learners use technology to demonstrate creative thinking problem solving and knowledge construction

Distance Learning

Using technology to develop students’ critical thinking skills.

by Jessica Mansbach

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is a higher-order cognitive skill that is indispensable to students, readying them to respond to a variety of complex problems that are sure to arise in their personal and professional lives. The  cognitive skills at the foundation of critical thinking are  analysis, interpretation, evaluation, explanation, inference, and self-regulation.  

When students think critically, they actively engage in these processes:

• Communication
• Problem-solving

To create environments that engage students in these processes, instructors need to ask questions, encourage the expression of diverse opinions, and involve students in a variety of hands-on activities that force them to be involved in their learning.

Types of Critical Thinking Skills

Instructors should select activities based on the level of thinking they want students to do and the learning objectives for the course or assignment. The chart below describes questions to ask in order to show that students can demonstrate different levels of critical thinking.

*Adapted from Brown University’s Harriet W Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

Using Online Tools to Teach Critical Thinking Skills

Online instructors can use technology tools to create activities that help students develop both lower-level and higher-level critical thinking skills.

• Example: Use Google Doc, a collaboration feature in Canvas, and tell students to keep a journal in which they reflect on what they are learning, describe the progress they are making in the class, and cite course materials that have been most relevant to their progress. Students can share the Google Doc with you, and instructors can comment on their work.
• Example: Use the peer review assignment feature in Canvas and manually or automatically form peer review groups. These groups can be anonymous or display students’ names. Tell students to give feedback to two of their peers on the first draft of a research paper. Use the rubric feature in Canvas to create a rubric for students to use. Show students the rubric along with the assignment instructions so that students know what they will be evaluated on and how to evaluate their peers.
• Example: Use the discussions feature in Canvas and tell students to have a debate about a video they watched. Pose the debate questions in the discussion forum, and give students instructions to take a side of the debate and cite course readings to support their arguments.  
• Example: Us e goreact , a tool for creating and commenting on online presentations, and tell students to design a presentation that summarizes and raises questions about a reading. Tell students to comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the author’s argument. Students can post the links to their goreact presentations in a discussion forum or an assignment using the insert link feature in Canvas.
• Example:  Use goreact, a narrated Powerpoint, or a Google Doc and instruct students to tell a story that informs readers and listeners about how the course content they are learning is useful in their professional lives. In the story, tell students to offer specific examples of readings and class activities that they are finding most relevant to their professional work. Links to the goreact presentation and Google doc can be submitted via a discussion forum or an assignment in Canvas. The Powerpoint file can be submitted via a discussion or submitted in an assignment.

Pulling it All Together

Critical thinking is an invaluable skill that students need to be successful in their professional and personal lives. Instructors can be thoughtful and purposeful about creating learning objectives that promote lower and higher-level critical thinking skills, and about using technology to implement activities that support these learning objectives. Below are some additional resources about critical thinking.

Additional Resources

Carmichael, E., & Farrell, H. (2012). Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Online Resources in Developing Student Critical Thinking: Review of Literature and Case Study of a Critical Thinking Online Site.  Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice ,  9 (1), 4.

Lai, E. R. (2011). Critical thinking: A literature review.  Pearson’s Research Reports ,  6 , 40-41.

Landers, H (n.d.). Using Peer Teaching In The Classroom. Retrieved electronically from https://tilt.colostate.edu/TipsAndGuides/Tip/180

Lynch, C. L., & Wolcott, S. K. (2001). Helping your students develop critical thinking skills (IDEA Paper# 37. In  Manhattan, KS: The IDEA Center.

Mandernach, B. J. (2006). Thinking critically about critical thinking: Integrating online tools to Promote Critical Thinking. Insight: A collection of faculty scholarship , 1 , 41-50.

Yang, Y. T. C., & Wu, W. C. I. (2012). Digital storytelling for enhancing student academic achievement, critical thinking, and learning motivation: A year-long experimental study. Computers & Education , 59 (2), 339-352.

Insight Assessment: Measuring Thinking Worldwide

http://www.insightassessment.com/

Michigan State University’s Office of Faculty  & Organizational Development, Critical Thinking: http://fod.msu.edu/oir/critical-thinking

The Critical Thinking Community

http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766

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9 responses to “ Using Technology To Develop Students’ Critical Thinking Skills ”

This is a great site for my students to learn how to develop critical thinking skills, especially in the STEM fields.

Great tools to help all learners at all levels… not everyone learns at the same rate.

Thanks for sharing the article. Is there any way to find tools which help in developing critical thinking skills to students?

Technology needs to be advance to develop the below factors:

Understand the links between ideas. Determine the importance and relevance of arguments and ideas. Recognize, build and appraise arguments.

Excellent share! Can I know few tools which help in developing critical thinking skills to students? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

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Brilliant post. Will be sharing this on our Twitter (@refthinking). I would love to chat to you about our tool, the Thinking Kit. It has been specifically designed to help students develop critical thinking skills whilst they also learn about the topics they ‘need’ to.

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2 Chapter 1 Understanding Classroom Learning and Technology Use

Fun, interesting, engaging, effective, meaningful, crucial, powerful, empowering, real. These are words that teachers want to hear about their instruction. Their goal is to provide instruction that makes a difference in learners’ lives. Technology is a powerful resource that is helping many teachers meet this goal. The purpose of this text is to help you meet this goal by addressing what you should know and be able to do with technology. Unlike most technology education texts, the focus of this text is on learners and learning rather than only on the technology itself. This focus will help you to address problems with learning as they arise, integrate new technologies with ease in pedagogically sound ways, and share your knowledge and understandings with your colleagues and students.

Technology should be seen as support for what teachers know and do. Instead of providing a prescription for how to teach, viewing technology as a support for teaching and learning allows teachers to discover ways to do what they already do more efficiently, more effectively, more interestingly, or in new and innovative ways. From this point of view, this text focuses on foundational, or essential, ideas for effective technology-enhanced learning and teaching.

This first chapter provides a foundation for the rest of this text by demonstrating and explaining why you should employ a learning focus to plan technology use and how such a focus might help you effectively meet content and technology standards to address the needs of all learners.

Views of technology use in education have changed steadily and rapidly over the past twenty years. The initial focus was on students learning to use technology. That changed to using technology to learn, as demonstrated by the 2007 International Society for Technology in Education standards for students in Figure 1.1.

The ISTE® National Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for Students (revised June 2007)

• Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.
• Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
• Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.
• Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.
• Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior.
• Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations. Students:

Figure 1.1 2007 NETS for Students

Source : Reprinted with permission from National Educational Technology Standards for Students, Second Edition, © 2007, ISTE® (International Society for Technology in Education), www.iste.org. All rights reserved.

Compare the 2007 standards to those from 2016, listed below. According to the standards for students, learners should use technology to become:

• Empowered learners
• Digital citizens
• Knowledge constructors
• Innovative designers
• Computational thinkers
• Creative communicators
• Global collaborators

(Available on line at https://www.iste.org/standards/standards/for-students ).

These standards show that the movement in education technology is away from a focus on specific hardware and software and toward what we want learners to be able to do and become; in this way, technology use supports and can be integrated with standards from across the disciplines.

Meeting the Standards: 21st Century Skills

Standards, instructional goals, curricula, legislation, teacher beliefs, student experience, resources, and many other variables guide technology use in classrooms. Ultimately educational stakeholders agree that the use of technology is to prepare students, but there is often little agreement on what they are being prepared for (jobs? citizenry? life in general?) and how that preparation should be conducted (drill? experiential learning? discovery?). Nonetheless, for teachers looking to understand what is essential to support learning with technology, the common components integrated into national technology and content area standards and state requirements provide a good start. These goals, often termed “21st-century skills” because of their perceived need in the near future, include:

• Content learning
• Critical thinking
• Communication
• Problem-solving

Other chapters in this text discuss how to meet these learning goals and how technology can support the process. Find links to your state and disciplinary standards online by searching “+state name +standards” or “+discipline name +standards”; for example, “Idaho standards” or “science standards.”

OVERVIEW OF LEARNING AND TECHNOLOGY

In each chapter of this text, the overview section presents definitions, explanations, and examples of the chapter focus. The discussion then gives readers a consistent understanding of the ideas to be presented and grounds the information in the rest of the chapter. In the current chapter, the overview focuses on a basic understanding of learning and technology.

What Is Learning?

This text discusses learning before it addresses technology because the central focus of technology use should be what students learn. The concept of learning is discussed in more detail in chapter 2, but clearly there are many ways to understand what it is and how it happens. Many learning theories exist. For example, two currently popular theories include:

Constructivist Theory (J. Bruner)

A major theme in Bruner’s theoretical framework is that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based on their current/past knowledge.

Experiential Learning (C. Rogers)

Rogers distinguished two types of learning: cognitive (meaningless) and experiential (significant). The former corresponds to academic knowledge such as learning vocabulary or multiplication tables, and the latter refers to applied knowledge such as learning about engines in order to repair a car.

For links to other learning theories, conduct a web search for “+”learning theories”.”

Many technology texts focus on one learning theory or philosophy as a guide for technology use; however, good teachers follow all kinds of philosophies, and good teaching is not necessarily a matter of behaviorism vs. constructivism or any other “-ism” (Ketterer, 2007). Good teachers keep students engaged and challenged and work with both language and content to develop student skills, abilities, knowledge, and experience (Aaronsohn, 2003). Obviously, this can happen in any number of ways, depending on students, context, goals, and tools. Sometimes it calls for a more behavioristic approach and sometimes for a more cognitive or social approach to teaching and learning. This text points out that whether teachers believe that knowledge is to be memorized or that it is constructed through social interaction, there are ways that technology can help, from providing resources for content learning to supporting independent thought.

To illustrate this and other points throughout the text, each chapter includes a feature titled From the Classroom. This feature integrates ideas, suggestions, and opinions from classroom teachers about the topics in the chapter; they can be found at the end of each chapter. Also, note Figure 1.2 below, which defines terms that are used often throughout this text in the discussions of learning goals.

What Is Technology?

• As with the word learning, the term “technology” has many definitions. According to a variety of sources, technology is:
• Mechanisms for distributing messages, including postal systems, radio and television broad- casting companies, telephone, satellite and computer networks. www1.worldbank.org/disted/glossary.html
• Electronic media (such as video, computers, or lasers) used as tools to create, learn, explain, document, analyze, or present dance.

www.openc.k12.or.us/start/dance/glosd.html

• The application of knowledge to meet the goals, goods, and services desired by people.
• The set of tools, both hardware (physical) and software, that help us act and think better. Technology includes all the objects from pencil and paper to the latest electronic gadget. Electronic and computer technology help us share information and knowledge quickly and efficiently.The application of scientific or other organized knowledge—including any tool, technique, product, process, method, organization or system—to practical tasks.

www.nlm.nih.gov/

In general, a broad definition of technology ranges from mechanical assembly lines to Nintendo, from drugs to knowledge. In an even more global sense, technology is seen as a “driver of change” and “the fundamental cause for social shifts toward globalization and the new economy” (NCREL, 2004, p. 1). Technologies of all kinds hold an important place in society, and it is natural that education has been and will continue to be affected by technology uses.

What Is Educational Technology?

Educational technology is a subset of all existing technologies. To many educators, the term “educational technology” is synonymous with computers. Although the major focus of this text and of the field of educational technology is on computers, teachers and students use many other technologies in the course of a day, including the pencil, the telephone, and the stapler. Most teachers, however, do not need lessons on how to use a pencil well, so this text follows the trend to define educational technology as electronic technologies with an emphasis on computing. Basic components of technology include hardware, software, and connection, discussed later in this chapter.

Assessment: Assessment means gathering evidence about student needs, skills, abilities, experience, and performance. Assessment happens in technology-enhanced classrooms in many ways, as described in each of the upcoming chapters.

Context: Context is the environment or circumstances that surround something. For example, if a student poses a problem to be solved, it must be put into context by describing the events that led to it, what features it has, who is involved, and so on. The case at the start of each chapter in this book helps to provide a context for the discussions and examples.

Effective: In essence, effective means the capability to achieve a goal. In other words, if a technology-enhanced task is effective, it has the potential and means to help students reach the learning goal. In this text, a crucial element for tasks is that they are effective.

Engagement: When students are engaged, they are motivated and find the task meaningful. Engagement can be evidenced by willingness to stay on task, progress toward task goals, and ability to apply task content to life. According to McKenzie (1998), we can judge our classrooms “engaged” when we witness the following indicators:

• Children are engaged in authentic and multidisciplinary tasks.
• Students participate in interactive learning.
• Students work collaboratively.
• Students learn through exploration.
• Students are responsible for their learning.
• Students are strategic.

Evaluation: Although many educators equate assessment with evaluation, there are qualitative differences in the terms. While assessment covers a range of processes and focuses, evaluation means making a judgment about something. Typically, this means assigning a grade or other value to whatever is being evaluated. Because schools and teachers have different requirements for evaluation, assessment is given more emphasis in this text.

Feedback: Responses to student work, questions, and processes are feedback. Feedback can be positive, negative, clarifying, or interactive, and it can be provided in many forms such as spoken, written, or graphical. Feedback is discussed in every chapter as an essential component of the learning process.

