I visit seem more like something out of a Dickens novel than anything else.

I'm a mother of three, a teacher, and a developmental psychologist. So I've watched a lot of children-talking, playing, arguing, eating, studying, and being, well, young. Here's what I've come to understand. The thing that sets children apart from adults is not their ignorance, nor their lack of skills. It's their enormous capacity for joy. Think of a 3-year-old lost in the pleasures of finding out what he can and cannot sink in the bathtub, a 5-year-old beside herself with the thrill of putting together strings of nonsensical words with her best friends, or an 11-year-old completely immersed in a riveting comic strip. A child's ability to become deeply absorbed in something, and derive intense pleasure from that absorption, is something adults spend the rest of their lives trying to return to.

A friend told me the following story. One day, when he went to get his 7-year-old son from soccer practice, his kid greeted him with a downcast face and a despondent voice. The coach had chastised him for not paying attention and not focusing on his soccer drills. The little boy walked out of the school with his head drooping downwards, shoulders slumped, dragging his way towards the car. He seemed wrapped in sadness. But just before he reached the car door, he suddenly stopped, crouching down to peer at something on the sidewalk. His face went down lower and lower, and then, with complete ebullience he called out, "Dad. C'mere. This is the most amazing bug I've ever seen. It has, like, a million legs. Look at this. It's awesome." He looked up at his father, his features brimming with energy and delight. "Can't we stay here for just a minute? I want to find out what he does with all those legs. This is the coolest ever."

The traditional view of such moments is that they constitute a charming but irrelevant byproduct of youth-something to be pushed aside to make room for more important qualities, like perseverance, obligation, and practicality. Yet moments like this one are just the kind of intense absorption and pleasure adults spend the rest of their lives seeking. In his masterpiece essay, Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud described childhood as a period of trying to balance primal urges to find pleasure and avoid pain with the growing need to be part of a group. Every piece of research since that essay has shown that Freud was right. Human lives are governed by the desire to experience joy. Becoming educated should not require giving up joy but rather lead to finding joy in new kinds of things: reading novels instead of playing with small figures, conducting experiments instead of sinking cups in the bathtub, and debating serious issues rather than stringing together nonsense words, for example. In some cases, schools should help children find new, more grown-up ways of doing the same things that are perennial sources of joy: making art, making friends, making decisions.

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In the novel, Squeers is hell-bent on making sure that his students leave school with the knowledge they need to be "serviceable" in the adult world. It's not so different today. Everyone is worried about whether kids are "learning what they need" to get into college, finding good jobs, getting along in a big company, and learning new trades.

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Teens and tech: what happens when students give up smartphones?

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Teens and tech: what happens when students give up smartphones?

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#technologyandteens

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Teens and tech: what happens when students give up smartphones?

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A recent project challenged young people to go cold turkey on using digital devices for a week. The results suggest compulsion - not addiction - is the issue

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ZOMBIELAND. Tech Wrecking Sleep for Scores of Teens: Study

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ZOMBIELAND. Tech Wrecking Sleep for Scores of Teens: Study

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#technologyandteens

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Maybe they should be dubbed Generation-Zzzz.

Teens who bury their faces for hours on end in laptops, tablets, smart phones or TV screens during the days tend to suffer bad nights of sleep, researchers reported Monday.

"There are indications that today's teenagers sleep less than previous generations," said Mari Hysing, co-author and a psychologist at Uni Research Health in Norway. "There are some aspects of electronic devices that may give an additional arousal; the [screen] light may impact sleep hormone production, and also the social communication aspect" may stir adolescents to keep chatting deep into the night.

"We cannot conclude which time during the day was more detrimental [to sleep], but it seems that it is the cumulative daily amount which is important," Hysing added.

The research, published in the online journal BMJ Open, was based on the tech and sleep behaviors of 10,000 16- to 19-year-old boys and girls. They participated in the Norwegian youth@hordaland study during 2012. All were asked how much screen time they absorbed daily outside of school plus which electronic devices they used most, and when they normally went to bed, how long it typically took them to fall asleep, and when they usually arose on weekdays and weekends.

Some of the key findings:

If a teen's total, daytime screen time surpassed four hours, that was associated with a 49 percent higher risk of taking longer than one hour to fall asleep when compared to adolescents whose cumulative daily screen time fell below four hours.

