21st Century Competencies,

Environments, and Assessments

Marlene Scardamalia

University of Toronto, OISE

Canada

The Organization for Economic

Co-operation and Development

(OECD) has started referring to

contemporary societies as

“innovation-driven.”

Governments Everywhere

Calling for Innovation

…new ideas are essential to the

development of human capital and are key

engines of economic growth, drivers of

market productivity, and sources of

cohesion for all nations… …

(G8summit, 2006)

The Centre for Educational Innovation: …

generate innovation, make the school system

easier to understand and organize evidence

which contributes to policymaking

on education in Chile.

Innovation is not just about

new ways to make money

Innovation is needed for economic progress,

but…

--The need for new knowledge, new solutions,

extends well beyond the economic sphere.

--New knowledge is needed to deal with urgent

and increasingly complex problems of health,

environment, resources, crime, corruption, and

oppression (Homer-Dixon (2000, 2006).

--One of the most pressing needs is for

knowledge of how to deal with complexity itself.

How Can Schools Increase People’s

Ability to Create Knowledge?

A mid-20th century answer: Develop skills, personal characteristics, habits of mind, and attitudes conducive to knowledge creation.

There are no tested or even very plausible ways of achieving these objectives.

The Knowledge Building alternative: Learn to create knowledge by actually doing it.

This requires finding ways to support novices in carrying out knowledge creation.

Education in its largest sense means

initiating students into the world-wide

knowledge-creating culture.

This is neither cultural transmission nor

importing of a foreign culture. It is more

like cultural nurturance.

Culturally Sensitive Innovation

A Humanistic Perspective on

Education for Innovation

Knowledge building represents an attempt

to refashion education in a fundamental

way, so that it becomes a coherent effort

to initiate students into a knowledge

creating culture. Accordingly, it involves

students not only developing knowledge

building competencies but also students

coming to see themselves and their work

as part of the civilization-wide effort to

advance knowledge frontiers.

Knowledge Building

• Sustained creative work with ideas

• Beyond the basic literacies

• Beyond common curriculum standards and tests

• Transliteracy (coherent integration of information drawn from diverse sources)

• “Innovation must be part and parcel of the ordinary” (Drucker, 1985)

Education for Innovation Challenges

• basics must be addressed before students can be engaged in higher-order skills; and

• higher-order skills must be tackled by working backward from pre-determined goals

Success will Depend on Challenging a

set of Widely-Held Principles

• Innovate from the beginning, learn basics in the process

• Beyond an effort to keep abreast of advancing knowledge to contributing to its advancement

• Beyond cultural replication and lifelong learning to lifelong innovation

Beyond Learning to Knowledge

Building

First-Order Challenge:

Shift from Environments that

Undermine Creative Work with Ideas

to Environments that Foster

Knowledge Creation

Ideas at the Center/Knowledge Building seen Through the Transliteracy Lens

• Idea diversity -> ideas in complex configurations; need to deal with complexity

• Idea improvement -> information beyond given resources and grade level; search/read to solve problems; design research

• Multiple information sources -> need to analyze authoritative source information

• Complex discourse -> need to deal with metadiscourse and promising ideas

• Multiple explanations -> need support for explanatory coherence/rise above

• Technology Innovation: Next-generation knowledge building environments and assessments that advance “the basics” and 21st century competencies in parallel, and on a large scale

• Social Innovation: Policy makers, teachers, and students alike sharing responsibility for educational breathroughs

Second-Order Challenges Require

Innovations that Address Unsolved

Problems

Unsolved Problems

• The rich get richer challenge

• Collective responsibility for idea improvement

• Next-generation knowledge building environments and assessments that advance “the basics” and 21st century competencies in parallel, and on a large scale

Unsolved Problems

• The rich get richer challenge

• Collective responsibility for idea improvement

• Next-generation knowledge building environments and assessments that advance “the basics” and 21st century competencies in parallel, and on a large scale

Unsolved Problems

• The rich get richer challenge

• Collective responsibility for idea improvement

• Next-generation knowledge building environments and assessments that advance “the basics” and 21st century competencies in parallel, and on a large scale

The Rich Get Richer Challenge

The more you know the more you

can learn. This is as close to a law of

nature as learning research has

come.

Knowledge

Divide

Divide

Divide

Technology

Knowledge Creation

knowledge

inequities

magnified

technology

inequities

magnified

ingenuity

inequities

magnified

Learning--> Knowledge Building The Rich Get Richer

Unsolved Problems

• The rich get richer challenge

• Collective responsibility for idea improvement

• Next-generation knowledge building environments and assessments that advance “the basics” and 21st century competencies in parallel, and on a large scale

Collective Responsibility for Idea

Improvement

Students as part of a civilization-wide effort

to advance knowledge frontiers.

