_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Getting and Assessing 21 st Century Knowledge and Skills PowerPoint Slides at Bob Pearlman 6th Annual Building Learning Communities Conference Boston, MA July 19, 2006

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills “Results That Matter: 21st Century Skills and High School Reform” Improving high schools requires the nation to redefine “rigor” to encompass not just mastery of core academic subjects, but also mastery of 21st century skills and content. Rigor must reflect all the results that matter for all high school graduates today. Today’s graduates need to be critical thinkers, problem solvers and effective communicators who are proficient in both core subjects and new, 21st century content and skills. These 21st century skills include learning and thinking skills, information and communications technology literacy skills, and life skills. -- March 24, 2006

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills What knowledge and skills do students need for the 21st Century?

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills SCANS U.S. Department of Labor Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills COMPETENCIES - Effective workers can productively use: Resources - allocating time, money, materials, space and staff. Interpersonal Skills - working on teams, teaching others, serving customers, leading, negotiating, and working well with people from culturally diverse backgrounds. Information - acquiring and evaluating data, organizing and maintaining files, interpreting and communication, and using computers to process information. Systems - understanding social, organizational and technological systems, monitoring and correcting performance, and designing or improving systems. Technology - selecting equipment and tools, applying technology to specific tasks, and maintaining and troubleshooting technologies. FOUNDATIONS - Competence requires: Basic Skills - reading, writing, arithmetic and mathematics, speaking and listening. Thinking Skills - thinking creatively, making decisions, solving problems, seeing things in the mind's eye, knowing how to learn, and reasoning. Personal Qualities - individual responsibilities, self-esteem, sociability, self-management, and integrity. 1992

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Released June 21, 2004 at NECC, New Orleans

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills So what does learning look like where students get 21 st Century Knowledge and Skills?

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills At the core is a student centered, project and problem based teaching strategy that is tied to both content standards and school wide learning outcomes.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Project- and Problem-Based Learning Keys to 21st Century Learning To learn collaboration, work in teams. To learn critical thinking, take on complex problems. To learn oral communication, present. To learn written communication, write. To learn technology, use technology. To develop citizenship, take on civic and global issues. To learn about careers, do internships. To learn content, research and do all of the above. Teachers start each unit by throwing students into a realistic or real-world project that both engages interest and generates a list of things the student need to know. Projects are designed to tackle complex problems, requiring critical thinking. The strategy for 21 st Century Learning is simple:

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Each unit begins when students are presented with a complex, standards-based problem Students form a team, develop a work contract and build a work plan

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Students get to work! Students are provided an online briefcase specific to the project with information, resources, links and assessment criteria that help guide them.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Students Need To Know Student questions and “need to knows” drive classroom lectures and activities. Sometimes for the whole class … sometime for just one student

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Students experiment and apply learning Students test their ideas and experiment to find solutions and breakthroughs while receiving ongoing feedback from instructors.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Students get back to work! Students work and collaborate in a business-like environment, where they know their deliverables and have the technology tools to do their jobs.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Students prepare to present Students work on building presentations to repre- sent their work and defend their solutions

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Students present their solutions! Students present ideas through debates, skits, panels, presentations, etc… where their work is evaluated by peers, teachers, parents, and community

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills PBL EXAMPLE PRESIDENT’S DILEMMA

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills MORE PBL EXAMPLES Moongames Students are commissioned by TOYCO and NASA to create or modify games played on earth to work on Lunar colonies. Using Newton’s three laws and a lot of math, students consider issues like the height of a basketball hoop in low gravity conditions.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills MORE PBL EXAMPLES Together We Stand Welcome new interns! As you may already know, the Solano, Napa and Partners Library Consortium is organizing a major exhibit on the Great Depression. It will be called Together We Stand. Our goal is to show in words and pictures that the 1930s provided America with its greatest test of character. Up to one- third of all Americans were out of work by the early part of the decade. Different groups were especially hard hit, including women, children and minorities. Because we live in such a diverse area, both racially and economically, we want to create an exhibit that touches the hearts and minds of all people.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills PBL SUMMARY The project drives the curriculum by creating a need for the students to know the content. Students work more autonomously on real or realistic work that has high stakes. Evaluation is made more authentic with performance based measurements and is often conducted with the help of non-teachers.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills The Buck Institute for Education Novato, California TRAINING DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Project Management Teamwork

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Oral Communication/Presentation Exhibition Assessment and Feedback

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills PLAN THE ASSESSMENT What student product(s) could demonstrate that the student’s have learned what you wanted them to learn?