Total screen viewing that exceeded two hours after school was "strongly linked" to both a longer period of tossing and turning before dreams finally came-and with shorter, nightly sleep duration.

Teens who used two to three devices each day were more likely to sleep for less than five hours when compared to those used just one gadget.

How unhealthy is a five-hour night of sleep for kids that age?

On Monday, the National Sleep Foundation, along with an expert panel that included pediatricians and neurologists, recommended that teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 get eight to 10 hours of restorative sleep each night - a full hour longer than the group had previously suggested.

The precise time each day that teens spend online, listening to digital music or watching television also appears to be critical in marring or bolstering sleep patterns. Hysing and colleagues noted that use of any device in the hour before bedtime was linked to a heightened risk of taking longer than 60 minutes to get to sleep, the authors said. Tapping tech while in bed seems especially unhealthy.

"Use of electronic devices may lead to an association between the bed with wakefulness, and ideally we want the bed and the bedroom to be associated with sleep," Hysing said.

But a leading parenting expert who viewed the findings disagreed that cumulative, daily screen time is the main culprit robbing teens of sleep.

"The quantity of screen time ... is an outdated concept," said Dr. Deborah Gilboa, who also specializes in youth developing. "Homework alone often requires hours of screen use, and that is unlikely to change."

Instead, a better solution would be to teach teens that screen use can, in fact, impact their sleep, and to encourage them and their families "to find a healthy balance of screen use, vigorous exercise, and non-screen relaxation in order to improve sleep and health overall," Gilboa said.

"This study points out all of the reasons that we need to evaluate screen use in teens with sleep difficulty or too little sleep with the same - or more - thoroughness with which we evaluate caffeine and other stimulant use. It's becoming more and more clear that screens are brain stimulants," Gilboa added.

What more should parents do? And what can teens do to revise their sleeping habits and grab more slumber?

Current health experts suggest that teens and kids don't have a TV in their bedrooms. The Norwegian authors want to push that change further.

"There may be other electronic devices exerting the same negative influence on sleep, such as PCs and mobile phones. The results confirm recommendations for restricting media use in general," the authors conclude. But, their study didn't allow them to place specific restrictions on cumulative daily hours of screen time.

"We recommend that the adolescents, at the least, leave their electronic devices outside the bedroom before they go to sleep," Hysing told NBC News. "In other words, we do not recommend falling asleep with the TV on or with music on your ear. Ideally, the last hour before bed should be free of electronic devices."

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Zombieland? Tech Wrecking Sleep for Scores of Teens: Study

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Maybe they should be dubbed Generation-Zzzz. Teens who bury their faces for hours on end in laptops, tablets, smart phones or TV screens during the days tend to suffer bad nights of sleep, researchers reported Monday. "There are indications that today's teenagers sleep less than previous generations," said Mari Hysing, co-author and a psychologist at Uni Research Health in Norway.

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Life Prep Should Include Problem-Based Learning, Failure & Leadership

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Life Prep Should Include Problem-Based Learning, Failure & Leadership

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#lifeskills, #inquiry based learning

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The students of today are different.

They plan for the future at a young age. At Culver Academies , we see middle-school students initiating the admissions process to prepare for a desired career path. In fact, students typically recognize the opportunity and then convince their parents of the course of action.

This is a proactive, practical generation that isn't engaged with traditional teaching methods. But there are three things educators and parents can do to prepare students academically and personally for their future:

Make learning an active experience. If you ask students what they like most about school, they'll tell you about a really great science class, an arts project, or their extracurriculars, like creating videos. That is because these are examples of students' making their own meaning; what engages them has to feel real, relevant.

This is why traditional, instructional methods of teaching aren't as effective today. You can simply tell students that something works-because while that may be interesting, they will better when given the opportunity to interact with and experience the activity.

Teaching by using a problem-based approach is much more effective. Problem-based assignments involve doing and thinking. Instead of just understanding a concept, students are forced to figure out what the experience means to them and what it means in different contexts. When given problems to solve, students exercise critical thinking and creativity. They gain confidence.

