cais 21st century learning

Teaching & Learning in the 21st Century

Chase Collegiate SchoolJanuary 21, 2010

One of our favorite "Teaching Films"

Robin Williams as John Keating, Teaching Genius Extraordinaire

(...and we'll pretend that little suicide didn't happen...)

One of our favorite "Teaching Films"

The students react in wonder to a teacher who is out of the ordinary.

'Rip out pages of your book!"

"Stand on your desk!"

"Walk different!"

Reality is... we want this.

Active, engaged students, ready for...

... graphical design ...

... programming ...

... blogging ...

... photography ...

... animation ...

... presentation ...

... and above all, SHARING

And yet we're doing this...

Maybe we should imitate the CIA?

Pre-9/11/2001

oPre-1995 technologyoLarge amounts of paper analysisoNo search functionsoNo sharing of informationoLayers of secrecyoLargely Russo-centric/European theateroSlowoSolitary — most analysts worked alone

The intelligence community failed to connect the dots...but they had ALL the information they needed.

The Myth of the Solitary Educator

Keating wanted his students to succeed and to stand out.

The administrators wanted students to be quiet, respectful and orderly.

The Myth of the Solitary Educator

In a 21st century learning environment, those goals may not be compatible.

Standing out doesn't have to mean standing up, though.

It's a new kind of creativity

And there are times when it's noisy

And times when it's silent,                                     but data-driven

And times when it crosses school boundaries.

We have to make the leap the intelligence agencies made.

We have to adopt and adapt to the changes of a networked world.

Introduce yourself to three people   

• Trade business cards• Find out what they do• Tell them why you're here

• Write them a note after• Tell them what you got• Report on your successes

and your failures.

We need to know what's going on. We need to know what's not working. We need to evolve our best practices.

Network!

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

— Martin Luther King,Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963.