21st Century Learning Panel Discussion at Global Forum

This week I have the privilege of being in sunny Barcelona with 250 of the worlds’ most innovative educators. I have been inspired by them and amazed by them. Today they are conducting a 24 hour Learnathon which I’ll post more about later. For now I want to write about the Panel Discussion I watched yesterday. As you can see from the post below it was a varied panel with different backgrounds and perspectives. They addressed 4 key questions:

1. What does 21st Century Learning look like?
2. What skills does a 21st Century teacher need?
3. What forms of professional development do teachers need?
4. How should our curriculum be modified?

Here’s what I learned:

1 – It’s all about the Cs: connectedness, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, coaching and confidence

2 – To not know the answer so children can find it out for themselves. To develop the same skills as students (collaboration, critical thinking etc). To not teach knowledge but to teach learning. To be a chief creative officer.

3 – Pedagogy first, technology second. Teachers collaborating. Having a value proposition – why the training is important for me at a school level (e.g. supports literacy) and/ or a personalised level (to re-energise me, to help deliver a tricky topic etc.)

4 – Teachers to compliment/ support existing curriculum. Become curators of curriculum content (teachers and students). Throw out the text book and create your own! (OneNote? Online?)

Where you there too? It would be great it to hear your thoughts.