As educators and parents, we are in an ideal position to structure students' experiences so that they learn how to apply these concepts to their lives. To make them think. What questions can we ask to inspire a quest for knowledge? What kind of projects and/or papers will provide a learning journey? Ask challenging questions and give kids room to find answers and come to their own conclusions. This process is an example of experiential learning, and it captures interest, taps into passion, and gives students more control of their education.

Put them in charge. Inherently, students want to be more grown up. Left to their own devices, this desire could manifest in a negative or positive way. But educators and parents can provide positive adult experiences by giving students leadership responsibility in an area of interest. This, too, taps into their passion, but it also stretches interpersonal skills, diplomacy, the ability to organize, manage time and projects, and practice ethics. By leading in an area of interest, they will inevitably develop individual competencies.

Let them lead the exercise and have them create opportunities for teamwork. When students are forced to work together to solve a problem or complete a project, something magical happens. They challenge, motivate, and validate each other. They teach each other. There's no hiding or slacking off in this kind of learning environment, because every student's participation is important to the outcome. Students find themselves, and their voice, in the process of group learning.

Give them the opportunity to them manage younger students/peers. Being in charge is fun when everyone has a job to do, and each will do what is expected and required to do the work. But how will students handle situations when the work doesn't get done, the train is derailed and they are accountable? Growth happens in these moments. Then it is up to the leader to determine the right process for reaching a solution to the problem. This means taking responsibility for oneself and others; and this is an important aspect of leadership development.

Let them fail. Failure isn't scary or shameful when it is expected, even encouraged. If a student knows that they may fail a number of times before they can do something correctly or successfully, they see that failure is part of a learning process. It may take 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery. But failure and recovery-assessing what went wrong and developing plan B -is ultimately a growth experience.

Possibly an example would help illustrate how we at Culver create these educational opportunities. Take the 10 th grade Chemistry class that is learning chemistry by taking on the project of determining which alternative fuels are the most efficient and marketable given the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative: hydrogen, bio-diesel, and ethanol. We divide the class into teams of "professional scientists" whose task it is to present these options to members of the House of Representatives Energy Committee (visiting faculty and administrators or other Science teachers). This activity includes an authentic problem, an authentic audience, and real science. It teaches critical thinking, communication skills, and creativity. The exercise also challenges the students to consider economic and political issues, in addition to teaching them about Chemistry.

Helping students forge their path forward is about both developing knowledge and about preparing their whole person. When we teach students by providing experiences, help them understand how they learn, provide leadership opportunities, and encourage failure and recovery; we are prepping them not just for college or a career... we are prepping them for life.
eduInnovation John N. Buxton serves as Culver Academies Head of Schools. Follow Culver Academies on Twitter, Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update @CulverAcademies Getting Smart have partnered with The J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation to produce a thought leadership campaign called Generation Do-It-Yourself (GenDIY) - how young people are hacking a pathway to a career they love - on The Huffington Post GettingSmart.com . This campaign about reimagining secondary and postsecondary education and career skills will explore the new generation building a global economy and experiences that are impact driven and entrepreneurial. For more on GenDIY:

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Life Prep Should Include Problem-Based Learning, Failure & Leadership - Getting Smart by Guest Author - Blog

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The students of today are different. They plan for the future at a young age. At Culver Academies , we see middle-school students initiating the admissions process to prepare for a desired career path. In fact, students typically recognize the opportunity and then convince their parents of the course of action.

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Why Identity and Emotion are Central To Motivating the Teen Brain

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Why Identity and Emotion are Central To Motivating the Teen Brain

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"This is a flexible period for goal engagement, and the main part of what's underneath what we think about setting goals in conscious ways - the bottom-up-based pull to feel motivated toward things.' Ronald Dahl, Community Health and Human Development Professor at UC Berkeley

Adolescence is a tornado of change: Not only is it the period of fastest physical change in life - aside from infancy - but also newfound drives, motivations, and feelings of sexuality are amplified. There are profound shifts to metabolisms and sleeping cycles, as well as social roles - especially in the context of schools. During these years, motivation is propelled not by a tangible goal to work toward, but by a feeling of wanting and thirst. Within the tumult of pre-teens or teens is an opportunity to enhance their desire and interest to learn.