Goal: A goal is a general statement about what should happen or what the expected outcomes are. For example, a goal for technology use in science might be for students to understand scientific inquiry. The learning goals presented at the beginning of this chapter serve as the foci for this text.

Objective: An objective is a specific statement about what students will be able to do when they complete the task or lesson. For example, for the science goal noted above, objectives could be that students will be able to define “inquiry,” to describe each part of the process, and to demonstrate the process. Objectives are usually stated with measurable action verbs—find a thorough list of them at http://www.schoolofed.nova.edu/sso/acad-writing/verbs.htm. Because student outcomes are vital in understanding how to support learning with technology, objectives are mentioned in many chapters.

Process: A process is a sequence of events or procedure for accomplishing something. Each chapter in this text describes the process for achieving a learning goal. These processes overlap but each goal also has its own particularities.

Scaffold: A scaffold is information, feedback, a tool, or some other form of support that helps students grow from their present level of knowledge, skill, or ability to the next level.

Figure 1.2 Terms used in this text

Each type of technology affords opportunities for different actions and can help fulfill learning goals in different ways. For example, students can learn to communicate and write with word processing and email tools; they can learn to organize and analyze with database, spreadsheet, and graphical organizer programs; they can learn about the importance of visuals using drawing software, participating in a virtual fieldtrip, or making a photo collage. Educational technology has been categorized in different ways based on these different goals. It has been looked at as:

• A tutor that presents information to be memorized (e.g., drill-and-practice software, instructional video)
• Support for student exploration (e.g., through electronic encyclopedias, simulations, and hypermedia-based data presentations that students can control)
• A creativity and production tool (e.g., word processing, videotape recording)
• A communications tool (e.g., email, electronic discussion forums)

In 2001, Levin and Bruce defined technology as media for (a) inquiry,(b) communication, (c) construction, and (d) expression. There are many more ways to describe educational technology, but across all of these descriptions, two main ideas emerge. First, as technology changes, so does the uses to which it is put and the ways in which it is characterized. The Internet, for example, has revolutionized the way that many students can obtain and use resources. The second, and seemingly apparent, idea is that a computer by itself is nothing but a plastic box with wires and silicon. In other words, a computer cannot do anything by itself. Ascione, in 2006, noted that what people do with technology is central to what it does for people; this crucial idea underlying technology use has not changed in the past decade and continues to be central to the use of technology in classrooms.

Technology Effectiveness in Classrooms

In fact, although widely believed to cause better achievement, technology has not been shown overall to be effective at increasing student achievement. In part, this is because the research on effectiveness is “contradictory and/or seriously flawed” (Burns & Ungerleider, 2002–2003, p. 45). However, that does not mean that technology cannot be used to support student achievement in specific contexts. For example, Burns and Ungerleider (2002–2003) note that when age, task, and autonomy are considered in the use of computers, there are benefits to group work, high-level concept understanding for older students, and improvement in student attitudes toward computer technologies. Chauhan (2017), Cheung & Slavin (2013), and other researchers show that

• Students can learn faster in computer-based instructional contexts.
• Student attitudes toward their classes are more positive when they include computer-based instruction.
• Children with special needs can achieve more in technology-rich environments.
• Students of all ages and levels can achieve more across the curriculum in technology-rich environments.However, Chauhan also notes that for technology to have a positive effect, learning objectives must be clear and the technology must be used for specific, targeted goals. Research also clearly shows that the effectiveness of technology use is based on context—in other words, it depends on factors such as: the learner; the learning environment; the knowledge, experience, and attitude of the teacher; the technology used; the task, and; how technology use it assessed. Most important is that effective teaching and learning drive technology use. Two decades ago, McKenzie (1998) supported this view, noting that “there is no credible evidence that [technologies] improve student reading, math, or thinking skills unless they are in service of carefully crafted learning programs” (p. 2). This continues to be the case.

What Drives the Use of Educational Technology?

In spite of mixed reports on its effectiveness for learning, technology is used in classrooms across the nation. For some teachers, their interest in doing something innovative drives technology use. For other teachers, obligations imposed by their schools or districts, for example, required lab use, does. Other impetuses include community/parental pressure, student demands, and economic rewards. State and federal laws push technology use by requiring that teachers and students be proficient and demonstrate learning. For example, the 2015 federal Every Student Succeeds Act requires that every student be technology literate, and teachers must be knowledgeable enough to help students reach this goal. Finally, the increase in student excitement, motivation, and achievement that teachers see as a result of technology use is another teacher motivator to use educational technology.

STUDENTS AND TECHNOLOGY

In addition to the possible benefits listed above, why else do students need to be taught with and about technology? According to Gordon (2001), “Students may perform a Web search faster and better than their teachers, but they still need to be taught to filter and critically engage with what they read, see, and hear from the multimedia devices they so deftly operate. And school is still the place where they will need to develop the skills they need to function effectively in the world—to read and write, to add and subtract, to understand how nature and societies are organized and where they fit in” (pp. vii–viii). In other words, there are many other reasons why students should study about and with technology. Each chapter in this text presents benefits to students related to the topic of the chapter; some general benefits are presented here.

Student Benefits from Learning with and About Technology

One of the benefits of students learning with technology is that they will be engaged in new literacies, or new ways of being knowledgeable. Within the learning goals, a number of literacies are becoming more focal because technology calls attention to them. Three main literacies include:

Information literacy is the basic ability to “recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information” (American Library Association [ALA], 1998). More recently, the American Association of School Librarians and other organizations have created standards that include the need for lifelong learning and the ability to deal with the ever-increasing number of resources available both online and off (ALA, 2017). Students cannot recognize when information is needed if they do not have a grasp of the information that has already been presented to them. For example, conducting an accurate Web search and finding information that is appropriate and factual is part of being information literate. Information literacy implies that learners also have visual, numerical, computer, and basic (text) literacy. More detail on these standards is available from www.ala.org; also see their list of “Best Apps for Teaching and Learning” at

http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards/best/apps/2016.

Technological literacy is a second important but often overlooked literacy; this is the ability for students to be able to make “informed, balanced and comprehensive analysis of the technological influences on their lives and then be able to act on the basis of their analysis” (Saskatchewan Education, n.d., p. 1). In other words, students must understand not only how to use technology, but understand the many ways in which technology affects their lives. Computers are only one of the many technologies that this literacy addresses.

Media literacy addresses technology and more as it involves critically thinking about the influences of media (including books, TV, radio, movies, and the Internet). It means choosing, reflecting on, appreciating, responding appropriately to, and producing media of all kinds. For example, media-literate students understand the motivations behind television commercials and can judge the merits of the product despite the persuasive techniques employed by advertisers. A great source for media literacy information is the Media Awareness Network at

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/.

Clearly, these literacies are tightly linked to the learning goals, and student achievement in these areas provides lifelong benefits. These literacies are integrated, even where not specifically mentioned, throughout the activities and ideas in this text.

Another benefit of student technology use is a change in how learning occurs in classrooms. If we think about how children learn at home and in the world, we can see that there is a disconnect between natural learning and classroom learning. Outside of school, children are encouraged to explore, to inquire, to experiment, and to come to their own conclusions with the help of adults and peers. In classrooms, children are often asked to listen, memorize, and not to question. Technology use can make it more possible for students to learn in ways that resemble natural learning by providing resources, support, and feedback that teachers alone may not be able to pro- vide. Of course, technology will not have these benefits if it is not used in ways that support this vision of learning. As a number of scholars have noted, just because you can do something with technology does not mean that you should. The goal is to make the technology use itself transparent, while examining the interactions, content, and process of the learning that occurs with technology.

TEACHERS AND TECHNOLOGY

As a technology-using teacher, you are central to meeting the goals of technology-supported learning. However, 50% of teachers describe themselves as unready to use technology for instruction (U.S. Office of Educational Technology, 2016). To support learning with technology effectively, teachers must learn how to integrate technology into effective learning tasks and understand what their roles are during the technology-supported learning process. Each text chapter provides characteristics of effective learning tasks based specifically on the chapter’s learning goal. It also provides insights into teacher roles that effectively support learning with technology.

Characteristics of Effective Learning Tasks

In general, effective student tasks are those that result in authentic, meaningful, engaged learning. For a technology-supported task to be effective in this sense, it should have these general characteristics:

• Focuses on goals. Goals are developed based on standards, curricular requirements, and student needs, wants, and interests. Each chapter presents examples of goals.
• Includes technology that is working and available. However, it must be more than just some technology, it has to be the right technology. Guidelines to assist in making appropriate technology choices are presented throughout this text.
• Includes teacher education and support . Each chapter describes ways that teachers might find, discover, request, or use training and support.
• Allows time to learn relevant technologies . Guidelines in all the chapters discuss ways to do this efficiently.
• Provides needed resources . Resources include lab time, online and offline information sources, and skills lessons. Suggestions for how and when to provide such resources are presented throughout this text.
• Uses technology only if appropriate. Effective tasks do not use technology if goals can be reached and content can be better learned, presented, and/or assessed through other means and tools. Each chapter includes a section on learning activities that demonstrate appropriate uses of technology.Figure 1.3 summarizes these characteristics.

An effective technology-enhanced task:

• Focuses on goals
• Includes relevant technology
• Includes teacher support
• Integrates time to learn
• Provides a variety of relevant resources
• Uses technology only if it is necessary

Figure 1.3 Effective task characteristics.

Teachers’ Roles

Teachers’ roles in classrooms have changed. Although some teachers continue to work within a curriculum in which teaching is central and pencil and paper the norm, the trend is toward goal-centered and student-centered curricula in which student learning, supported by technology, is focal. This focus has changed the teacher’s role in the classroom. A student-centered focus that includes understanding and addressing students’ interests, for example, means that teachers need to vary their teaching so that student interests are connected to classroom content and tasks; technology use can help teachers to do so. As one saying goes, “While technology will not replace teachers, teachers who use technology will probably replace those who do not.” For more information on why technology cannot replace teachers, see Purewal (2016).

Challenges for Teachers

Teachers using technology may face environmental, physical, attitudinal and philosophical, access, equity, cultural, financial, legal, and other obstacles. These challenges are presented in every chapter and discussed in depth in chapter 9. One challenge that teachers often voice is the idea that computers will put them out of a job. But there are many things that teachers can do that technology cannot. Figure 1.4 presents a very incomplete list that shows why teachers cannot be replaced by technology.

As important as understanding what technology cannot do is understanding what it can. Figure 1.4 also presents some of the things that technology is typically more efficient or effective at than teachers are. How do teachers help it do this? Teachers can treat technology as the tool that it is and integrate its use into every content area. In addition, instead of teaching one or more technologies as the goal (or, if necessary, in addition to), teachers can employ technology to meet curricular goals in all areas.

Some teachers fear, often rightly, that technology learning may take the place of content learning and that the curriculum will not be covered. Teachers often do not understand at first how to balance technology and content and worry that there is not enough time to learn the technology they need. In these cases, teachers often stop using technology to focus on content, use only one technology repeatedly, or just

What can’t technology do?

• Design a seating chart, taking into consideration understandings about children and their attitudes toward one another.
• Make friends or show respect.
• Create lessons that address the needs of diverse students.
• Decorate a classroom.
• Choose a textbook.
• Manage 20 third graders.
• Make a decision based on a gut feeling.
• Give creative feedback.
• Understand.
• Search for or create knowledge.

What can technology do?

• Manipulate streams of meaningless data.
• Repeat itself endlessly.
• Help make learning more efficient by controlling large amounts of data quickly.
• Help make learning more effective by providing a great wealth of resources and allowing students choices.
• Operate in environments where humans cannot.
• Connect people who could not connect cheaply or easily otherwise.
• Provide means to improve students’ acquisition of basic skills and content knowledge (Kleiman, 2001).
• Motivate students (Kleiman, 2001).
• Work quickly and objectively.
• Strengthen teachers’ preferred instructional approaches—for example, those who lecture can use computer-enhanced visual support, those who prefer inquiry-based approaches can use raw data on the Web and databases or spreadsheets for analysis.
• Help to change the vision of a classroom as a room with four walls that depends solely on the teacher for information.

Figure 1.4 What technology can and can’t do. Jump in and hope for an eventual best. But it does not need to be this way. Support from students and parents, willingness to set aside an hour a week for additional learning, and/or a district that is willing to support grant writing are some of the ways discussed in this text to help teachers find the time they need to learn about technology use. Chapters 8 and 10 address these issues. In addition, the Guidelines section in each chapter supports teachers in understanding the roles of technology in classroom learning and how they might plan their learning about technology.

GUIDELINES FOR USING EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

In each chapter, the Guidelines provide practical suggestions for teachers to help meet learning goals and overcome potential barriers. In this chapter, the guidelines present general issues to help you meet goals for technology use. These guidelines are summarized in Figure 1.5 below.

Guideline #1: Understand the realities of technology use. In addition to understanding what technology can and cannot do, there are other significant realities that teachers need to understand. For example, learning to use technology well takes time—for everyone to learn, for effective uses to be discovered, and for implementation to be complete. Learning technology will not always be smooth, but help is available from members of the school community, including parents, technology specialists, knowledgeable students, and other teachers. In addition, teachers can join online teacher-based groups such as the Global SchoolNet Foundation ( http://www.globalschoolnet.org/index.cfm ) for help, ideas, and resources.

