FM-AA-CIA-15 Rev.

0 10-July-2020

Study Guide in PROF ED 110 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum
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STUDY GUIDE FOR MODULE NO. 3

Module 3 – Characteristics of 21st Century Teaching and Learning

MODULE OVERVIEW

If there is one thing that changed the world so fast, it is technology. While there exist
technology in the past as non-digital technology, the current digital technology has been a factor
that shrunk the world and made it flat. It has provided a new environment for learning, new ways
teachers teach and also the new ways of how learners learn. In the beginning, it has created a divide
between the digital natives and the digital immigrants. However, as the years go by, such a divide
has become narrower and even blurred. This has been triggered by technology and resulted to
better learning outcomes in the 21st century.
MODULE LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. identify and describe the characteristics of 21st Century teaching and learning
2. explain the implications of the characteristics on 21st century teaching and learning

MODULE
LEARNING LEARNING
CONTENTS OBJECTIVES
(title of the subsection)

Introduction
Schools need to adapt and develop new ways of teaching and learning that reflect a
changing world. The purpose of school should be to prepare students for success after graduation
and therefore schools need to prioritize the knowledge and skills that will be in the greatest demand,
such as those skills deemed to be most important by college professors and employers.

Characteristics of 21st century teaching and learning

New environment of learning
Education in the 21st century is characterized by, among others, innovative and
modern instructional methods, such as the use Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) in teaching. The new learning environment in the 21 st century also entails
more student-centered than teacher-centered instruction and teaching that goes beyond
rote memorization.
The 21st century will require knowledge generation, not just information delivery,,
and schools will need to create a “culture of inquiry.”
According to the 21st century fluency, learning in a student-centered setting can
optimize learning by way of stimulating the real experience, giving a talk, participating in a
discussion seeing it done on a location, watching a demonstration, looking at an exhibit,
watching a movie, viewing pictures, hearing words and reading.
Generally, the new school classroom environment is characterized by student
individually ot r in groups:
- performing computer word processing for text or graphs presentations
- preparing powerpoint presentation

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Study Guide in PROF ED 110 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum
Module No.__
- searching for information on the Internet
- brainstroming on ideas, problems and project plans as needed, the teacher
facilitating instruction also gives individualized instruction to serve individual needs

New content of learning.

Education in the 21st century is characterized by a shift from individual learning
towards cooperative learning; from subject knowledge towards intellectual abilities; from
separate subjects towards integration of subjects; and from supply-driven to demand-
driven curriculum.
Schools in the 21st century will be laced with a project-based curriculum for life
aimed at engaging students in addressing real-world problems, issues important to
humanity, and questions that matter. It means a new way of understanding the concept of
“knowledge”, a new definition of the “educated person”. A new way of designing and
delivering curriculum is required.
Accrediting organizations and regulatory bodies may require 21 st century skills to be
embedded and assessed in the curriculum. They may design or adopt learning standards
that explicitly describe cross-disciplinary skills and evaluate whether students have acquired
and mastered certain skills.

New process of learning.

Learning in the 21st century is no longer confined to formal academic settings;
acquiring knowledge and skills becomes a lifelong endeavor through formal and informal
means, such as online learning modalities and hands-on experiential learning like
internships.
The systems in schools operation have considerably changed. The key difference is
that the emerging technologies have paved the way in employing new set of tools to apply
to the multi-faceted tasks that our students confront in every learning task.
The core of John Dewey’s philosophy is learning by doing. Teachers don’t want to
teach the theories and principles alone but to apply these learnings in their daily life.
With all the varied resources available today, the learners get closer to the sources of
information that they could before. The stress on problem-solving and critical thinking is
really vital in the teaching-learning process. Group work and social skills play a vital role in
the functioning of a globalized economy. The students need to learn through collaborative
learning projects.
Teachers maybe more intense in teaching cross-disciplinary skills in subject are
courses such as integrating research methods that can be applied in various disciplines;
articulate technical scientific concepts in verbal, written and graphic forms; present
laboratory results to a panel of specialists or use sophisticated technologies, software
programs and multimedia applications as an extension of an assigned project.
Likewise, schools and teachers may use new educational approaches and
instructional strategies. They can use a variety of applied skills, multiple technologies, and
new ways of analyzing and processing information, while also taking initiative, thinking

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Study Guide in PROF ED 110 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum
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creatively, planning out the process, and working collaboratively in teams with other
students.

New types of learners.

