Teaching for the 21st CenturyJustin Reich

EdTechTeacher.org

Co-Director

Berkman Center for Internet and Society

Fellow

Why Change?

Skills for 21st Century Work and Life:

The New Division of LaborRichard J. Murnane

Harvard Graduate School of Education

All Males

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The data on w hich this graph is based w as provided by Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute. The data come from the Current Population Survey. The sample includes all w age and salary w orkers, age 18-64.

Men's real hourly wage by education, 1979-2006 (2006 $)

Computerizing Routine Tasks: Self-Service Check-In

Types of Tasks Computers Do Not Well

Tasks that cannot be described well as a series of if-then-do steps because:

•The boundaries of the problem are ill-defined•Solving the problem requires imagining novel solutions

•We learn to define the task and accomplish it through social interactions

Economy-Wide Measures of Routine and Non-Economy-Wide Measures of Routine and Non-Routine Task Input: 1969-1998 (1969=0)Routine Task Input: 1969-1998 (1969=0)

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Complex Communication

Expert Thinking

Routine Manual

Routine Cognitive

Changes in Task Mix Within Occupations: Example: Secretary

• 1970 description of a secretary’s job:

“Secretaries relieve their employers of routine duties so they can work on more important matters. . . .”

• 2000 description of a secretary’s job:

“. . . Office automation and organizational restructuring have led secretaries to assume a wide range of new responsibilities once reserved for managerial and professional staff. Many secretaries now provide training and orientation to new staff, conduct research on the Internet, and learn to operate new office technologies.” Source: U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Handbook

One of these things is not like the other…

What was the date of battle of the Spanish Armada?

Student 1: 1588.

Q. How do you know this?

It was one of the dates I memorized for the exam.

Q. Why is the event important?

I don’t know.

Student 2: It must have been around 1590.

Q. How do you know this?

I know the English began to settle in Virginia just after 1600, although I’m not sure of the exact date. They wouldn't have dared start overseas explorations if Spain still had control of the seas. It would have taken a little while to get expeditions organized, so England must have gained naval supremacy somewhere in the late 1500's.

Q. Why is the event important?

It marks a turning point in the relative importance of England and Spain as European powers and colonizers of the New World.

 

This example is taken from Bransford, Brown and Cocking (eds.)

A Homework Question• Examine the homework that teachers in your school

typically assign:

– Does the homework push students to develop expert thinking skills (non-routine problem solving)

– What about communication skills?– Or does the homework ask students to do the kind of rules-

based tasks that computers can be programmed to do?

• The answer may tell you a lot about the types of jobs your school is preparing students to do.

Participation and Engagement

“I never realized what little regard my students had for my opinion until I started

having them turn their work into one another”

– 8th grade science teacher

Teaching in the 21st Century• Challenge: The cognitive demands of the labor market

and civic sphere are higher than at any time in U.S. history– Expert Thinking– Complex Communication– New Media Literacy

• Opportunity: Networked technologies allow students to rehearse these 21st century skills in the same online environments that define 21st century economic and civic life (Bonus: students find those environments engaging)

Why not change?

Why not change?• For the past 40 years, our department has

done a great job preparing students. Why should we risk all that we have gained by changing our approach?

Either/Orvs.

Both/And

Why not change?• Technology changes so fast. If we try to

teach them any particular technology, it will be obsolete within a few years.

Why not change?• These kids know so much more about

technology than I do, and it never works the way I expect it to. If I use more technology, I’m going to lose control.

Why Change?• I could really get in trouble if my students

did something bad with the Internet

OFSTED Report• Ofsted inspectors visited 33 primary and secondary schools, a special

school and a pupil referral unit and found e-safety was outstanding in five, good in 16, satisfactory in 13 and inadequate in one.

• Blocking pupils' access to unsuitable websites does not encourage them to take responsibility for their safety online, Ofsted inspectors say.

• "Managed" online systems were more successful than "locked" ones at safeguarding pupils' safety, they said.

• Where the provision for e-safety was outstanding, the schools had managed rather than locked down systems

Full Report

Why not change?• As a teacher, I’m evaluated on the

percentage of my students who pass their MCAS tests. I don’t see how integrating technology helps me improve reading comprehension or computational skills.

It’s the hardest work I ever undertaken in my career. We’re trying to effect change in scale, and we have to “play on two playing fields” at once. We’re still being judged by the criteria for “Adequate Yearly Progress” and state accountability standards, while we are holding ourselves to a much higher standard. We have to succeed at both. It’s hard work, but it’s the right work to be doing.- Jim Merrill, Superintendent of Virginia Beach Public Schools (in Wagner, Global Achievement Gap)