The special effects of technology such as cool art, stickers, sound effects, and so on (often called “bells and whistles”) may take precedence for students over task content at first, but well-designed tasks following the guidelines in this text can help avoid this problem. In addition, there are resources to help with just about every technology need, from using the icons in Microsoft Word (see http://infobitt.blogspot.com/2010/06/toolbars-screentips-and-toolbar-buttons.html) to finding appropriate content for diverse learners (see the Colorín Colorado! site at http://www.colorincolorado.org/teaching-ells/technology-english-language-learners). This text and the accompanying Teacher Toolbox will help you to explore and find additional technology resources by presenting a variety of Web sites, software packages, and support information and by suggesting places to look for further ideas and information. This text will also encourage you to share your findings with other educators.

Guideline #2: Examine equity and access for your students. Loschert (2003) reported 15 years ago that, although the average school had over 100 computers, each student typically had only 20 minutes per week on the computer. In addition, girls, minorities, and students with special needs often had less access than other students, particularly in high school (Kleiner & Farris, 2002; Male, 2003). Unfortunately, this trend, while decreasing, still holds (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2015). NCES (2015) notes that 8% of school-age students (5-15 years) still had no Internet access as of 2013. If everyone is to learn with these tools, everyone must be able to access them. Other chapters in this text provide ways to arrange and use technology to make access more equitable; these include making the best use of classroom computers and creating arrangements to share technology equitably and effectively within schools.

Guideline #3: Consider student differences. Students bring skills and backgrounds that can add to or detract from technology-enhanced learning experiences. Teachers can assess student needs by first investigating their learning preferences, cultural and language differences, and background experiences and knowledge. Teachers can then address these needs by applying the techniques and strategies presented throughout this and other texts. These techniques include, for example, using content resources at multiple levels, giving students choice in the products they develop, and providing extra support for students who need it. In addition to specific instructional strategies, computer technologies can also help address the needs of diverse students and help to include students with a variety of abilities in classroom tasks. For example, special technologies called assistive devices can help teachers to provide larger text for sight-impaired students, voice recognition for students with physical disabilities, and extra wait time, feedback, or practice for those who need it. Assistive devices are presented later in this chapter and throughout the text. Technology can also provide support for English language learners (ELLs) and other students by providing resources in a variety of languages and many different ways to work (Egbert, 2005), from supportive team-based software to individual remediation Web sites. Suggestions for supporting the learning of ELLs with technology are noted throughout the text.

Figure 1.5 Guidelines for the use of educational technology

TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED LEARNING ACTIVITIES

The Learning Activities section in each chapter presents suggestions and examples to use as models to effectively use technology. In this chapter, you will read real-life educational technology uses taken directly from school reports. These examples provide an initial idea of effective ways that technology is being applied in classrooms. The technology uses in the examples below, from the first decade of the 21st century, could still be considered innovative at the end of the second decade; this is one indication not only of how slowly technology uses have made their way into classrooms but also how much teacher professional development in uses of educational technology is still needed so that all teachers can integrate technology effectively, like the teachers below:

Elaine Insinnia, an eighth-grade language arts teacher from Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, uses Internet research to help her students understand the novels she assigns. Using questions to help focus the students, Insinnia directs them as they research a book’s author, the story’s time period, and key historical events related to the plot. In the past, Insinnia and her students conducted similar research in the school’s library, which often took several class periods. With the Internet, “you can get the same amount of information in 25 to 30 minutes,” she says. “It saves you lots of time and the kids pay attention.” The project lets students take control of their learning as they explore Web sites and information that interests them, Insinnia says. The project also teaches students how to evaluate the validity of information they find on the Web. After they complete their research, students share their findings in an online chat room [a Web site that allows communication in real time]. “When you are in a classroom discussion, the same kids dominate the discussion,” Insinnia says. “In the chat room everyone gets a chance to answer and they are engaged.” The chat room discussion also provides a record of each student’s contribution, which Insinnia can review later, she adds. (Loschert, 2003, n.p.)

Tony Vincent, a fifth-grade classroom teacher in Omaha, Nebraska, reports: “Using a computer program called Sketchy, which functions like a digital flip book, students create short cartoons that show each step they take to solve a math problem. They move the numbers around the screen as they solve a problem and add ‘thought bubbles’ to explain their work. Students find the programs so engaging that they watch their cartoons, and ones created by their classmates, repeatedly. The process of creating the product and reviewing it reinforces the thought process students should use to solve the problems. … As a result, a lesson that used to take two weeks now takes just three days for students to comprehend.” (Loschert, 2003, n.p.)

When Jane McLane first mentioned her upcoming sabbatical to bicycle around the world to Kristi Rennebohm Franz, a fellow teacher at Sunnyside Elementary in Pullman, Washington, she never dreamed she’d end up with 25 virtual companions. But somehow she did—Kristi’s first and second graders! By carrying a digital camera and a small computer, Jane was able to communicate on a daily basis with Kristi and her students. Along the way, Kristi’s students learned to write, read, and communicate as they interacted with Jane about world languages, cultures, geography, art, time zones, and architecture. (Learning Point Associates, 2004)

In a challenge described by FermiLab LInC (2000), seventh-grade students will be challenged to develop a schoolwide recycling program. The challenge will be for everyone, students, teachers, administrators and especially the cafeteria and lunch program, to recycle waste products. Students will form teams to investigate waste and waste management. They will also contact other schools throughout the country (via email) and collect data on school recycling programs. Do they exist? How are they managed? What percentage of waste has to be hauled away? What are the costs for running such a program? The teams will be encouraged to develop a Total School Recycle Program to either internally handle waste or to find resources that will productively utilize waste products. This will involve investigating the means of disposing or recycling all the waste generated from their school building. Can it be done? (FermiLab LInC, 2000)

All of these examples are adaptable for a variety of grade levels and students and can make use of a variety of different technologies. More importantly, they demonstrate effective task characteristics and focus on 21st- century learning goals such as critical thinking and problem-solving. The technology is employed as support for effective student learning. This learning focus is important because technology changes so rapidly. In fact, even by the time you finish reading this text, much of the technology mentioned in it may be in a new version, may have a new format, or may be obsolete entirely. However, having a firm grounding in the learning goals that will continue to be essential—for example, critical thinking, problem-solving, content, and communication—means that teachers and students will be able to continue to integrate technology, deal with change, and work toward success.

Technology for Supporting Learning

Each chapter in this text presents a variety of technologies that can be used to support learning. This first chapter presents a general overview of technology for reference at any time during your reading of the text. It focuses on a basic understanding of educational technology that includes awareness of the components of any tool.

Components of Electronic Tools

Electronic tools generally consist of hardware , software , and connection components. Table 1.1 presents a basic overview and broad definitions of hardware components listed in alphabetical order. For hardware, the three main types are input, processing, and output. Input devices are used to enter information into the computer. Output devices display or deliver the information in a format that users can understand. Processing devices change the input into output. There are also communication devices that connect computers to each other. The components listed in the table will also be mentioned in other chapters in this text.

Software is composed of a set of instructions that controls the operation of a computer. The most important software is the operating system or OS. The OS manages the rest of the software on the computer. Typically software is developed for one OS or platform , either Macintosh OS or Windows, but some software can run on these and other less common operating systems such as Unix and Linux. Find tutorials for these common operating systems by searching the Web.

Information about types of software, software functions, and parts of a software package is presented in Table 1.2 below. These terms are used throughout this text.

Connection components, some of which are technically hardware (e.g., a modem) and others that are software (e.g., an e-mail package), allow computers around the world to communicate. A short list of important components is presented in Table 1.3 below.

Table 1.1 Hardware Components

Table 1.2 Software

Table 1.3 Connection Components

Assistive Technologies

This text addresses supporting learning with technology for students with a wide range of abilities, skills, and needs. In some instances, the choice of resource or student role in an activity will be enough to help students access academic content. In other cases, special technologies, called assistive devices, will be needed for students to access the information they need. In general, assistive devices are hardware and software designed for specific needs. Table 1.3 presents examples of some of these devices, and others are presented throughout this text.

300.5 Assistive technology device.

In addition, the Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) and Apple (www.apple.com) Web sites list all of the assistive devices included in their operating systems.

The benefits of access to technology for students with disabilities include:

• Being able to bridge ideas
• Sequential practice to master concepts step by step
• Control over their environment
• Timely feedback
• Access to multimodal (visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic) and multi-intelligence materials (Barry & Wise, n.d.)

Teachers need to understand why and how to use assistive technologies to help students effectively. For example, teachers may not think about how students with different abilities will access information from the Web. For students who are visually impaired or physically challenged, access is an important issue. Simple solutions to access problems range from making the text in the Web browser bigger so that sight-impaired students can see it to providing a special large mouse that needs only a light touch to work. For ways to make the Web more accessible to all students, see www.phschool.com/about_ph/web_ access.html and other parts of this text.

Table 1.3 Assistive Technologies

The University of Washington’s DO-IT program provides teachers with outstanding resources such as videos and articles for understanding and working with assistive technologies. Read more about this program on the Web at http://www.washington.edu/doit/.

Appropriate Tool Use

Most important to understand in the discussion of technological tools is that if the tool does not make the task more effective or more efficient, a different tool should be employed. In addition, if there is no appropriate digital technology that fits the task, digital technology should not be used. For example, asking first graders to type sentences on the computer might be fun for them, but teachers need to evaluate whether the time students spend hunting for the correct keys and making editing mistakes might be better spent with a pencil or crayons. Or, setting ninth graders free on the Internet to research famous Americans might result in chaos that could better be organized by employing a more manageable information set in a digital encyclopedia. This theme of principled technology use is repeated throughout the text. The thoughtless use of technology and the problems it causes is well documented and discussed (Aslan & Reigeluth, 2010; Ferneding, 2003; Postman, 1993) and can be avoided.

After you have reviewed the goals for your lesson, decided on an effective task, integrated technology in appropriate and effective ways, and supported students through the task process, it’s time to assess. Each chapter in this text presents ways to appropriately assess student progress toward learning goals. Most important in the discussions of assessment is that both the product of student learning and the process of student learning are the foci of assessment. In the examples given throughout this text, technology is the focus of assessment (for example, did students use it well? was it appropriate for the task?) and used to assess (for example, an observation checklist on the teacher’s handheld computer). However, it is important that assessments fit the specific context and students for whom they are developed. Therefore, note that the assessments in this text only serve as models. They probably cannot be used without at least some adaptations to fit specific classroom, task, and student conditions. For example, a rubric, or detailed scoring outline, that is made to evaluate a technology-supported presentation for fifth graders is most likely inappropriate to evaluate a presentation by 10th-grade students.

The text addresses a number of assessments, including:

• Scoring guides (chapter 2)
• Rubrics (chapter 3)
• Multiple-choice tests (chapter 4)
• Checklists and peer team reports (chapter 5)
• Performance assessments (chapter 6)
• Problem-solving notebooks (chapter 7)
• Electronic portfolios (chapter 8)

These assessments can be used in a variety of contexts other than those described in the chapters. The text’s brief theoretical discussions that accompany assessment examples will help you to understand how and when to employ them effectively.

As you move on to the rest of this text, keep in mind the underlying premise of this chapter, that learning comes before technology. Be sure to review ideas in the chapter as needed and to use the glossary of terms and table data to support your learning throughout the text.

FROM THE CLASSROOM

Below are comments from teachers that relate to the content of this chapter.

Theory and Practice

Our questions and frustrations reminded me of the three main theories which exist… The first is the behaviorist: [learning] is acquired through imitation, direct instruction, practicing through drills, memorization, etc. The second is innatist: [learning] is acquired naturally, just by listening to it and being immersed in an authentic environment. No direct instruction or correction is needed. The last is interactionist, which says that [learning] is acquired naturally, but it stresses the interaction portion, and also says that sometimes it is necessary to teach specific rules or correct student output. These are coming from the experts and it seems to me that perhaps pieces from each are true. I doubt any one theory could ever explain how every unique individual will learn. I think there is a time and a place for flashcards and memorization, but I think it is also crucial to have meaningful interaction. (Jennie, first-grade teacher)

Learning Focus

We can’t just throw the kids on a computer and expect learning to take place any more than we would show them the text and tell them to learn it by the end of the year. No matter what tools we use, we need to use good teaching practices, or our teaching will be ineffective. (Susan, fifth-grade teacher)

[A reading] says that computers are not capable of teaching, that teachers are the ones who actually perform this. I completely agree with this because it is important to keep in mind as technology continues advancing. This is why I feel that we need to rely on the content of our lessons in incorporating technology rather than using technology just because it will be fun when the activity itself might be better without it. Learning occurs best when it is driven by the human processes, not the technology. When this occurs, students are involved in their learning through negotiation of meaning with one another and are focused on the content of the project. (Cammie, student teacher)

Teacher Concerns

I [keep] thinking about “how do I keep up?” I would love to see my students with digital notebooks, me videoconferencing with parents and students, using voice-generated technology. First, district and state will need to support technology growth and use in the classrooms with monies for technical support: training, maintenance, wiring. Second, respect for equipment needs to be taught to students and families (now, if a student misplaces a book, parents may or may not pay). Thirdly, as professionals we (educators) will need to embrace the new technology. I am ready! (Jean, sixth-grade teacher)

Teachers’ Role

I also wonder how much the role of teachers will change as technology advances. I even applied for a tutoring job with [a company where] you tutor online with a digital pencil and headset! Pretty crazy. Also, if we can listen and learn from history . . . there were so many predictions that new technology would revolutionize teaching and they really never did. For example, when the radio, TV, and mainframe computer came out, they were all expected to change the entire educational scene, but in reality, the changes were minute. From my reading, educational technology researchers always warn not to get overly excited about the future of technology based on history. (Jennie, first-grade teacher)

I see [the] point about finding the purpose of assessment before deciding what type is more appropriate. However, I feel it’s even more important to find out what type of student we are dealing with before deciding which assessment works better. For example, when we test our students in our building, we know certain students with extra barriers (language, attention span, etc.) will benefit more or will show their abilities better in a computer assessment versus paper/pencil. So, teachers decide to give them the computer assessment! It’s not really a matter of what but WHO is taking the test! (Andrea, third-grade teacher).