The 21st century has a new generation of learners characterized by different sets of
values, languages, and pop-cultures, and different ways of thinking, reacting, responding,
and getting motivated. They are technology savvy, with ICT skills and competencies
oftentimes better than those of their teachers. They come from more diverse backgrounds
and cultural identities (age, ethnicity, language, economic status, religion, work experience,
etc., and possess new traits of independence, creativity, open-mindedness, and enterprising
minds.
Learners in the 21st century context are excited about school. There is a little or no
”discipline problems” because the students are so engaged in their studies that reduces
perennial behavioral problems. There is newly found enthusiasm for school, a desire to work
on projects, research and write. Moreover, students are making nearly exponential growth
in their basic skills of reading, writing, speaking, listening, researching, scientific
explorations, math, multimedia skills and many more.
The new learners spend much time talking with friends on their cell phones, sending
text messages, interacting through social Internet media like the Facebook, playing video
games and surfing the World Wide Web.
As technology stages a change along a global dimension, lawmakers and policy
planners are challenged to adopt wisdom in calibrating the genuine needs of development.
In the field of education, it is important that critical differences between old and young
which create a generation gap need to be discussed. The preferences of the technology
generation include the following:
- Multi-track activity patterns
The new generation is exposed to quick flicking video games, mobile phone
texting, socializing through the social Web sites, and downloading
text/music/photos/video with adeptness and task-switching speed.
- Visuals
The technology or digital generation has greater affinity to visuals (photos and
video) compared with texts. In fact, they have been exposed since childhood to cable
television and video images especially cartoon characters, and then to computer
images, in such a manner that their visual fluency or abilities have been sharpened and
enhanced.
- Hyper media
The new generation, follows a personal random access to hyperlinked digital
information, less superior to elders in focus and reflection. Thus, they appear to be
more easily bored and distracted during class lectures.
- Social learners
New learners are already acquainted with digital tools that adopt to both
personal and participative work. They take the opportunity for dozens of instantaneous
ways to communicate with other-mobile calls and texts, emails, Facebook, YouTube,

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Study Guide in PROF ED 110 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum
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MySpace, Wikis, etc. Experts describe this mode of digital learning as one that is based
on experimentation, discovery and intuition.
- Learning to pass the test
The new digital learners simply wish to acquire skills, knowledge and habits as
windows of opportunity afford them to learn.
- Instant gratification
Digital learners on their own experience more immediate gratification through
immediate scores from games, enjoyable conversation from web-cam calls,
excitement from email chats and inviting comments from their Facebook account.
- Fun learning
Digital learners prefer fun learning which is relevant and instantaneously useful to
them. Learning is play to new learners and not surprisingly there is much fun in the
digital world outside of the school.

New space/dimensions of learning.

The 21st century offers learning opportunities outside the confines of the classroom.
Learning can happen horizontally (from schools to work-places, communities, mass media,
and other social learning environments); longitudinally (from early childhood through
adulthood to post-retirement years); and vertically (from real to digital and virtual learning
environments).
Before, a typical classroom was teacher-centered with fragmented curriculum for
students working in isolation, memorizing facts. But with the zenith of this new era of
educational innovation, today’s classroom is a depiction of real-life, relevant, project-based
21st century education.
Schools of today will go from ‘buildings’ to nerve centers, with walls that are porous
and transparent, connecting teachers, students and the community to the wealth of
knowledge that exists in the world.

SUMMARY

Teachers are now working with learners whose lives have been totally immersed in the 21 st
century media culture. Therefore, teachers in the 21 st century must be able to access and utilize
multimedia tasks to enable the students to be truly media literate. With the changes in the
educational system, education must be structured to meet the needs of students in the 21st century.

E
LEARNING ACTIVITY 1

1. Complete the table below by giving a brief description of the critical characteristics of
21st Century teaching and learning.
Characteristics Description
New environment of
learning

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Study Guide in PROF ED 110 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum
Module No.__
New content of
learning
New process of
learning.
New types of learners.
New
space/dimensions of
learning

ASSESSMENT TASK

1. In your own words and in not less than 5 sentences each, explain the implications in
teaching and learning of:
a) new environment of learning-
b) new types of learners-
c) new content of learning-

REFLECTION

1. Make a reflection. From the Module on the characteristics of 21 st century teaching and
learning, I realized that . . . . .

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Study Guide in PROF ED 110 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum
Module No.__

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LEARNING ACTIVITY 2

1. By means of a graphic organizer, present the characteristics of 21 st Century teaching

and learning.
FACTSTORMING WEB

Characteristics
of 21st Century
Teaching and
Learning

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Study Guide in PROF ED 110 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum
Module No.__

REFERENCES

Baylongo, Joselina T. et.al. Special Topics in Education. Volume 1. Lorimar Publishing Inc.
Manila 2012
Bilbao, Purita P. et.al. Technology for Teaching and Learning 1. Lorimar Publishing Inc.
Manila 2019
Dayagbil, FilomenaT. et.al. Special Topics in Education. Volume 3. Lorimar Publishing Inc.
Manila 2012
Corpuz, Brenda B The 21st Century Teacher: A Transforming Influence, The Professional
Teacher, Vol. II No. 1: Lorimar Publishing Inc. Manila
De Leon, Elmer B. The 21st Century Learning Concepts: Crossing borders and Connecting
Bridges, The Professional Teacher, Vol. VI No. 2: Lorimar Publishing Inc. Manila
Llagas, Avelina T. et.al. Becoming a 21st Century Educational Leader. Lorimar Publishing Inc.
Manila 2016

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