1. Getting and Assessing 21st Century Knowledge and Skills
Bob Pearlman Director of Strategic Planning, New Technology Foundation
Building Learning Communities Conference
July 21, 2004 1

2. What knowledge and skills do students need for the 21st Century?

3. SCANS Workplace Know-How (1991)
Competencies – effective workers can productively use:
Resources -- identifying, organizing, planning, and allocating time, money, materials, and workers;
Interpersonal Skills -- negotiating, exercising leadership, working with diversity, teaching others new skills, serving clients and customers, and participating as a team member;
Information Skills -- using computers to process information and acquiring and evaluating, organizing and maintaining, and interpreting and communicating information;
Systems Skills -- understanding systems, monitoring and correcting system performance, and improving and designing systems; and
Technology utilization skills -- selecting technology, applying technology to a task, and maintaining and troubleshooting technology.
Source: What Work Requires of School, 1991, Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, U.S. Department of Labor

4. SCANS Workplace Know-How (1991)
The Foundation – competence requires:
Basic Skills -- reading, writing, speaking, listening, and knowing arithmetic and mathematical concepts;
Thinking Skills -- reasoning, making decisions, thinking creatively, solving problems, seeing things in the mind's eye, and knowing how to learn; and
Personal Qualities -- responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management, integrity, and honesty.

5. Job Outlook 2002, National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE)

6. Working in the Real World (i.e. California?)
Projects, projects, projects
Teamwork and collaboration
Self-direction
Interpersonal skills and Networking
Project Management, Leadership
No one asks about your formal education

7. Released June 21, 2004 at NECC, New Orleans

12. So what does learning look like where students get 21st Century Knowledge and Skills?

13. How do we get them here?

14. Strategies that Make a Difference
Engagement
Hands-on
Adult connections
Internships
Real World immersion

15. 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.

16. PROJECT BASED LEARNING
PBL vs. Doing Projects
The Project is the Curriculum
Creating a “Need to Know”
Teacher Acts as a Coach
Focus on Skills (ESLRs)

17. The Buck Institute for Education TRAINING  DEVELOPMENT  RESEARCH
Novato, California
TRAINING  DEVELOPMENT  RESEARCH

18. Project Management Teamwork

19. Oral Communication/Presentation Exhibition Assessment and Feedback

20. 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

21. New Technology HS LEARNING OUTCOMES TECHNOLOGY LITERACY
COLLABORATION
CRITICAL THINKING
ORAL COMMUNICATION
WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
CAREER PREPARATION
CITIZENSHIP AND ETHICS
CURRICULAR LITERACY (CONTENT STANDARDS)

22. PROFESSIONAL PORTFOLIO LEARNING OUTCOMES
THE BIG PICTURE
PROFESSIONAL PORTFOLIO
REPORTING/STUDENT FEEDBACK
CURRICULAR UNITS (PBL)
EVALUATION RUBRICS
LEARNING OUTCOMES

23. 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?

24. The Project Briefcase allows teachers to put all project materials in one spot for easy student access and to share with other teachers.

25. All items are immediately and dynamically published to the web for access to the curriculum anywhere, anytime.

26. They include everything from the entry document that launches the project to the rubrics used to assess the student’s performance.

27. Teachers can easily lock items from the student view.

28. 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.

29. How can we help students stay on task and develop self-direction?
CHALLENGE
How can we help students stay on task and develop self-direction?

30. The Course Agenda helps keep complicated projects organized.

31. Teachers enter activities for each day including links to resources and homework assignments.

32. Like the other tools, this agenda also publishes to the web for students and parents to view anywhere they have a web connection.

33. CHALLENGE
How can we better hold students accountable for their collaboration skills while working in a group?

34. At the end of each project, students evaluate their group members using this collaboration rubric database.

35. Students submit evaluations using a standardized rubric for the whole school.

36. 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.

37. 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.

38. CHALLENGE
How can we capture evidence for skills such as Oral Communication so that students have something to put on their portfolios?

39. 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.

40. The evaluations are accessible from the web after the student has marked the evaluation “public”.

41. CHALLENGE
How can we give students and parents clear feedback on student performance that better reflects our authentic assessment practices?

42. ?
What do traditional teachers do with a major research paper that has been turned in late?

43. ASSESSMENT B+
More than likely, the teacher will take off points for each day the paper is late.

44. ASSESSMENT B+
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. C-

46. 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.
NTH GRADEBOOK
Sample Student
Spelling and Grammar
Critical Thinking
Content
Work Ethic
Research Paper 38 / 50 42 / 50 18 / 20 50 /
100 / / / / / / / /

48. CHALLENGE
How can we give students a way to demonstrate their proficiency on the learning outcomes and then how can we assess them?

50. 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”

51. The Professional Portfolio is the capstone of the NTHS Learning System
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.

52. TOOLS: DIGITAL PORTFOLIO GUIDELINES
These guidelines provide structure around what is otherwise a student-managed collection of projects, evaluations, and documents organized into a web site.

53. What is the Learning System?
DIGITAL PORTFOLIO
CURRICULUM LIBRARY
NTHS GRADEBOOK
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.
COMMUNICATION TOOLS
COLLABORATION EVALUATOR
DISCUSSION BULLETIN BOARDS
STUDENT DATA COLLECTION

54. Reinventing the Secondary School Experience
Personalization
Projects
Exhibitions
Digital Portfolios
Internships
Technology

55. PROFESSIONAL PORTFOLIO LEARNING OUTCOMES
THE BIG PICTURE
PROFESSIONAL PORTFOLIO
REPORTING/STUDENT FEEDBACK
CURRICULAR UNITS (PBL)
EVALUATION RUBRICS
LEARNING OUTCOMES

57. Bob Pearlman bobpearlman@mindspring.org http://www.bobpearlman.org
"New Ingredient for Student Success: Social Networks"
“Reinventing the High School Experience“