CHAPTER REVIEW

Each chapter in this text includes a Key Points Review that summarizes chapter ideas.

• Explain why a learning focus is important in supporting learning with technology.

Technology is a tool that teachers can use to support learning, but learning must be foremost. If teachers do not understand how to support learning, technology use will be ineffective and inefficient. Kleiman (2001) summarizes the focus of this text, noting that “while modern technology has great potential to enhance teaching and learning, turning that potential into reality on a large scale is a complex, multifaceted task. The key determinant of our success will not be the number of computers purchased or cables installed, but rather how we define educational visions, prepare and support teachers, design curriculum, address issues of equity, and respond to the rapidly changing world” (p. 14).

• Describe the relevant standards and the 21st-century skills that ground the learning in this text.

The integration of content area and technology standards, along with standards for English language learners, results in six 21st-century skills that can serve as learning goals in the creation of technology-supported learning tasks:

• Problem solving

Define “educational technology” and related terms.

Pencils, chalkboards, and overhead projectors are all educational technologies. However, in today’s classrooms, educational technology is usually understood to be electronic technologies, particularly computers, that are used to support the learning process.

• Discuss the use of technology tools for providing access to learning for all students, including physically challenged students, English language learners, and others who might face barriers to learning.

Hardware, software, and connection are the main components of electronic technologies. Specific applications of these components can determine whether students can access the content and demonstrate their skills.

• Present an overview of computer-based and computer-assisted assessment practices.

There are many ways to assess student learning in every classroom. This idea does not change when technology is integrated, but technology use can make assessment easier and more effective.

• Understand how and why to adapt lesson plans for more effective learning.

Evaluating lessons according to criteria for effective technology-supported learning can help you provide instruction that is accessible, engaging, and useful for all students in your classroom.

Aaronsohn, E. (2003). The exceptional teacher. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.American Library Association and Association for Educational Communications and Technology. (1998). Information power: Building partnerships for learning. Chicago: Author.ALA (2017). Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. Available: http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards/learning .Ascione, L. (2006). Study: Ed tech has proven effective. eSchool News Online. www.eschoolnews.com. Barry, J., & Wise, B. (n.d.).Aslan, S., & Reigeluth, C. (2010). What are the factors that contribute to ineffective and limited use of Learning Management Systems (LMS) in the schools? Proceedings of AECT. http: http://www.aect.org/pdf/proceedings10/2010I/10_01.pdf .Burns, T., & Ungerleider, C. (2002–2003). Information and communication technologies in elementary and secondary education: State of the art review. International Journal of Educational Policy, Research, and Practice, 3(4), 27–54.Chauhan, S. (2017). A meta-analysis of the impact of technology on learning effectiveness of elementary students. Computers & Education, 105, pp. 14-30.Cheung, A., & Slavin, R. E. (2013). The effectiveness of educational technology applications for enhancing mathematics achievement in K-12 classrooms: A meta-analysis. Educational Research Review, 9, 88-113.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2013.01.001 Egbert, J. (2005). Call Essentials. Alexandria, VA: TESOL.Egbert, J., Paulus, T., & Nakamichi, Y. (2002). The impact of CALL instruction on classroom computer use: A foundation for rethinking technology in teacher education. Language Learning and Technology, 6(3), 108–126.FermiLab LInC. (2000). Project examples. http://www-ed.fnal.gov/lincon/el_proj_examples.shtml. Ferneding, K. (2003). Questioning technology: Electronic technologies and educational reform. New York:Peter Lang.Gordon, D. (2001). The digital classroom: How technology is changing the way we teach and learn. Cambridge,MA: Harvard Education Letter.Ketterer, K. (2007). Online learning in harmony. Learning and Leading with Technology, 34(6), 19.Kleiman, G. (2001). Myths and realities about technology in K-12 schools. In D. Gordon (Ed.), The digital classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Letter.Kliener, A., & Farris, E. (2002). Internet access in U.S. public schools and classrooms: 1994–2001. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES 2002018). Web version available: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002018. Learning Point Associates (2004). 21st century skills: Kristi Rennenbohm Franz’s primary classroom. http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/skills/glimpse1.htm. Levin, J., & Bruce, B. (2001, March). Technology as media: The learner centered perspective. Paper presented at the 2001 AERA Meeting, Seattle, WA. Available: http://tepserver.ucsd.edu/~jlevin/ jim-levin/levin-bruce-aera.html.Loschert, K. (2003, April). Are you ready? NEA Today. Available: http://www.nea.org/neatoday/ 0304/cover.html.Male, M. (2003). Technology for inclusion: Meeting the special needs of all students (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.McKenzie, J. (1998, September). Grazing the Net: Raising a generation of free range students. Phi Delta Kappan. Online version available: http://fno.org/text/grazing.html. Mills, S., & Roblyer, M. (2006). Technology tools for teachers: A Microsoft Office tutorial (2nd ed.).Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.National Center for Education Statistics (2015). Digest of Education Statistics. Available: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_702.10.asp?current=yes.NCREL (2004). enGAUGE resources what works—Enhancing the process of writing through tech- nology: Integrating research and best practice. http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/resource/techno/ whatworks. Learning Point Associates.National School Boards Foundation (n.d.). Technology’s effectiveness in education. Available: http://www.nsba.org/sbot/toolkit/teie.html. O’Connor, J., & Robertson, E. (2002). George Polya. MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, http://www-groups.dcs.stand.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Polya.html. Plotnik, E. (1999). Information literacy. ERIC Digest. ED427777, http://searcheric.org/digests/ ed427777.html.Postman, N. (1993). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. New York: Vintage Books. Saskatchewan chapter V: Technological literacy. Education. Understanding the common essential learnings. Regina, SK, Canada: Author. http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/policy/cels/el5.html. Purewal, H. (2016, December 7). Can technology replace teachers? The Guardian. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/07/can-technology-replace-teachers-google.U.S. Office of Educational Technology (2016). National Education Technology Plan: Section 2: Teaching with Technology. Available: https://tech.ed.gov/netp/teaching/

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Using tech to train students in creative problem-solving 

Alison Watson explains how institutions can guide students in developing creative solutions to real-world problems, better preparing them for the demands of the future workplace

Alison Watson

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Libraries’ role in digital education: content is still king, emotions and learning: what role do emotions play in how and why students learn, on the neurodivergent campus, language matters, artificial intelligence and academic integrity: striking a balance.

To meet the changing needs of modern workplaces, universities should look beyond teaching conventional problem-solving methods. With clever use of technology, institutions can encourage students to engage more creatively with solving real-world problems.

By 2025, the World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts that creative thinking and problem-solving will be among the top skills required within the workplace.

The question then, for higher education institutions, is: how can we best contribute to ensuring our graduates meet these employer needs?

Classroom problem-solving v real-world problem-solving 

There are, of course, plenty of classical ways to address problem-solving. Brainstorming, trial and error, the five whys, and Ishikawa’s fishbone diagram all still definitely have a place in business problem-solving today. However, the dynamic demands of modern workplaces, rapid societal and environmental changes, and constant technological advancement ultimately require more innovative ways to address issues.   

To address modern problem-solving, universities should look at new programme development and consider how they can include employers in this process. This way employers can advise on subject content in addition to the more covert transferable skills that they’ll expect from students upon graduation.

As the WEF reports, transferable skills such as problem-solving are essential today and will continue to be so in the future, and as businesses invest more in digital technologies this provides opportunities to be more creative when solving problems.  

Universities now have a responsibility to prepare their students for this “creative” approach to dealing with work-related issues. We welcomed extensive input from employers on the design and development of our new suite of business management programmes. 

It has been a joy to work with employers to ensure problem-solving, critical thinking and technological innovation are firmly embedded into curricula. Employers can help lay frameworks, then it is the responsibility of universities to upskill students and provide them with the tools to develop and respond positively to issues and decision-making.  

Institutions should look to democratise education and encourage students to become partners in the process. Students are themselves a great resource who can provide input into innovations and enhancements to their learning.

A virtual solution 

An example of how universities can harness technology to foster creative problem-solving is in using virtual simulations.  

With virtual simulations, students are provided a “real-world” problem – in a business course context this could be to improve sales, increase productivity, reduce costs and so on. Students then enter the virtual simulations either individually or in groups and work through the scenario, developing their ideas, to find solutions to the problem. Each simulation leads students either to success and making a profit or to losses and reflecting on the decisions made.  

This is a safe environment where students can experiment, take risks and make decisions. They can gain experience about what factors must be considered, about unintended consequences and about the potential outcomes of their decisions before applying them in real life. With guidance from lecturers and peers, students can use these simulations to learn new problem-solving techniques.

We’re now looking into the use of virtual reality and drones. Universities should look at new initiatives that provide opportunities for students to use technology to review opportunities and challenges posed to them in a work context. For example, when reviewing the future of tourism, students will be able to see “real” and “virtual” realities of sustainable tourism. They will then be able to make judgements based on observations and learnings to produce sustainable policies and plans. 

Creative problem-solving as a collaborative training process    

Returning to the original question posed (how higher education institutions can contribute to ensuring graduates meet employer needs), institutions need to work with employers and students to create environments where they can learn to solve problems and make decisions effectively, using a range of technologies that they may use in the workplace. 

The classic approaches to problem-solving in the classroom still have their place, but with enhancements to upskill students in creative thinking, innovation and digital competencies it is crucial employers and students co-create and become partners with universities. This way, we keep curricula current and produce graduates who are ready to tackle workplace challenges and make effective decisions. 

Alison Watson is head of the School of Leadership and Management at  Arden University .

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• Published: 25 November 2019

Developing student 21 st Century skills in selected exemplary inclusive STEM high schools

• Stephanie M. Stehle   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4017-186X 1 &
• Erin E. Peters-Burton 1  

International Journal of STEM Education volume  6 , Article number:  39 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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There is a need to arm students with noncognitive, or 21 st Century, skills to prepare them for a more STEM-based job market. As STEM schools are created in a response to this call to action, research is needed to better understand how exemplary STEM schools successfully accomplish this goal. This conversion mixed method study analyzed student work samples and teacher lesson plans from seven exemplary inclusive STEM high schools to better understand at what level teachers at these schools are engaging and developing student 21 st Century skills.

We found of the 67 lesson plans collected at the inclusive STEM high schools, 50 included instruction on 21 st Century skills. Most of these lesson plans designed instruction for 21 st Century skills at an introductory level. Few lesson plans encouraged multiple 21 st Century skills and addressed higher levels of those skills. Although there was not a significant difference between levels of 21 st Century skills by grade level, there was an overall trend of higher levels of 21 st Century skills demonstrated in lesson plans designed for grades 11 and 12. We also found that lesson plans that lasted three or more days had higher levels of 21 st Century skills.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that inclusive STEM high schools provide environments that support the development of 21 st Century skills. Yet, more can be done in the area of teacher professional development to improve instruction of high levels of 21 st Century skills.

Introduction

School-aged students in the USA are underperforming, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. National Assessment of Educational Progress (U.S. Department of Education, 2015a ) scores show that in science, only 34% of 8th graders are performing at or above proficiency and 12th grade students at or above proficient US students drop to 22%. Similarly, mathematics scores show 33% of 8th graders and 22% of 12th graders were at or above proficiency (U.S. Department of Education, 2015a ). Additionally, the US mathematics scores for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for 2015 were lower than the scores for 2009 and 2012 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; OECD, 2018 ). US students not only underachieve in mathematics and science, but are also not engaging successfully in engineering and technology. At the secondary level, there are relatively few students in the USA that take engineering (2%) and computer science (5.7%) (National Science Board, 2016 ). The NAEP technology and engineering literacy (TEL) assessment found that for technology and engineering literacy, only 43% of 8th graders were at or above the proficiency level (U.S. Department of Education, 2015b ). This consistent trend of underperformance has focused many national, state, and local efforts to improve student experiences in integrated STEM subjects (cf. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2010 ; Texas Education Association ( n.d. ) for school-aged students and beyond.

The efforts for improvement in STEM teaching in K-12 environments have yielded a slight increase in the enrollment of STEM majors recently (National Science Board, 2016 ). However, roughly half of students who declare a STEM major when entering college either switch majors or drop out of college (National Science Board, 2016 ). One approach to helping students persist in undergraduate education is a stronger foundation in content knowledge, academic skills, and noncognitive skills (Farrington et al., 2012 ). Academic skills, including analysis and problem solving skills, allow students to engage with content knowledge at higher levels of cognition. Noncognitive skills, including study skills, time management, and self-management, assist students in optimizing their ability to gain content knowledge and use their academic skills to solve problems. Students who possess these skills have high-quality academic behaviors, characterized by a pursuit of academic goals despite any setbacks (Farrington et al., 2012 ).

