New White Paper on 21st Century Learning Environments

Promoting "vibrant educational environments – physical and online, technological and human – that support the 21st century learning all children deserve" is the focus of 21st Century Learning Environments, a new white paper from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

Classrooms that can be easily reconfigured (which the authors call "learning studios"), buildings that inspire intellectual curiosity and social interaction are some of the recommendations for physical spaces. The school schedule and calendar also should be more flexible. Schools should be connected to the outside world, both welcoming community members in and creating real world projects that extend learning beyond the time and space of school. Assessment should measure the results of such learning experiences rather than focusing on test results that measure only whether students have mastered or not mastered content and skills at a particular point in time.

Technology, connection, professional learning communities, project-based learning, and community partnerships are threads that run through the paper.

I think the paper describes the schools we need, and I like the paper's references to the ASCD's Commission on the Whole Child. But I would have liked to see arts education figure more prominently. I don't believe the Partnership for 21st Century Skills would view the cuts in arts education we have seen in recent years as good for the development of 21st century workers, leaders, and citizens, but I think they underestimate the important of artistic thinking.