With all of the high-tech gadgetry cascading into our lives, you might have thought this book would be bout teaching students how to use technology. In my view, the use of technology in the classroom is not

the critical issue facing us in education in the 21st century.

The issue of foremost importance is to develop thinking skills in our students so that they will be able to utilize the power of technological tools to solve problems and to do useful work.

People who possess technology skills but lack independent problem solving skills are useless until someone tells them what to do. The use of technology needs to be taught along with the higher-level thinking skills required to solve problems. People with these independent problem solving skills plus technology proficiency will have great power and will be effective, productive participants in families,

communities, and businesses...what students need first and foremost are effective thinking skills.

Teaching for Tomorrow pg. 84

In our schools we must…

Resist the temptation to tell

Problems first, teaching second

Progressively withdraw from helping students

Reevaluate evaluation

Stop teaching decontextualized content

Stop giving students the final product of our thinking

Ted McCain

So What Could a 21st Century ClassroomLook Like?

11

UDL Paradigm Shift: How UDL changes the way we think

about students and education

Old Assumptions New Assumptions

Instructional adjustments need to be made for at risk students.

Learning is centered on a single text book.

The problem is with the student – remediate, remediate, remediate…

Instructional adjustments need to be made for all learners.

Learning materials are varied, digital.

The solution is within the learning environment. A flexible learning environment adapts to the needs of all students.

Center for Applied Special Technologies, CAST www.cast.org

Students who learn differently constitute a separate category.

Students who learn differently fall along a continuum of learner differences.

Exponential Change

Jobs/Careers* Our Students Will Have

Nuclear Pharmaceuticals

Injectable Tissue Engineer

Mechatronics (smart controlled actuators).

Grid computing

Molecular imaging

Nanoimprinting Lithography

Software assurance

Glyconics

Quantum cryptography

Agriceuticals and Biopharmaceuticals

Designer optics

Skills for the 21st Century

Cooperative Learning and Perseverance

Critical and creative thinking

Digital literacy/information literacy

Inquiry (think like a scientist)- enlightened skepticism

Problem solving

Decision making

A Vision of K-12 Students Today

..\21st century learners 2008 versions and materials\TeacherTube _ A Vision

of K_12 Students Today.wmv

Where to from here?

• “So if we know all of this why aren’t we changing?”

• What do you see in classrooms today that gives you hope?

• What questions do you have and who will answer them?

Sid Shugarmansid.shugarman@epsb.ca780 4298220