Because academic skills, noncognitive skills, and content knowledge have fluid definitions and may not be directly observable, for the purposes of this study we used 21 st Century skills consisting of knowledge construction, real-world problem solving, skilled communication, collaboration, use of information and communication technology for learning, and self-regulation (Partnership for 21 st Century Learning, 2016 ). Graduates who possess 21 st Century skills are sought out by employers (National Research Council, 2013 ). In the environment of rapid advancements in technology and globalization, employees need to be flexible and perpetual learners in order to keep up with new developments (Bybee, 2013 ; Johnson, Peters-Burton, & Moore, 2016 ). There is a need to ensure that students who graduate the K-12 system are adept in 21 st Century skills so that they can be successful in this new workforce landscape (Bybee, 2013 ).

Not only do 21 st Century skills help students be successful in all areas of formal school, these skills are also necessary for a person to adapt and thrive in an ever changing world (Partnership for 21 st Century Learning, 2016 ). One movement embracing the need for the development of student 21 st Century skills is the proliferation of inclusive STEM high schools (ISHSs), schools that serve all students regardless of prior academic achievement (LaForce et al., 2016 ; Lynch et al., 2018 ). ISHSs promote student research experiences by using inquiry-based curricular models to scaffold independent learning and encourage personal responsibility (Tofel-Grehl & Callahan, 2014 ). The goal for ISHSs to facilitate this type of student-centered learning is to build students’ 21 st Century skills such as adaptability, communication, problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and self-management (Bybee, 2013 ; Johnson et al., 2016 ; LaForce et al., 2016 ). Although there has been some evidence that not all ISHSs are advantageous in offering STEM opportunities (Eisenhart et al., 2015 ), there is an accumulation of evidence that ISHSs can increase college and career readiness for students from groups who are typically underrepresented in STEM careers (Erdogan & Stuessy, 2015 ; Means, Wang, Viki, Peters, & Lynch, 2016 ). As the number of inclusive STEM schools continue to increase across the USA, there is a need to understand the ways these schools successfully engage students in 21 st Century skills. The purpose of this paper is to systematically analyze teacher-constructed lessons and student work from seven exemplar ISHSs in order to better understand how teachers are engaging and developing student 21 st Century skills.

Specifically, this study looked at the extent to which teachers at these exemplar ISHSs ask students to practice the 21 st Century skills and at the level of student performance of the following categories: (a) knowledge construction, (b) real-world problem solving, (c) skilled communication, (d) collaboration, (e) use of information and communication technology (ICT) for learning, and (f) self-regulation (SRI International, n.d. -a; SRI International, n.d. -b). An examination of the lesson plans and student work products at exemplar ISHSs provides insight into effective development of student 21 st Century skills in a variety of contexts.

Conceptual framework

In an attempt to clearly define the skills, content knowledge and literacies that students would need to be successful in their future endeavors, the Partnership for 21 st Century Learning (P21; 2016) created a framework that includes (a) life and career skills; (b) learning and innovation skills; (c) information, media, and technology skills; and (d) key subjects (Partnership for 21 st Century Learning, 2016 ). The first three parts of the framework, (a) life and career skills, (b) learning and innovation skills, and (c) information, media, and technology skills, describe proficiencies or literacies students should develop and can be integrated and developed in any academic lesson. The fourth piece, key subjects, suggests 21 st Century interdisciplinary themes or content to engage students in authentic study (Partnership for 21 st Century Learning, 2016 ).

Due to the need to build 21 st Century skills, this study focused on the teaching and learning of (a) learning and innovation skills; (b) information, media, and technology skills; and (c) life and career skills at exemplar ISHSs. In order to operationalize and measure the three categories, we searched for instruments that measured the learning of 21 st Century skills. Microsoft, in collaboration with SRI Education, developed two rubrics that are designed to assess the extent to which 21 st Century skills are present in lessons and the extent to which students demonstrate the skills from these lessons (SRI International, n.d. -a; SRI International, n.d. -b). The 21 st Century Learning Design Learning Activity Rubric examined the proficiency of teacher lesson plans for the development of 21 st Century skills while the 21 st Century Learning Design Student Work Rubric examined the level of competency for each 21 st Century skill. Although the rubrics did not align exactly with the P21 Framework, we felt that there was enough alignment with the categories that the rubrics would be useful in measuring the extent to which lessons in ISHSs taught 21 st Century skills and the extent to which students demonstrated these skills. The rubrics had the same categories for lesson assessment and student work assessment: (a) knowledge construction, (b) real-world problem solving, (c) skilled communication, (d) collaboration, (e) use of ICT for learning, and (f) self-regulation in teacher lesson plans and student work samples (SRI International, n.d. -a; SRI International, n.d. -b). Table 1 shows how the categories assessed in the two rubrics align with the categories in the P21 Framework. Further, as we reviewed the literature on these categories, a model of their relationship emerged. Our literature review discusses the individual categories followed by the conceptual model of how these categories work together in 21 st Century skill development.

• Knowledge construction

Knowledge construction occurs when students create new knowledge themselves rather than reproducing or consuming information (Prettyman, Ward, Jauk, & Awad, 2012 ; Shear, Novais, Means, Gallagher, & Langworthy, 2010 ). When students participate in knowledge construction rather than reproduction, they build a deeper understanding of the content. Learning environments that are designed for knowledge construction promote self-regulated and self-directed learners as well as building grit (Carpenter & Pease, 2013 ).

Although knowledge construction helps students to build deep understandings and skills to be self-directed and resilient learners, many students are unfamiliar with this approach to learning and frequently need scaffolding to take on joint responsibility of learning (Carpenter & Pease, 2013 ; Peters, 2010 ). When transitioning to a more student-centered learning environment that supports knowledge construction, the teacher becomes more of a facilitator rather than a lecturer (McCabe & O’Connor, 2014 ). A student-centered learning environment encourages students to shift from a paradigm of expecting one convergent answer and toward deeper meaning-making when learning (Peters, 2010 ). Knowledge construction anchors the development of 21 st Century skills because students need to be able to have background knowledge in order to perform the skills in an authentic context.

• Real-world problem solving

Sometimes called project-based learning (Warin, Talbi, Kolski, & Hoogstoel, 2016 ), real-world problem solving is characterized by students working to solve problems that have no current solution and where the students can implement their own approach (Shear et al., 2010 ). When solving a real-world problem, students work to identify the problem, propose a solution for a specific client, test the solution, and share their ideas (Prettyman et al., 2012 ; Warin et al., 2016 ). The design aspect of the process encourages students to be creative and learn from failures (Carroll, 2015 ). When using real-world problem solving, students develop knowledge in a meaningful way (White & Frederiksen, 1998 ), must regulate their cognition and behavior in a way to reach their goals (Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, & Campione, 1983 ; Flavell, 1987 ), and gain experience defending their choices through evidence and effective communication skills (Voss & Post, 1988 ).

Teachers can develop real-world problem solving skills in their students by modeling inquiry after research actual scientist are involved in, using databases with real-life data, and evaluating evidence from current events (Chinn & Malhortra, 2002 ). Designing real-world problem scenarios for the classroom provide a framework by which students can engage in 21 st Century learning and can help to encourage a more positive attitude towards STEM careers (Williams & Mangan, 2016 ). Together, knowledge construction and real-world problem solving create the foundation from which students can engage in self-regulation, collaboration, and communication.

• Self-regulation

Self-regulation is a key 21 st Century skill for independent learners. Students who are self-regulated plan their approach to problem solving, monitor their progress, and reflect on their work given feedback (Shear et al., 2010 ; Zimmerman, 2000 ). During the self-regulation process, a student motivates himself or herself to control impulses in order to efficiently solve problems (Carpenter & Pease, 2013 ; English & Kitsantas, 2013 ). Fortunately, these skills are teachable; however, students need time to accomplish regulatory tasks and guidance for the key processes of reflection and revision (Zimmerman, 2000 ). Therefore, long-term projects give a more appropriate time frame than short-term projects to hone these regulatory skills.

Students have different levels of self-regulation (English & Kitsantas, 2013 ) and teachers may need to integrate strategies and ways of monitoring students into lessons (Bell & Pape, 2014 ; English & Kitsantas, 2013 ). Incorporating self-regulated learning strategies helps students to stay engaged and deal with any adversity that may come up in the process (Boekaerts, 2016 ; Peters & Kitsantas, 2010 ). A tangible way teachers can support student self-regulation is by using Zimmerman’s ( 1998 ) four-stage model of self-regulated learning support: modeling, emulation, self-control, and self-regulation (Peters, 2010 ). First, teachers explicitly model the target learning strategy that the student should acquire, pointing out key processes (modeling). Second, teachers can provide students with verbal or written support for the key processes of the learning strategy while the student attempts to emulate the modeling from the teacher (emulation). Once students can roughly emulate the learning strategy, the teacher can fade support and have the student try to do the learning strategy on their own (self-control). After students attempt it on their own, the teacher provides feedback to the student to help them improve their attempted learning strategy (self-regulation). When a student can successfully perform the learning strategy on their own, they have become self-regulated in that aspect of their learning. Students who have mastered self-regulated learning have the ability to be proactive in knowledge building and in problem solving, which are characteristics that STEM industry employers value.

• Collaboration

Collaboration occurs when students take on roles and interact with one another in groups while working to produce a product (Shear et al., 2010 ). Collaborative interactions include taking on leadership roles, making decisions, building trust, communicating, reflecting, and managing conflicts (Carpenter & Pease, 2013 ). Students who collaborate solve problems at higher levels than students who work individually because students respond to feedback and questions to create solutions that better fit the problem (Care, Scoular, & Griffin, 2016 ). Collaboration is an important skill to enhance knowledge building and problem solving. Conversations among peers can support student self-regulated learning through modeling of verbalized thinking.

• Skilled communication

“Even the most brilliant scientific discovery, if not communicated widely and accurately, is of little value” (McNutt, 2013 , p. 13). For the purpose of this paper, skilled communication is defined as types of communication used to present or explain information, not discourse communication. Skilled communicators present their ideas and demonstrate how they use relevant evidence (Shear et al., 2010 ). An important part of being able to communicate successfully is the ability to connect a product to the needs of a specific audience or client (Warin et al., 2016 ). In doing so, the students need to take into account both the media they are using and the ideas they are communicating so that it is appropriate for the audience (Claro et al., 2012 ; van Laar, van Deursen, van Dijk, & de Haan, 2017 ). Like collaboration, skilled communication is a necessary process to successfully employ knowledge construction and real-world problem solving.

Use of information and communication technology for learning

When students use information and communication technology (ICT) for learning, they are designing, creating, representing, evaluating, or improving a product, not merely demonstrating their knowledge (Koh, Chai, Benjamin, & Hong, 2015 ). In doing so, they need to choose how and when to use the ICT as well as know how to recognize credible online resources (Shear et al., 2010 ). The effective use of ICT requires self-regulation in order to use these tools independently and to keep up with technological advances. Given the continuous advancements in technology, it is essential that students know how to manage and communicate information in order to solve problems (Ainley, Fraillon, Schulz, & Gebhardt, 2016 ).

Conceptual Model of 21 st Century Skills

The six 21 st Century skills presented above are critical for students to develop to prepare for both college (National Science Board, 2016 ) and the future employment (Bybee, 2013 ; Johnson et al., 2016 ). Twenty-first century skills do not exists in isolation. By building one skill, others are reinforced. For example, knowledge construction and real-world problem solving can be enhanced by self-regulation. Likewise, collaboration requires skilled communication to build knowledge and solve problems. These skills coalesce to build the necessary toolkit for students who can learn on their own. Figure 1 shows a working hypothesis of how these six skills, (a) knowledge construction, (b) real-world problem solving, (c) skilled communication, (d) collaboration, (e) use of ICT for learning, and (f) self-regulation, interact to foster lifelong learning for student.

Working hypothesis of how 21 st Century skills work together to build a 21 st Century student

Knowledge construction and real-world problem solving are the keystones of the model and typically represent the two main goals of student-centered lessons. Knowledge construction is the conceptual formation while real-world problem solving represents the process skills that students are expected to develop. Knowledge construction and real-world problem solving feed each other in a circular fashion. Knowledge construction is built through the inquiry process of real-world problem solving. At the same time, real-world problem solving requires new knowledge to be constructed in order to solve the problem at hand. The connection between knowledge construction and real work problem solving is mediated by collaboration and communication.

While communication and collaboration allow a student to work with others to build their conceptual knowledge and work toward a solution to their real-world problem, self-regulation is an internal process that occurs simultaneously. The student’s self-regulation guides the student’s individual connections, reflections, and revisions between knowledge construction and real-world problem solving.

Information and communication technology provides tools for the students to facilitate communication and collaboration as well as other 21 st Century skills. ICT helps to simplify and assist the communication and collaboration for groups of students. ICT can help streamline the process of analysis and record keeping as well as facilitating the sharing ideas with others. It allows students to more easily document their progress and express their ideas for later reflection. Although ICT is not directly connected with other elements in the model, the use of ICT allows for the learning process to be more efficient.

