Disciplining and drafting, or 21 st century learning? Rachel Bolstad and Jane Gilbert New Zealand Council for Educational Research

R. Bolstad & J. Gilbert (2008) Disciplining and drafting or 21st century learning? Rethinking the New Zealand senior secondary curriculum for the future. NZCER Press: Wellington © NZCER Metaphor 1: A forked river

R. Bolstad & J. Gilbert (2008) Disciplining and drafting or 21st century learning? Rethinking the New Zealand senior secondary curriculum for the future. NZCER Press: Wellington © NZCER Metaphor 2: A braided river

R. Bolstad & J. Gilbert (2008) Disciplining and drafting or 21st century learning? Rethinking the New Zealand senior secondary curriculum for the future. NZCER Press: Wellington © NZCER Metaphor 3: A braided river with campground for “drowning” students

R. Bolstad & J. Gilbert (2008) Disciplining and drafting or 21st century learning? Rethinking the New Zealand senior secondary curriculum for the future. NZCER Press: Wellington © NZCER Metaphor 4: A networked campground

R. Bolstad & J. Gilbert (2008) Disciplining and drafting or 21st century learning? Rethinking the New Zealand senior secondary curriculum for the future. NZCER Press: Wellington © NZCER Metaphor 4: A networked campground

21 st century learning – what does it look like? 20th century learning Industrial Age 21st century learning Knowledge Age Learning = instruction acquiring information, building knowledge (bit by bit), ‘filling up’ with knowledge; Accumulation of knowledge-based credentials – basics first (literacy, numeracy); One size fits all; Disciplined, passive learners; Screening and sorting; Building learning capacity, learning dispositions, lifelong learning, learning how to learn (L2L); Competencies; Doing things with knowledge; Personalised learning; Active, engaged learners; Everyone must achieve – we can’t keep allowing the system to produce “failures/rejects”

21 st century learning – what does it look like? 20th century learning Industrial Age 21st century learning Knowledge Age Independent work on teacher- generated tasks; Ritualised solving of teacher- generated problems; Teacher main source of knowledge; General intellectual skills developed implicitly via exposure to the traditional disciplines; Teachers and students generating new knowledge together; Real-world, authentic, learner- generated learning tasks; Real world problem-solving; Foregrounding of general intellectual skills - analysing, synthesising, creative thinking, practical thinking, ethical thinking;

21 st century learning – what does it look like? 20th century learning Industrial Age 21st century learning Knowledge Age Separate subjects /disciplines; Emphasis on ‘left brain’ thinking - logical, analytic, detail- focussed; disciplined rule-following, respect for authority; knowledge in ‘bits and pieces’ The “independent scholar” Interdisciplinary focus; ‘ Left brain’ thinking necessary but not sufficient ; ‘Right brain’ thinking - aesthetic, synthesising, big picture, contextual, simultaneous thinking, thinking ‘outside the square’; People, relationship, teamwork skills & EQ;

21 st century learning – what does it look like? 20th century learning Industrial Age 21st century learning Knowledge Age Deep knowledge of a few authoritative sources; Understanding the views of others; Producing clones; Preparing for a known future. ‘International-mindedness’, cross- cultural knowledge, knowledge of more than one language; Ability to access, process, manage, and evaluate large amounts of information; Ability to form and defend views (intellectual adulthood); Producing ‘clades’; Preparing for an unknown future.

R. Bolstad & J. Gilbert (2008) Disciplining and drafting or 21st century learning? Rethinking the New Zealand senior secondary curriculum for the future. NZCER Press: Wellington © NZCER Metaphor 4: A networked campground