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills PLAN THE ASSESSMENT FINAL PRODUCTS SUB-ASSIGNMENTS PROCESS DOCUMENTS

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills THE FINAL PRODUCT Final Products Should… require students to understand, synthesize, and apply the project’s outcomes. exemplify project outcomes in an authentic way. be relevant and interesting to students. give students the opportunity to demonstrate and reflect on their learning. require craftsmanship and artful composition. be relatively easy to assess. Be sure the product can actually demonstrate that the student mastered the skills and content required.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills PLAN THE ASSESSMENT FINAL PRODUCTS SUB-ASSIGNMENTS PROCESS DOCUMENTS SCAFFOLDING

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills SUB ASSIGNMENTS - Scaffolding REMINDER… PBL methodology does not exclude the use of traditional assignments like homework, journals, research, or event note taking. BUT…these traditional assignments should have context within the larger project. Students should see a clear connection between the assignment and the project.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills SUB ASSIGNMENTS - Scaffolding Consider developing final products that are built in stages to provide checkpoints… Proposals Outlines Plans Blueprints Drafts Edited drafts Models Revised drafts Product critiques Product tryouts

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills PROCESS DOCUMENTATION Group work contracts Roles and duties of group members Student generated task or “to do” lists Project calendar Group progress reports Student time cards

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills DEVELOP ASSESSMENT RUBRICS Design rubrics for content AND broader learning outcomes. Rubrics should articulate the various performance levels. Rubrics MUST be handed out in the early stages of the project when they can be used to set expectations.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills New Technology High School Napa, California  Integrating technology into every class  Interdisciplinary and project-based  Internship class consisting of classroom curriculum and unpaid work in technology, business or education  Digital Portfolio

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills New Technology HS LEARNING OUTCOMES TECHNOLOGY LITERACY COLLABORATION CRITICAL THINKING ORAL COMMUNICATION WRITTEN COMMUNICATION CAREER PREPARATION CITIZENSHIP AND ETHICS CURRICULAR LITERACY (CONTENT STANDARDS)

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills THE BIG PICTURE LEARNING OUTCOMES EVALUATION RUBRICS CURRICULAR UNITS (PBL) REPORTING/STUDENT FEEDBACK PROFESSIONAL PORTFOLIO

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills CHALLENGE PBL instruction is not as linear as traditional instruction. How can we organize our project materials for student access, action, self- direction, and project management?

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills The Project Briefcase allows teachers to put all project materials in one spot for easy student access and to share with other teachers.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills All items are immediately and dynamically published to the web for access to the curriculum anywhere, anytime.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills They include everything from the entry document that launches the project to the rubrics used to assess the student’s performance.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Teachers can easily lock items from the student view.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Teachers can easily lock items from the student view. The Briefcase holds individual project documents. It can contain text, images, web links, and links to other NTH tools.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills CHALLENGE How can we help students stay on task and develop self-direction?

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills The Course Agenda helps keep complicated projects organized.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Teachers enter activities for each day including links to resources and homework assignments.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Like the other tools, this agenda also publishes to the web for students and parents to view anywhere they have a web connection.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills CHALLENGE How can we better hold students accountable for their collaboration skills while working in a group?

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills At the end of each project, students evaluate their group members using this collaboration rubric database.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Students submit evaluations using a standardized rubric for the whole school.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Students can view how their peers rated them (although the evaluations are anonymous). Teachers can view, edit, and delete evaluations as necessary. They can also print a report that averages the evaluations for a given project.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills The evaluations are accessible on the web. Students have the option to “publish” the evaluations for use as evidence of their collaboration skills. This is the key to allowing students to demonstrate their performance of our learning outcomes.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills CHALLENGE How can we capture evidence for skills such as Oral Communication so that students have something to put on their portfolios?

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills The Presentation Database is a place to record and display evaluations of student performance on presentations. Collecting data on our learning outcomes is critical for the student’s Professional Portfolio.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills The evaluations are accessible from the web after the student has marked the evaluation “public”.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills CHALLENGE How can we give students and parents clear feedback on student performance that better reflects our authentic assessment practices?

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills What do traditional teachers do with a major research paper that has been turned in late?

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills More than likely, the teacher will take off points for each day the paper is late. ASSESSMENT

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills More than likely, the teacher will take off points for each day the paper is late. As soon as the teacher puts that lowered grade in the grade book, we lose important data about the skills and abilities of the student. ASSESSMENT

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Using the NTH Gradebook, teachers can enter multiple grades for each assignment. They can accurately record that the paper was late without losing data on how well the student understood the content. Research Paper3850 / / / Spelling and Grammar 4250 / / / Content 1820 / / / Critical Thinking / / / Work Ethic Sample Student NTH GRADEBOOK

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills CHALLENGE How can we give students a way to demonstrate their proficiency on the learning outcomes and then how can we assess them?

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills The resulting portfolios are as diverse as the student body but with similar layouts and organization to aid in evaluation by staff and community members. To see student portfolios under construction… Go to and click on “Students and Parents”

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills The Professional Portfolio is the capstone of the NTHS Learning System. NTHS’s entire curriculum serves eight overall learning outcomes. In their portfolios, students demonstrate their proficiency in all eight outcomes.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills These guidelines provide structure around what is otherwise a student-managed collection of projects, evaluations, and documents organized into a web site.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills COMMUNICATION TOOLS STUDENT DATA COLLECTION CURRICULUM LIBRARY DIGITAL PORTFOLIO NTHS GRADEBOOK COLLABORATION EVALUATOR DISCUSSION BULLETIN BOARDS What is the Learning System? The NTH Learning System ™ is a set of tools and technologies that support a student-centered, project- and problem-based learning environment.

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills

_Macros Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills Bob Pearlman