The six 21 st Century skills addressed in this study, (a) knowledge construction, (b) real-world problem solving, (c) skilled communication, (d) collaboration, (e) use of ICT for learning, and (f) self-regulation, are important facets of STEM education. This study documented the extent to which each of the 21 st Century skills were present in both lesson plans and in student work at seven exemplar ISHSs. Given that the schools in the study were highly regarded, understanding the structure and student outcomes of lessons could provide a model for teachers and teacher educators. With that in mind, the study was driven by the following research questions:

To what extent do teacher lesson plans at exemplar ISHSs exhibit 21 st Century learning practices as measured by the 21 st Century Learning Design Learning Activity and Student Work Rubrics?

Do teacher lesson plans and student work samples from exemplar ISHSs show differences in rubric scores by grade level?

During the analysis of these questions, a third research question emerged regarding the duration of lessons. The question and rationale can be found in the data analysis section.

This study is part of a larger multiple instrumental case study of eight exemplar ISHSs. The larger study (Opportunity Structures for Preparation and Inspiration in STEM; OSPrI) examined the common features of successful ISHSs (Lynch et al., 2018 ; Lynch, Peters-Burton, & Ford, 2014 ). OSPrI identified 14 critical components (CC; Table 2 ) that successful ISHSs possess (Behrend et al., 2016 ; Lynch et al., 2015 ; Lynch, Means, Behrend, & Peters-Burton, 2011 ; Peters-Burton, Lynch, Behrend, & Means, 2014 ). Three of the 14 critical components involve the application of 21 st Century skills in the classroom. This study addresses these three critical components: (a) CC1: STEM focused curriculum for all, (b) CC2: reform instructional strategies and project-based learning, and (c) CC3: integrated, innovative technology use.

Cross-case analysis of the eight schools found similarities in how the schools addressed two specific critical components: CC1: college-prep, STEM focused curriculum for all and CC2: reform instructional strategies and project-based learning. From these two critical components, curriculum and instruction, four themes emerged: (a) classroom-related STEM opportunities, (b) cross-cutting school level STEM learning opportunities, (c) school-wide design for STEM opportunities, and (d) responsive design (Peters-Burton, House, Han, & Lynch, 2018 ). The theme of classroom-related STEM opportunities was characterized by the expectation that teachers act as designers of the curriculum and look beyond the typical textbook for resources. While designing the curriculum, teachers took a mastery learning approach and provided students multiple opportunities to master the material. Through the use of collaborative group projects, summative projects, culminating projects, and interdisciplinary studies, the schools demonstrated a cross-cutting school level approach to the STEM learning. School-wide STEM opportunities included a rigorous curriculum, incorporating engineering classes and/or engineering design thinking, emphasizing connections between the curriculum and real-world examples, as well as building strong collaboration between teachers. Finally, these ISHSs had systems such as data-driven decision making and supports for incoming ninth graders built into their schools as a responsive design. In summary, these schools worked to improve students’ 21 st Century skill such as collaboration, problem solving, information and media literacy, and self-directed learning (Lynch et al., 2018 ).

Research design

This study was designed as a conversion mixed methods approach (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003 ) in that qualitative data were transformed into quantitative data using established rubrics. Document analysis was used as a tool to identify occasions of evidence within lessons plans and student work products related to the identified 21 st Century skills (Krippendorff, 2012 ). In this conversion approach, the 21 st Century skill demonstrated qualitatively in the documents was scored using the rubrics, ergo integrating qualitative and quantitative methods in the analysis.

Participating schools

The eight exemplar ISHSs for this study came from the same quintain as used by the OSPrI project (Lynch et al., 2018 ). Because this origin project was a cross-case analysis and the IRB did not allow for school to school comparison, the data collected from individual schools was aggregated as one data source. Protocol for inclusion in the OSPrI study was that the school had no academic admission requirements, self-identified as a STEM school, was in operation for grades 9 through 12, and intentionally recruited students typically underrepresented in STEM. For more information on the demographics of the schools and the selection process, see Lynch et al., 2018 . Of the eight schools that were in the original OSPrI project, seven provided teacher lesson plans and/or student work samples during the school visit. All schools have given permission to use their actual names. The sample size from each school was inconsistent, therefore, we treated the data set as one combined group that included all seven schools.

Data sources

Student work samples and teacher lesson plans were collected during OSPrI site visits to the seven schools, which were each visited once between 2012 and 2014. Researchers requested paper copies of typical lesson plans and student work that resulted in an average performance from the lesson plan that was observed at all eight ISHSs during the site visits. Because this was a convenience sample, not all teachers submitted lesson plans, and only a few teachers submitted the student work products related to those lessons. Unfortunately, few parents consented to release student work products. As a result, 67 teacher lesson plans and 29 student work samples were collected from seven of the eight schools. We decided to keep the student work products in the descriptive portion of the analysis, but not the inferential analysis in the study because this is a unique opportunity to gain even a small insight into student work from STEM schools that were considered exemplary and served students who are typically underrepresented in STEM. Table 3 describes the content matter and grade level(s) associated collected teacher lesson plan and corresponding student work product.

Each teacher lesson plan was analyzed using the 21 st Century Learning Design (21CLD) Learning Activity Rubric and each student work product was analyzed using the 21 st Century Learning Design Student Work Rubric (SRI International, n.d.-a; SRI International, n.d.-b). These instruments were found to be valid and reliable for use in high school classrooms, and Shear et al., 2010 reports the details of the development and validation of the rubrics. Although the student work products were related to the teacher lesson plans, they were analyzed independently according to the protocol of the 21CLD rubrics. The 21CLD Activity Rubric and the 21CLD Student Work Rubric were designed by Microsoft Partner’s in Learning with a collaboration between ITL Research and SRI International (SRI International, n.d.-a; SRI International, n.d.-b). These two 21CLD rubrics were the result of a multi-year project synthesizing research-based practices that promote 21 st Century skills (Shear et al., 2010 ). The rubrics, each 44-pages in length, are available online for public use ( https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research ). The 21CLD rubrics assess teacher lesson plans or student work products on six metrics aligned with 21 st Century skills: (a) knowledge construction, (b) real-world problem solving, (c) skilled communication, (d) collaboration, (e) use of ICT for learning, and (f) self-regulation (SRI International, n.d.-a; SRI International, n.d.-b). Collaboration, knowledge construction, and use of ICT score ratings range from one to five while real-world problem solving, self-regulation, and skilled communication score ratings range from one to four.

Data analysis

The teacher lessons and student work samples were assessed on (a) knowledge construction, (b) real-world problem solving, (c) skilled communication, (d) collaboration, (e) use of ICT for learning, and (f) self-regulation using the 21CLD Learning Activity and the 21CLD Student Work Rubrics respectively. Examples of excerpts from teacher lesson plans and student work products for each category can be found in Table 4 . Two raters were used to establish interrater reliability. Both raters have a background as secondary science teachers and were trained on the use of the rubric. One rater has a terminal degree in education and the other rater is a doctoral student in education. The two raters met and discussed the rubric scores until the interrater reliability was 100%. Once consensus scores were established, tests for assumptions, descriptive, and inferential statistics were run.

During the analysis of research questions one and two, unique trends of short-term and long-term lesson plans were noted. From this, a third research question emerged from the analysis:

Are there differences in the 21 CLD Learning Activity scores of short-term lessons and long-term lessons?

The 21CLD Learning Activity and the 21CLD Student Work Rubrics required a lesson to be long-term order to assess self-regulation. The rubric defined long-term as “if students work on it for a substantive period of time” (SRI International, n.d.-a, p. 32). From our reading of the lesson plans, lessons that were scheduled for three or more days met the criterion of a substantive period of time, while lesson that were scheduled for 1 or 2 days did not meet this criterion. For the purposes of this study, we decided to refine the definition of long-term to be a lesson lasting three or more class periods and a short-term lesson lasting less than three class periods. The analyses for all research questions separated lessons into long-term and short-term in order to clarify the category of self-regulation.

The data were checked for normality, skewness, and outliers; only the teacher lesson plans met all assumptions for an ANOVA (comparison of grade levels) and t test (long-term versus short-term). Due to the small number of student work samples collected (see Table 6 ), the data related to student work did not meet the assumptions needed to run a t test therefore was not included in this analysis.

Overall rubric scores

To answer the first research question, a descriptive analysis was run for each of the six categories on the rubric and the total score (found in Tables 5 and 6 ). The average score for all teacher lesson plans was less than 2 for all six categories (out of a total of 4 or 5). Likewise, overall student work sample averages scored below 2 except on the category of Knowledge Construction. Table 6 also shows the median score for long-term student work sample categories to better describe central tendencies of the data. Figure 2 shows the distribution of total rubric scores for all teacher lesson plans. Seventeen of the 67 lessons scored a 6, the lowest possible score. Only 16 of the 67 lessons scored higher than 13 points, half of the total possible points. Out of those 16 scoring over 50%, only three lessons scored 20 points or more out of the possible 27.

Distribution of total 21CLD rubric scores for all lessons

Figure 3 illustrates the quantity of 21 st Century skills found in each lesson. Nearly 75% of the teacher lesson plans included at least one 21 st Century skill in the lesson and 67% addressed two or more 21 st Century skills. Although most of the lessons at the ISHSs introduced multiple 21 st Century skills, the overall scores for the quality were low.

Distribution of number of 21 st Century skills addressed in a lesson

21 st Century learning by grade

To answer the second research question, an ANOVA was conducted to compare lesson scores by grade level. There were no statistically significant differences between grade level scores for the total rubric score. Data were separated into short-term and long-term lessons by rubric category. There were no significant differences in short-term lessons by grade level (Fig. 4 ). However, there were significant differences across grades for long-term lessons. Total rubric score for grade 12 lessons were significantly higher than grade 9 ( p = 0.023) and grade 11 ( p = 0.032). Difference in total rubric scores for grade 12 lessons were approaching significance with grade 10 ( p = 0.063). As seen in Fig. 5 , category scores for long-term learning activities have small differences in 9th, 10th, and 11th grades but peaks noticeably in 12th grade. The exception to this trend is use of ICT which peaks in 11th grade.

The average rubric metric scores for short-term lessons, sorted by grade level for the lesson

The average rubric metric scores for long-term lessons, sorted by grade level for the lesson

Long-term versus short-term assignments

To answer the second research question, a t test with Bonferroni correction was performed to compare long-term and short-term lessons for each of the categories. A statistically significant difference was found between short-term ( N = 35) and long-term ( N = 32) lessons on total score, knowledge construction, use of ICT, self-regulation, and skilled communication (Table 7 ). The effect sizes for these categories as calculated by Hedges g (Lakens, 2013 ) were all above 0.8 indicated large effect size (Table 7 ). In all of those categories, long-term lessons scored higher than short-term lessons (Table 5 ). The category of real-world problem solving was approaching statistical significance with the t-score not showing significance [ t = − 2.67, p = .001] but a statistically significant confidence interval [− 1.23, 0.003] and a medium effect size (Table 7 ).

• 21 st Century skills

Overall, the teacher lesson plans collected at the ISHSs showed evidence of addressing 21 st Century skills. Nearly 75% of the lessons included at least one 21 st Century skill with 67% addressing two or more. Although the majority of lessons addressed multiple 21 st Century skills, the rubric scores for these lessons were low because they addressed these skills at a minimal level. For example, a minimal level of collaboration would be instructions to form a group. A high level of collaboration would include defining roles, explicit instructions on how to share responsibility, and evidence of interdependence. Only five lessons showed evidence of multiple 21 st Century skills implemented at the highest level, as measured by the 21CLD Learning Activity Rubric.

While assessing the lesson plans, we noted that more explicit instructions in the teacher lesson plans would have resulted in higher rubric scores. Placing students in groups, structuring peer feedback, and having students design a final project for a particular audience are three small changes not seen frequently in the lesson plans that are articulated in the Lesson Plan rubrics to encourage multiple 21 st Century skills. When students work in groups, they improve their collaboration and communication skills while constructing knowledge and solving problems (Care et al., 2016 ; Shear et al., 2010 ). When teachers incorporate peer feedback into their lesson, students engage in collaboration. Peer feedback also gives students the opportunity to revise their work based on feedback, increasing self-regulation (Shear et al., 2010 ; Zimmerman, 2000 ). When students design their final project for a specific target audience, rather than simply displaying their knowledge for the teacher, they work on their skilled communication processes (Claro et al., 2012 ; van Laar et al., 2017 ; Warin et al., 2016 ). In summary, placing students in groups, structuring peer feedback, and having students design a final project for a particular audience provides opportunities for students to practice 21 st Century skills.

When lessons addressed more than one 21 st Century skill, they usually demonstrated the use of collaboration or communication in real-world problem solving and knowledge construction (Care et al., 2016 ; Carpenter & Pease, 2013 ). Thirty-three lesson plans in which real-world problem solving or knowledge construction was evident, 31 showed evidence of collaboration or communication. Similarly, 13 of the 18 student work samples showed evidence of collaboration or communication when real-world problem solving or knowledge construction was practiced. The results from the indirect measures of the rubric build support for a conceptual model connecting the components of 21 st Century skills (Fig. 1 ). There was some evidence demonstrating the support that collaboration and communication have for knowledge construction and real-world problem solving.