If compelled to put into one sentence

what is different:

giving students collective

responsibility for idea improvement

Knowledge Building: What is

Different?

--Beyond Inquiry: Education for Innovation

With most inquiry approaches,

responsibility for idea improvement

remains with the teacher or curriculum or

educational technology designer

Knowledge Building: What is

Different?

Taking responsibility for

idea improvement

To take over such responsibility, students have to

recognize that their own ideas, like ideas in

general, are subject to improvement.

Ideas must be treated as having an out-in-the-

world existence.

They are not equivalent to personal beliefs but

are more like the theories and inventions that

have a public life in knowledge-based

organizations and societies.

Traditional school: An idea--you get it or you

don’t get it... It’s right or wrong.

Knowledge Building--You research…the

more you know the more you know what

you don’t know

Establish Knowledge Building Discourse as a New Norm

This requires connected knowledge building communities—policy makers, teachers, students…all taking responsibility for educational breakthroughs

Shared Responsibility for establishing Hubs of Innovation

The Building Cultural Capacity for

Innovation (BCCI) Vision

Building cultural capacity for innovation, starting

in early childhood and making use of all cultural

resources both in and out of school

Young people as junior members of a knowledge-

creating civilization

One civilization, many cultures

Symposium—Saturday, 4:15

Building Cultural Capacity for

Innovation

The potential for collective responsibility for

idea improvement--is in the culture, not the

technology, and yet technological

innovation is essential

Unsolved Problems

• The rich get richer challenge

• Collective responsibility for idea improvement

• Next-generation knowledge building environments and assessments that advance “the basics” and 21st century competencies in parallel, and on a large scale

Next-Generation Knowledge Building Environments:

Two intertwined lines of development

1. Multi-purpose , multimedia online environments that capture discourse across media and space, support meaningful learning, and are optimized for sustained creative work with ideas.

2. Sophisticated assessment tools that provide feedback to advance “the basics” and 21st century competencies in parallel and on a large scale

Embedded, Concurrent, and

Transformative Assessment:

Current Tools and Findings

Research Results: Span Basics + 21st C

--Standardized test scores in reading

comprehension, vocabulary, and spelling

--Ability to read difficult texts

--Quality of questions and comments

--Depth of explanation

--Graphical literacy

--Conceptual change

--Math problem solving

--Portfolio commentaries

--Collaborative processes

--Inquiry processes

--Results beyond grade-level expectations

--Emergence of new competencies

Next Steps: Innovation ~ Idea

Improvement ~ “Rise Above”

--Producing new ideas is easy (at least for children);

improving ideas is hard. We need to make the process

more intellectually engaging over longer spans of time

and for a broader range of students

--“Rise-above” requires creation of a new, higher order

knowledge object. We need to make advances—as well

as plateaus and dead ends—more evident to all

--Significant innovation requires sustained creative work

with ideas. We need greater support for pervasive

knowledge building

Visual from “The Birth of a Word” by Deb Roy

We are Designing a Dashboard for the

Assessment of “the Basics” and 21st

Century Competencies

Moving ideas to increasingly high levels: We

are experimenting with new metadiscourse and

promising ideas tools

A Workspace Dedicated to Ideas

Metadiscourse Tool

When I said that “you have to hold your hand in tight because the ball is pulling it

out” maybe that’s the same with the planets and the sun. Their orbit is throwing

them outwards but the suns gravity is keeping them in so the stay in the same orbit

instead of getting farther away.

And maybe that all the planets keep the sun ballanced so that it doesn’t just fallow

them outwards. (I read in a space magazine that they think they found some

planets on the other side of the Sun. Im not sure if that’s right) so maybe they pull

the other way the keep it in the same place.

Send to View Titled “SUN’S GRAVITY”

Their orbit is throwing them outwards but the suns gravity is

keeping them in

Promising Ideas Moved to Increasingly High Levels

Moving Ideas to increasingly high levels: We are

designing a “rise-above” interface to make

higher-order achievements evident to all

A Workspace Dedicated to Ideas

Notes on an Infinite Canvas

Rise Above and Going Deep to Identify Big Ideas

A Workspace Dedicated to Ideas

Rise Above and Connectedness Across Multi-

Level Knowledge Building Communities

Visual from “The Birth of a Word” by Deb Roy

A Workspace Dedicated to Ideas

Pervasive Knowledge Building

A Workspace Dedicated to Ideas

Pervasive Knowledge Building

A Workspace Dedicated to

Ideas

Symposium, Saturday, 4:15 Chair: Marlene Scardamalia (CANADA)

Carl Bereiter (CANADA)

David Istance (FRANCE)

Paula Jimenez (CHILE)

Cesar Nuñez (BRASIL)

Building Cultural Capacity for

Innovation