Innovation Workshop
Session 4:
21st Century
Learning
Dimensions
Session 4:21st Century
Learning Dimensions
By the end of this session you will:
• Know which six dimensions of 21st
Century Learning are worth aiming to
include in your Learning Activities
• Have a deeper understanding of
these dimensions
• Have looked at some Learning
Activities to see how they have
incorporated the dimensions.
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Which Learning Dimension s
do you think are the most
important? Which ones are the
most challenging to include?
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2
Collaboration
Students work together to…
• Discuss an issue
• Solve a problem
• Create a product
• Students share responsibility for the outcome –
they collectively own the process and the
product.
• Students make substantive (meaningful)
decisions – ones that shape the content and
product – with other people
Knowledge Construction
Happens when students:
• go beyond just reproducing
knowledge
• generate ideas and
understandings that are new to
them (at their age or level)
• interpret, analyse, synthesize,
or evaluate information or
ideas (use higher order
thinking skills)
These activities should take the bulk of the time and count for a
substantial portion of the marks in a true knowledge construction
activity.
Use of ICT
Do students use ICT to support knowledge
building? Is ICT necessary for the
knowledge building to take place?
Big ideas:
• Students use ICT to complete all or part of the learning activity.
• Use of ICT helps knowledge building to take place
• The activity would be impossible or impractical without the use of the ICT.
The teacher’s use of ICT to present materials does not count students need to have control over the ICT use themselves.
Would these activities be possible or
practical without ICT?
Grade 8 + 9s have got people from 11 countries
spending an hour each to record and upload stories
as MP3 files that can be played for blind children to
listen to. They are collecting stories in a range of
languages and across cultures.
Six and seven year olds collected eight tons of waste
in six weeks. They used social media to get the
message out and Skype to communicate. Using the
internet to research recycling, a wiki to collate
findings creating their own e-books generated
excitement and understanding for the recycling drive.
Grade ten learners used a cell phone app to plot
functions so that they could focus on analysing the
effects of changing the variables. Using the app
made it quick and easy to plot lots of functions – so
more time could be spent on the analysis.
Comparing two Learning
Activities: 5 minute activity!
Look at the two Learning Activities that involved
learners creating AutoCollages on the next slide
anddiscuss these questions in pairs
Knowledge Building
•
Which of the activities uses the AutoCollage activity to build knowledge?
Use of ICT
• Has each AutoCollage activity been an effective use of ICT as a teaching
tool?
Collaboration
• Are these projects collaborative? How could the teachers have made them
collaborative activities?
Lazily Learning
Learners watch their favorite television programs
and compare and contrast their conclusions with
learners from the United States. Secondly they
draw up time management tables and share
these. Thirdly they create posters and act out
puppet shows, dramas, poems and songs on
different subject content as alternative
entertainment to watching TV. Here learners
practice making an AutoCollage.
Mathe City Grade 5 learners built a model of ‘MATHECITY’ that integrated Geometry
content. Learners folded nets of 3D shapes to form buildings and decorated these using
tessellations created using MS Paint. Here an AutoCollage is used to start a discussion on
tessellations and then learners are required to make their own AutoCollage using photos of
tessellations that they photograph or find online.
Self-Regulation
Is the learning activity long-term? Do students plan and
assess their own work, and revise their work based on
feedback?
Self-regulation happens when
learners:
• Have at least a few lessons
to work on something
• Know the goals and criteria
(e.g. rubric) in advance
• plan their own work: who,
when, how, where
• Get feedback and can make
changes before final
submission
Skilled Communication
Are students required to communicate
their own ideas regarding a concept or
issue? Must their communication be
supported with evidence and designed
with a particular audience in mind?
Skilled-communication happens when learners:
• Produce extended communication (a video, a few paragraph,
a podcast – not a tweet or SMS)
• Produce multi-modal texts that are stronger than one form of
communication would be on its own (e.g. a photo in a blog
post, some text within a video)
• Provide evidence to support their claims
• Shape their text for a specific audience (e.g. their city council
or school SGB, not “people on the internet” or just the teacher.
Real-World Problem
Solving and Innovation
Does the learning activity require solving authentic,
real-world problems? Are students’ solutions
implemented in the real world?
Happens when learners:
• complete tasks for which they do
NOT already know a response or
solution
• work on solving real problems
• implement their ideas, designs or
solutions for audiences outside
the classroom
Comparing two Learning
Activities: 5 minute activity!
Look at the two Learning Activities that
involved learners using MovieMaker on the
next slide and discuss these questions in
pairs
Self-Regulation
•
How could these teachers have ensured some self-regulation in their
activities?
Skilled Communication
• Were the texts that were produced examples of skilled communication?
Real-World Problem Solving and Innovation
• Are the activities solving real problems? Could they have been implemented
and shared with an audience outside of the classroom?
How aware is our community about HIV/Aids?
Grade 9 students engage with the topic of
HIV/Aids by selecting an angle for their
research – anything including stigmas to
transmission to prevention. They were then
required to use Moviemaker to make an
infomercial that could be used to educate
others about their findings.
Fun with Class Music
Groups of grade sevens wrote stories and
selected songs to enhance their plots.
They performed the songs, recorded them
with their cell-phones and imported the
songs into their stories using Moviemaker.
They also viewed a soundless video clip
and added in the sound based on their
interpretation of the clip – learning how to
use music to manipulate mood.
20 minute activity:
Explore great 21CLD Learning Activities
•
In pairs or
groups of three
select one of
these sample
Learning
Activities to look
at.
•
Why is the
Learning Activity
a good example
of the Learning
Dimension it
represents?
•
What other
dimensions
does it do well?
See great 21CLD learning activity examples
Something to do after the workshop
Find out more about 21st Century Learning Design