The findings of this study point to the likelihood of self-regulation being connected to other 21 st Century skills. Each time self-regulation was present in a teacher lesson plan, there was evidence of at least one other 21 st Century skill in that lesson. Seventeen of the 23 lesson plans addressing self-regulation included at least three other 21 st Century skills, showing evidence that self-regulation is a skill that is related to knowledge construction and real-world problem solving. Our findings reflect the findings of other researchers, in that self-regulation guides the students’ individual connections, reflections, and revisions between knowledge construction and real-world problem solving (Brown et al., 1983 ; Carpenter & Pease, 2013 ; Flavell, 1987 ; Shear et al., 2010 ).

Evidence from the lessons showed that there was no consistent connection to the use of ICT and the presence of the other 21 st Century skills. ICT was seen in both low-scoring lessons as the sole 21 st Century skill, as well as in high-scoring lessons in tandem with multiple other 21 st Century skills. As in our model, technology is a tool to help facilitate but is not necessary in the development of the other 21 st Century skills (Koh et al., 2015 ; Shear et al., 2010 ). After examining the data, our model remained unchanged for all 21 st Century skills and their relationship to each other.

Grade level differences

Overall, there were no statistically significant differences in the total 21CLD scores across grade levels. This is consistent with the missions of the ISHSs in this study to shift responsibility for learning to the students by weaving 21 st Century skills throughout high school grade levels (Lynch et al., 2017 ). When looking at trends in long-term projects, there was a jump in total 21CLD score for 12th grade. Again, this aligns with the participating schools’ goals of creating an environment where students have a more independent learning experience during their senior year internships, college classes, and specialized programs CC1 (Lynch et al., 2018 ). This is consistent with the goal of many of the schools to have the students work independently during their senior year either by taking college classes, completing an internship, or taking a career specific set of classes.

Short-term vs. long-term lessons

The data showed that long-term lesson planning had significantly higher scores on the rubric as compared to the short-termed lessons. This difference is consistent with the literature regarding the need for students to have time to develop and practice skills (Lynch et al., 2017 ; NGSS Lead States, 2013 ). The extended time allows students to monitor and reflect on their progress while working toward self-regulation of the skill (Carpenter & Pease, 2013 ; English & Kitsantas, 2013 ). To truly become self-regulated, students need repeated supported attempts to be able to do it on their own (Zimmerman, 2000 ).

Although not significant, collaboration was the only rubric metric where the short-term lessons averaged a higher collaboration score than the long-term lessons. Evidence from the lessons show students worked in pairs or groups, but infrequently shared responsibility, made decisions together, or worked interdependently. This leads to the possibility that incorporating the higher levels of collaborations is difficult, even in long-term projects. In addition, evaluating the higher levels of collaboration is difficult to make based solely on documents. Observations would be required to evaluate how the students within the group were interacting with one another.

Limitations

Because this study used data collected as part of a larger study, there were several limitations. The work collected is a snapshot of the work students were doing at the time of the observation and does not allow for a clear longitudinal look at student growth over time. As stated before, the small student work sample limited what we were able to do with the analysis.

By only analyzing paper copies of the student work, it was not possible to determine a true collaboration score for many of the projects. Higher levels of collaboration such as sharing responsibility, making decisions together, and working interdependently require observation or more detailed notes from the students or teachers. Some lessons may have scored higher in the metric of collaboration had the student interactions been observed or noted.

This study confirmed the presence of all identified 21 st Century skills in the lesson plans at the selected exemplar ISHSs serving underrepresented students in STEM: (a) knowledge construction, (b) real-world problem solving, (c) skilled communication, (d) collaboration, (e) use of information and communication technology (ICT) for learning, and (f) self-regulation. In light of the patterns that emerged from the rubrics, we posit that in the lesson plans communication and collaboration are the core 21st Century skills that facilitate knowledge construction and real-world problem solving, while student self-regulation creates efficiencies resulting in improved knowledge construction and real-world problem solving. We also saw in the lesson plans that ICT provides tools to support communication and reflection which leads to knowledge construction and real-world problem solving. To further develop knowledge about how 21 st Century skills addressed in lesson plans help to support student work, our model can be a hypothesized starting point to investigate interactions.

While teachers were successful at including 21 st Century skills into lessons, very few lessons practiced higher levels of those skills. This could be an indication that high levels of 21 st Century skills are difficult to teach explicitly at the high school level. Future studies may investigate why teachers are not frequently incorporating higher level 21 st Century skills into their lessons to answer questions as to whether teachers feel that (a) they need more training on incorporating 21 st Century skills, (b) students need more practice and scaffolding to build up to higher levels of 21 st Century skills, or (c) they need more time for long-term projects to work on the higher level skills.

The use of the 21CLD rubric is a tangible way for teachers to self-assess the level of 21 st Century skills in their lessons. Self-evaluation helps encourage reflection, promote professional growth, and recommendations for new aspects of lessons (Akram & Zepeda, 2015 ; Peterson & Comeaux, 1990 ). This can also help teachers make the instructions for the development of 21 st Century skills more explicit in their lesson. In conducting a self-evaluation, teachers may realize that they do not have a deep understanding of the characteristics of 21 st Century skills. If teachers are new to incorporating these skills into their lessons, the teachers may need time to learn the skills themselves before they can incorporate them into their lessons (Yoon et al., 2015 ). Further studies may examine how teachers use the 21CLD rubric to improve their lesson.

Students need time to grapple with and learn new skills (Lynch et al., 2017 ; NGSS Lead States, 2013 ). While we were able to see evidence of higher rubric scores for 21 st Century skills for 12th grade students in the lesson plans, due to the convenience sampling of lesson plans and student work samples, we were not able to look at how students’ 21 st Century skills were built over time. There is a desire to better understand how ISHSs successfully develop these skills. This includes how schools incorporate and build the 21 st Century skills (a) within multiple lessons in one course, (b) across multiple classes over the course of a school year, and (c) throughout the students’ entire high school sequence. Future research may look at a longitudinal study that follows one student’s work over an entire school year to see how the 21CLD scores change. In addition, future studies may also look at how the short-term projects build the skills needed for the students to incorporate higher levels of 21 st Century skills in long-term projects.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

21 st Century Learning Design

Critical component

Information and communication technology

Inclusive STEM high school

National Assessment of Educational Progress

Next-generation science standards

Opportunity Structures for Preparation and Inspiration in STEM

Partnership for 21 st Century Learning

Programme for International Student Assessment

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

Technology and engineering literacy

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Acknowledgments

Publication of this article was funded in part by the George Mason University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund.

This work was conducted by the OSPrI research project, with Sharon Lynch, Tara Behrend, Erin Peters-Burton, and Barbara Means as principal investigators. Funding for OSPrI was provided by the National Science Foundation (DRL 1118851). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of endorsement of the funding agency.

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Stehle, S.M., Peters-Burton, E.E. Developing student 21 st Century skills in selected exemplary inclusive STEM high schools. IJ STEM Ed 6 , 39 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-019-0192-1

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Know the ISTE Standards for Students 1

• ISTE Standards

Know the ISTE Standards for Students is a series of scenarios encouraging readers to use ISTE's student standards (ISTE StandardsS) to analyze classroom events. ISTE's Research and Evaluation Department looks at each standard's indicators in detail, exploring different versions of the same lesson to determine whether — and how — they meet a standard. Let's start with the first standard in the set.

ISTE Standard for Students 1: Creativity and Innovation

Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.

If you are observing a classroom, you can use a rubric similar to the one in the table below, which asks you to decide whether each indicator of the standard is absent, addressed or met. Addressed means that students have opportunities to learn about or practice an indicator. Met means that students have opportunities to actually demonstrate the indicator.

Math, and all STEM subjects, are not often associated with creativity in most teachers' minds, but every subject offers the opportunity to cultivate this skill in students. The table presents three examples of class activities that use technology to teach geometry concepts as well as the Standard1: Creativity and Innovation indicators that each activity meets or doesn't meet.

There is nothing wrong with Activity 1; it is common in classrooms with access to digital photography. By itself, it might not have anything to do with Standard 1, but a teacher could include all three examples in the same unit. Students could collect images on Monday, review polygons and software on Tuesday, and complete their structures over the rest of the week. Each scenario enriches the experience of the previous one. In that case, the number of standard indicators you see depends on which day you look for them. If you're visiting a classroom as part of a program evaluation, you have to find out where the lesson you observe fits into the overall learning experience.

Note what happens when there are more opportunities to meet a standard: Students have more active engagement, resources and choice. Plenty of lessons go through the motions of creativity and innovation, such as using drill-and-practice simulations, spinning off ideas, or following step-by-step construction procedures. These all may be useful and may address other standards. However, the more the teacher or textbook dictates products and procedures, the less a lesson will address creativity and innovation.

Because meeting the indicators involves a lot of learner responsibility, young children (or any learners encountering a new topic) are unlikely to be able to meet the criteria for most indicators. Teachers can address a student standard by providing age-appropriate learning opportunities. But the standards can only be met by the students themselves. That is why there are separate standards for teachers and administrators.

A version of this column appeared in the August 2013 edition of Learning & Leading with Technology .

Want to learn more ways to incorporate STEM skills  into your lessons while meeting the ISTE Standards? Check out ISTE's STEM webinars .

• artificial intelligence

NATIONAL TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS FOR STUDENTS (NETS-S)

Standards for grades k-12.

• Creativity and Innovation. Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.
• Communication and Collaboration. Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
• Research and Information Fluency. Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.
• Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making. Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.
• Digital Citizenship.  Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior.
• Technology Operations and Concepts. Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations.

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Kate Conway

This chapter examines 21st century learning, including contemporary learning environments and constructivist approaches, with a specific focus on partnering, and how they contribute to developing skills like critical thinking, information literacy, decision making, and problem solving among learners. Insights from academics like Dr. Tony Wagner and Dr. Teresa Amabile are touched on, highlighting their proposed characteristics of successful learners. These characteristics include curiosity and innovation, with a focus on traits like creativity, problem solving, knowledge acquisition, and critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is further defined and broken down into its components, including the Australian Council for Educational Research’s (ACER) critical thinking framework. The intended purpose of such operationalized definitions and frameworks is to empower educators to feel confident in teaching and assessing this competency in their students, especially in a digital age where technology plays a huge role in information gathering and knowledge construction. The role of information communication technology (ICT) and information literacy is defined and examined in the context of critical thinking, and demonstrates that they are interconnected. Finally, educational technology tools and platforms are explored, including their possible applications at the curricular level and suggestions for future improvements are made in the context of the Ontario curriculum.

critical thinking, 21st century learning, information literacy

Introduction

Today’s learners are increasingly familiar with using technology to acquire knowledge and to seek answers. As constructivist pedagogies, like partnering, technology-enhanced active learning (TEAL), and inquiry-based learning, become increasingly prevalent in classrooms, these 21st century learners are taking on the roles of researcher, thinker, and sense-maker, among others (Prensky, 2010). This means that students have the responsibility to ensure that the information they are gathering and applying to learning or action is relevant, accurate, and reliable (Tutor2u, 2021). This necessary shift toward student-centered learning calls on teachers to guide and mentor students in ways that develop the critical thinking skills necessary to be successful learners, with particular focus on informed decision-making.

Dr. Tony Wagner believes that the ability to create new knowledge and solve new problems is the single most important skill that students must master today (Fullan, 2013). In order acquire this skill, modern day education is best conducted in ways that engage and motivate students and foster the development of 21st century competencies, like innovation, critical thinking and problem solving. In order for this to be achieved, one must consider what types of learning environments are conducive to competency development in these categories amongst today’s learners.

This chapter outlines what 21st century learning looks like, what competencies it develops, and how critical thinking, as a concept, has been traditionally difficult to characterize and, therefore, teach to and assess for. Also covered in this chapter will be how researchers and educators approach the definition of critical thinking, including how it overlaps and intertwines with problem solving, decision-making, and information-communication technology (ICT) and, therefore, how technology can play a role in critical thinking development amongst learners.

Background Information

In developing this chapter, a literature review was undertaken to examine how critical thinking plays a role in learners’ educational experience. Through examining existing literature, definitions, and frameworks, it became clear that there are a few elements that are key to understanding critical thinking and decision making through the lens of 21st-century learning.

21st Century Learning

The learning environment.

Educators can create and facilitate learning in effective ways that differ from the traditional lecture, or sage-on-the-stage, approach. Partnering is a 21st century way of working together whereby students explore and discover for themselves the answers to questions, while educators provide just enough guidance to allow that to happen with minimal need for outside assistance (Prensky, 2010). For teachers, this might mean teaching self-monitoring and self-correcting skills to encourage self-sufficient learners. With partnering, the students’ job is to make use of any tools, including technology, available to them to find information, make meaning, and create, while teachers guide with questioning, contextualizing, and providing rigor to ensure quality (Prensky, 2010).

Borne of constructivist leanings, which stipulate that students construct meaning through experience and that meaning is influenced by the interaction of prior knowledge and new events (Arends, 1998), partnering shares traits with more popularized approaches like project-based learning, or inquiry-based learning, while underscoring the reciprocal nature of the student-teacher relationship. This aligns with Tam’s outline of constructivist learning environment characteristics, including that knowledge and authority are shared between teachers and students, the teacher acts as a facilitator, and learning groups are small and heterogenous in nature (Tam, 2000). In partnering, teachers empower students to use any available technology to personalize their learning experience and follow their passions while seeking information, answering questions, sharing ideas, practicing, and creating (Prensky, 2010).