In the past decade, neuroscientists have been able to identify what makes the adolescent brain so geared for the kind of inquiry that can pay dividends in the classroom. As children enter adolescence, some developing neural systems have already stabilized, Dahl said. But puberty creates a whole new set of elastic neural systems that, when interacting with the already stabilized systems, offers unique windows of opportunity for engagement and experiencing the world around them in multiple ways.

"Adolescence is a perfect storm of opportunities to align these changes in positive ways," Dahl said. "Learning, exploration, acquiring skills and habits, intrinsic motivations, attitudes, setting goals and priorities: There's compelling need for transdisciplinary research to understand unique opportunities for social and emotional learning. But few people do it in fear of these challenges."

These new scientific insights have large implications for how schools teach adolescents, which have traditionally viewed this age group as troublesome.

'One way to think about puberty is to think of it as a learning spurt for heartfelt goals.It's a particularly opportune time to fall in love with learning itself.'

The feelings of acceptance, rejection, admiration, among others, are all the story of adolescence. Children in this age group also seek physical sensations and thrills. There's heightened awareness of social status, especially as they realize that acts of courage can earn them higher social status among peers. Their wildly swinging neurological systems also mean that adolescents can readjust quickly - making those years critical for educators to engage students in "the right ways," when the brain is learning to calibrate complex social and emotional value systems that use feelings as fast signals, Dahl said.

Contrary to common belief, children in this age range don't actually have "broken brains." Rather, these children are undergoing a profound update to how they process the world around them. Adolescents are often considered bad decision-makers who are thrill-seekers. These myths, however, stem from young people's desire to display courage, which is valued across cultures - and adolescents constantly seek the emotional satisfaction of being admired. In fact, Dahl said that adolescents take risks to overcome their fears, not seek them out.

"[Adolescents] are learning about the complex social world they must navigate, including the hierarchies, social rules for gaining acceptance and status, and the mystifying discovery of a sexual self," Dahl said. "This is a flexible period for goal engagement, and the main part of what's underneath what we think about setting goals in conscious ways - the bottom-up-based pull to feel motivated toward things."

Adding to the confusion over how best to respond to adolescents is a wave of research showing children around the world are entering puberty at younger ages. One report found that in the 1860s, puberty for girls began at age 16. In the 1950s, it occurred at 13. Today it's closer to eight years old. The transition for boys is similar, according to the report. The earlier onset of these pronounced biological changes puts pressure on educators and parents to update their expectations for what it means to be young, and how youth plays into adulthood.

"This is an interesting potential opportunity, with the longer time to learn activated motivational systems, longer time to increase skills and develop patterns of developing knowledge," Dahl said. "If kids grow up in opportune settings, they can take advantage of the scaffolding and freedom to go on to take adult roles. But the risks are probably more amplified than opportunities for kids in disadvantaged settings."

It's still unclear how the earlier development happening in children might create other sets of challenges, Dahl noted, but it's evident that it's a key development window of motivational learning, a time when the brain more intensely senses motivational feelings, strengthening the patterns of connections to heartfelt goals, and creates potential for deep, sustained learning.

This period of learning is exemplified by even the forbidden love of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The young couple is brought together by a single brief encounter, after which all mental processes of planning, goals, motivations, longing, and desire are transformed. They begin to obsess over reuniting, and would sacrifice anything - including comfort, safety, family, and friends - to be together again.

Without the context that adolescents' motives can explode entirely by the spark of a single passion, Romeo and Juliet's story would be one of utter insanity, Dahl said. But adolescents' abilities to rapidly reshape motivations and goals both supports their emotional volatility as well as presents a key period to find love - not necessarily romantically for others, but for academic activities and goals.

"With the feelings that pull you to persevere, maybe [adolescence is] a particularly opportune time to fall in love with learning itself, to love that feeling of exploring," Dahl said. "There's a new window to create that 'Yes!' feeling."
This story was written for the Education Writers Association and originally appeared there.

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Why Identity and Emotion are Central To Motivating the Teen Brain

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"This is a flexible period for goal engagement, and the main part of what's underneath what we think about setting goals in conscious ways - the bottom-up-based pull to feel motivated toward things.'

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WELLNESS, HEALTH