Assessment & Teaching of 21st Century Skills

As we started researching 21st Century Assessment and Learning Environments, we discovered this organization (Assessment & Teaching of 21st Century Skills). The six founding country-members include:

• Australia
• Finland
• Portugal
• Singapore
• United Kingdom
• United States of America

The organization aim is to create clear, operational definitions of 21st Century skills, assist in creating assessments of such skills, and provide classroom-based strategies for teaching these skills. The project was designed by personnel representing Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft and is housed at the University of Melbourne.

Of particular interest to us were the white papers they have created over the past year. They include: 21st Century Skills, Methodological Issues, Technological Issues, Classroom Learning Environments and Formative Evaluation, and Policy Frameworks for New Assessments. I must admit that I have only started to read these papers; however, from what I have read, they provide compelling arguments for re-creating our learning environments so that the curricula and structure of the schools meets the needs of preparing students for the 21st Century.

A couple key terms we read include: knowledge creating environments, constructivist (as well as inquiry-based, project based learning, discovery learning, etc.).