21st Century Education Attributes

• Integrated and interdisciplinary

• Technologies and multimedia
• Global classrooms
• Creating/adapting to constant personal and social change and lifelong learning
• Student-centered
• 21st century skills
• Project-based and research – driven
• Relevant, rigorous and real-world

A. 21st Century Schools

• Focus on project-based curriculum for life that engage students in addressing real-life situations
• Teachers will transform their role from being dispensers of information to become facilitators
• Learners will become adaptive to changes
▪ Teachers must discover the student’s interest
▪ Instill curiosity
▪ Flexible
▪ Excite learners to become resourceful

B. 21st Century Curriculum

• Interdisciplinary, project-based (engages students in real-world and meaningful projects to learn
content and skills) and research- driven (systematic investigation to establish facts or principles or
to collect information on a subject)
• Connected to local, national and global communities
• Integrates HOTS, multiple intelligences, technology multiple literacies, technology and multimedia,
authentic assessment
• Classroom is filled with self-directed students who work independently
• Learning is not confined through memorization of facts and figures but rather, previous knowledge,
personal experience, interests, talents and habits

C. 21st Century Learning Environment

• Learning environment where students collaborate with their peers, exchange insights, coach and
mentor one another
• Cooperative learning is more apparent

D. 21st Century Learners

• Digital natives
• Usually react, random, holistic and non-linear
• Learn through experience
• Senses: motion and touch

E. 21st Century Educators

• Digital immigrants
• Reflect, sequential and linear
• Senses: hearing and selling
 • Characteristics
▪ Multi-literate – teachers know how to use various technology in teaching
▪ Multi-specialist – knowledgeable not only in course subject but also in other subject areas
▪ Multi-skilled – skillful not just in teaching but also in facilitating and organizing group
activities
▪ Self-directed – having initiative in realizing the goals of the learners and the country at
large
▪ Lifelong learner – attending seminars and enrolling in higher studies
▪ Flexible – adapt to various learning styles and needs of the learners and alternative modes
of delivery
▪ Creative problem solver – creating innovative ideas and solutions to arising problems in
the field, be it in classroom, in the school or the profession as a whole
▪ Critical thinker – encourage students to reflect on what they learned, and rekindle in them
the desire to ask questions, reason out, probe and establish their own knowledge
▪ Has a passion for excellent teaching- ensuring that the students learn something and
motivated under his guidance
▪ High emotional quotient (EQ) – stability of emotion, teachers do not just have the head but
also the heart to teach

Paradigm Shift for 21st Century Education

Before 21st Century Education 21st Century education

Time-based
Focus: memorization of discreet facts
LOTS (knowledge and comprehension)
Textbook-driven
Passive learning
Learners work in isolation and confined in the
classroom (walled classroom)
Teacher-centered
Little to no student freedom
Discipline problems
Fragmented curriculum
Grades taken from formal assessment measures
for reporting and marking purposes
Low expectations
Teacher is a judge
Curriculum is irrelevant and meaningless to the
students
Print is the only vehicle of learning and
assessment
Student diversity is ignored
Students just follow orders and instructions while
listening to teacher’s lecture
Outcome-based
Focus: what students know, can do and are like
after all details are forgotten
HOTS (application – evaluation)
Research-driven
Active learning
Learners work collaboratively with classmates and
others around the world (global classroom)
Student - centered
Great deal of student freedom
No discipline problems
Integrated curriculum
Grades are based in performances and for
gauging learning outcome
High expectations
Self, peer and teachers serve as evaluators
Curriculum is connected to students’ interests,
experiences, talents, and the real world
Performances, projects and multiple forms of
media are used for learning and assessment
Curriculum and instruction address student
diversity
Students are empowered to lead and initiate while
creating solutions and solving problem
Literacy is the 3 Rs (reading, writing and Multiple literacies of the 21st century aligned to
arithmetic) living and working in a globalized new society