21st Century Classroom or 21st Century Learning- Tracy Weber

21st Century Classroom or 21st Century Learning- Tracy Weber

Session Wiki

Conversation Description:

Purpose: To encourage educators to plan their classrooms from a learning perspective rather than from a tools perspective. Don’t buy the tool and then figure out how to use it. Instead, figure out what learning should look like, and then focus on obtaining the tools to create that vision. Process: We’ll begin by examining 21^st century classrooms from a tools focused perspective and comparing that to industrial age classrooms. “Has anything really changed?” Participants will share in small groups the challenges and successes they’ve had as they attempted to morph their schools into modern age learning environments. Then we’ll work in small groups to respond to the key question: “What should teaching and learning look like in the twenty-first century?” After groups have formulated a response, we’ll share these as a whole group and formulate a single response. Finally, groups will be asked to consider the tools that are really needed to obtain that vision. Each component of our final response will be given to a different discussion group and they’ll be asked to plan the technology that would fulfill a specific teaching and learning need. Those responses will be shared in a whole group setting.

Teachers goal is often to figure out how to use the tech tools to teach the same things that they taught before.  What technologies do we put in the classroom to help teachers change

Participants were divided into 4 groups, each group brainstormed four different questions and documented conversation on the wiki.

1. How are students different today than they were 20 years ago?
2. How are classrooms and schools today different than they were 20 years ago?
3. How is the world different today than it was 20 years ago? Specifically, what skills and capacities do our students need to be successful contributors in the modern world?
4. How are teachers different than they were 20 years ago?

They then split up to form 4 different groups and report their finding from first group.

Each individual group then comes up with their conclusion of the discussion to the question:

What should 21st century learning and learning environments look like? What tools contribute to that goal?

1. Group 1 Conclusions
2. Group 2 Conclusions
3. Group 3 Conclusions
4. Group 4 Conclusions