It is clear that technology can be a very supportive tool in a 21st-century learning environment as students use it to engage with their learning experience in the role of researcher. However, it is their other roles – thinker and sense maker – that may go overlooked by the students themselves. Teachers should ensure they inform students that thinking logically and critically is one of their primary roles (Prensky, 2010) and should have structures in place to provide the guidance and feedback necessary to further foster these skills.

21st Century Competencies

Being a learner in the 21st century means a shift from traditional skills associated with being a student, like rote learning and memorization, to skills like innovation and creativity. Dr. Tony Wagner highlights curiosity as being a key characteristic of an innovative learner while Dr. Teresa Amabile highlights that knowledge and problem-solving are important to the creative process (Fullan, 2013). Curiosity begets knowledge acquisition, which enables students to tackle problems that need solved or decisions that need to be made.

This process requires learners to possess certain competencies, which Wagner refers to as the 7 Survival Skills (Asia Society, 2009), including, but not limited to, critical thinking and problem solving as well as accessing and analyzing information. In the technological age we live in, there is boundless information available to those who seek it. For learners, the ability to effectively search for information and identify what is important and parse it out from that which is superfluous is important to the critical thinking and decision-making processes. Wagner (2008) posits that these survival skills are key to successful careers, continuous learning, and active and informed citizenship and, yet, the education community is unsure how to teach or assess them, posing an obvious challenge.

Critical Thinking & Decision Making

This raises the question of how skills like critical thinking and decision-making are defined and why they are so important in contemporary learning environments. It is important that measurable and consistent definitions are generated in order for educators to effectively teach and assess the skills of critical thinking and decision-making.

Definition and Importance of Critical Thinking

Depending on the source, critical thinking has many definitions, each overlapping with some nuanced differences. Heard et al. (2020) curated a collection of critical thinking definitions and formulated this formal definition to guide the development of the Australian Council for Educational Research’s (ACER) critical thinking framework, which will be touched on shortly:

To think critically is to analyze and evaluate information, reasoning and situations, according to appropriate standards such as truth and logic, for the purpose of constructing sound and insightful new knowledge, understandings, hypotheses and beliefs. Critical thinking encompasses the subject’s ability to process and synthesize information in such a way that it enables them to apply it judiciously to tasks for informed decision-making and effective problem-solving. (p.11)

In addition, Robert Ennis’ definition of critical thinking as “reflective thinking focused on deciding on what to believe or do” (Ennis, 1985, p.45 ) suggests that critical thinking does not only influence individual judgment when it comes to what to think, but also what actions to take. By Ennis’ definition, it would seem that decision-making – deciding what action to take – is intertwined with critical thinking. With respect to problem-solving, researchers agree that while it is related to critical thinking, the term problem solving is more often used in relation to well-defined problems with limited solutions, while critical thinking involves open-ended reasoning and ill-defined problems (Heard et al., 2020).

With the aforementioned definitions in mind, Edward Glaser’s summary of critical thinking can serve as a good basis to understanding what critical thinking is in a nutshell. The three characteristics Glaser considers hallmarks of critical thinking ability include: a disposition towards thoughtfully considering the problems and subjects in one’s life experiences and not just in specific contexts or situations, knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, and some skill in applying those methods (Heard et al., 2020).

Teaching and Assessing Critical Thinking

It is clear from these interpretations that critical thinking and decision-making are vital to the success of contemporary learners, both in school and beyond in their personal and professional lives. However, in order to teach and assess critical thinking, an operational definition is required so that assessment tools and intervention techniques can be devised (Heard et al, 2020).

This was the driving force behind the development of the ACER’s critical thinking framework, which is evidence-based and outlines critical thinking processes by strands and aspects, with the intention of providing areas of focus for the teaching and assessing of critical thinking skills. The framework considers critical thinking to be a series of cognitive processes that are goal-oriented and purpose-driven, not just reflective thought (Facione, 1990). These cognitive processes can be broken down into six areas, including interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation, each of which encapsulates a set of subskills. For example, in order for learners to evaluate, they should be able to question the evidence, speculate as to possible alternatives, and draw logical conclusions (Facione, 1990).

For the purposes of the ACER’s critical thinking skills development framework, these cognitive processes were taken into account. In its structure, the critical thinking framework is divided into three strands, further broken down into three aspects each. These aspects encapsulate the knowledge, skills, and understanding that are consistent across definitions of critical thinking (Heard et al, 2020). The three strands are knowledge construction, evaluating reasoning, and decision-making. The aspects of knowledge construction are the identification of gaps in knowledge, discriminating information, and identifying patterns and making connections. The aspects involved in evaluating reasoning include applying logic, identifying assumptions and motivations, and justifying arguments. Finally, the aspects of decision-making are identifying criteria for decision-making, evaluating options, and testing and monitoring implementation (Heard et al, 2020). For reference, the framework is available as a graphical representation in Appendix A.

This framework shares many of the same characteristics of critical thinking that Wagner (2008) discusses when describing the “5 Habits of Mind”. Wagner’s habits of weighing evidence, seeing connections and speculating on possibilities align very closely with the framework’s knowledge construction strand, while Wagner’s habit of being aware of varying viewpoints aligns with the evaluating reasoning strand, and finally, Wagner’s habit of assessing value shares similar aspects to the decision-making strand (Heard et al, 2020; Wagner, 2008). The ACER’s critical thinking framework and Wagner’s “5 Habits of Mind” may be used when considering how to teach and assess critical thinking and decision-making in their classrooms. Wagner (2008) refers to critical thinking as “learning to answer the right questions”, which can be accomplished through an educator’s application of rigor in the classroom when guiding students who are developing critical thinking skills.

This brings us back to the pedagogical approach of partnering when designing the learning environment. To recapitulate, partnering is when students take on the role of researcher, technology user, thinker, and sense maker, while teachers guide, question, provide context, and apply rigor. Educators should make it clear to their students that thinking logically and more critically is one of their primary roles (Prensky, 2010). Learners’ skills of logical and critical thinking can be nurtured and encouraged when educators have a functional definition of critical thinking and clearly articulated subskills that they can draw on when guiding, questioning, and assessing students. The ACER’s framework and Wagner’s “5 Habits of Mind” are two resources that can provide a solid foundation and starting point for teaching and assessing critical thinking.

Applications

Critical thinking includes knowledge construction, which involves identifying gaps in knowledge and discriminating information. In contemporary society, much of our knowledge construction and information acquisition occurs in the digital space. That is why Information-Communications Technology (ICT) has relevant applications in relation to critical thinking and decision-making. Understanding information literacy and the role critical thinking plays in navigating the vast digital world of information is vital. Furthermore, having relevant resources and tools that support the development of critical thinking skills and information literacy can help educators nurture these 21st-century skills amongst learners

Information Communication Technology (ICT)

Typically, when we speak about information literacy, we think of skills that are procedural, like retrieving, managing, referencing, and communicating information (CILIP, 2018), but it is important that individuals apply critical thinking in order to assess the information they are collecting (Paul et al, 2007). Information literacy and critical thinking are interrelated in that information literacy emphasizes the ability to identify and articulate the information needed for a purpose, understanding how to find and identify appropriate information sources, and how to critically assess the information gathered (Grafstein, 2017).  Therefore, information-communication technology can play a vital role in developing key 21st-century competencies like knowledge construction and decision making.

As technology has become more versatile and accessible in educational settings, it has become a fixture in many classrooms. In a class following a partnering approach to learning and instruction, students are encouraged to use any technology at their disposal to personalize their learning experience, to aid in seeking information, answering questions, sharing ideas, and creating (Prensky, 2010). Students may use computers, tablets, or personal devices like smartphones to accomplish this.

The ability to put students in the roles of researcher, technology expert, thinker, and sense-maker is largely due to recent changes in the way information can be accessed, thanks to the advent of the internet (Heard et al, 2020). However, with the expansion of technology and the rise of internet use comes challenges. The ease with which users can access information is matched by the ease with which users can manipulate open-access online information sources (Heard et al., 2020). For this reason, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals has updated the definition of information literacy to align more closely with critical thinking. They now define information literacy as the “ability to think critically and make balanced judgments about any information we find and use” (CILIP, 2018).

Educational Technology Example

One way that learners may be guided to develop their critical thinking skills in the context of ICT and information literacy, is through the provision of resources that can help broaden their opportunities for constructing knowledge and evaluating information. AllSides for Schools is a web-based platform of resources that provides educators with information and curricular guidance to help guide learners in developing skills like critical thinking (AllSides for Schools, 2022). It originated in 2019 as a nonprofit joint initiative by AllSides and Living Room Conversations to aid educators in addressing digital media literacy and communication skills with their students (AllSides for Schools, 2022). The mission of AllSides for Schools is to teach students how to critically evaluate news, media content, and other information as well as how to use their acquired knowledge to engage in productive dialogue, both in the educational setting and in their communities, professionally and in their personal lives (AllSides for Schools, 2022). To accomplish this mission, the platform has centralized and expanded upon the resources available across AllSides and Living Room Conversations and offers classroom activities and lesson plans (AllSides for Schools, 2022) that educators can draw on when providing guidance, context, and rigor for their learners.

Conclusions and Future Recommendations

As outlined throughout this chapter, contemporary learners require a modernized approach to instruction and learning. It is important that educators understand which skills to foster and help develop. The ability to memorize and regurgitate information is no longer an effective or valuable skill, nor is it a motivating concept for most 21st-century learners. Rather, today’s students thrive best when they are put at the center of their learning experience in the roles of researcher, thinker, and creator. Educators, then, should fill the roles of guide and contextualizer, encouraging students to think logically and critically as one of their primary roles (Prensky, 2010). The goal, as posited by Dr. Wagner and Dr. Amabile is to create innovative, creative, and knowledgable learners with strong critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.

In order to nurture these 21st-century competencies, educators must be able to teach and assess them using clearly defined metrics. That is where operationalized definitions like the one created by Glaser or Heard et al (2020) and critical thinking frameworks, like the ACER’s, are essential. They provide a structure from which educators can guide students, offer feedback, and assess progress. Additionally, educators can steer students to seek information using whatever technology is available to them, including web-based educational technology and platforms, like AllSides for Schools, a critical thinking and media literacy online resource designed to aid in the development of knowledge acquisition, information literacy, and critical thinking skills.

Moving forward, curricular documents and assessment tools should be constructed with more constructivist and student-centered approaches in mind. As an example, current elementary curriculum documents and assessment guides from the Ontario Ministry of Education do mention critical thinking, albeit briefly, including a definition and where critical thinking fits in when considering assessment, though in some documents critical thinking only appears in the glossary (Ontario, 2010; Ontario, 2007; Ontario, 2006). Beyond this cursory mention, no concrete means of teaching or assessing critical thinking, especially in a student-centered fashion are brought forth. This is an oversight that should be addressed in future renditions of the Ontario curriculum for the reasons outlined throughout this chapter.

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Appendix A: ACER Critical thinking skill development framework

ACER critical thinking skill development framework

Technology and the Curriculum: Summer 2022 Copyright © 2022 by Kate Conway is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Globalisation and Education Reforms pp 35–50 Cite as

Constructivist Learning Theory and Creating Effective Learning Environments

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Part of the book series: Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research ((GCEP,volume 25))

This chapter analyses constructivism and the use of constructivist learning theory in schools, in order to create effective learning environments for all students. It discusses various conceptual approaches to constructivist pedagogy. The key idea of constructivism is that meaningful knowledge and critical thinking are actively constructed, in a cognitive, cultural, emotional, and social sense, and that individual learning is an active process, involving engagement and participation in the classroom. This idea is most relevant to the process of creating effective learning environments in schools globally. It is argued that the effectiveness of constructivist learning and teaching is dependent on students’ characteristics, cognitive, social and emotional development, individual differences, cultural diversity, motivational atmosphere and teachers’ classroom strategies, school’s location, and the quality of teachers. The chapter offers some insights as to why and how constructivist learning theory and constructivist pedagogy could be useful in supporting other popular and effective approaches to improve learning, performance, standards and teaching. Suggestions are made on how to apply constructivist learning theory and how to develop constructivist pedagogy, with a range of effective strategies for enhancing meaningful learning and critical thinking in the classroom, and improving academic standards.

• Academic performance
• Achievement
• Cognitive constructivism
• Constructivism
• Constructivist pedagogy
• Cultural diversity
• Individual differences
• Individual differenced learning
• Metacognition
• Peer-assisted learning
• Self-esteem
• Social constructivism
• Teaching styles

The unexamined life is not worth living (Socrates, 399 BCE).

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Zajda, J. (2021). Constructivist Learning Theory and Creating Effective Learning Environments. In: Globalisation and Education Reforms. Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, vol 25. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71575-5_3

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ISTE Standards for Students

• Hour of Code

• Creativity and Innovation - Students will demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.
• Communication and Collaboration - Students will use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
• Research and Information Fluency - Students will apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.
• Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making - Students will use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.
• Digital Citizenship - Students will understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior.
• Technology Operations and Concepts - Students will demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations.

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