21st Century Learning Design

"21st century skills aren't just another thing to teach; they are essential skills that every learner should have as they leave our schools."

Robyn Hrivnatz
Teacher
Lamar Consolidated ISD
Katy, Texas - United States

“The more you use the 21CLD rubrics as an educator, the more enriching your learning activities become.”

Thomas Gaffey
Teacher
School of the Future
Philadelphia, PA - United States

Students around the world need advanced skills to succeed in the globalized, knowledge based world of today. 21st Century Learning Design, or 21CLD, professional development helps teachers redesign their existing lessons and learning activities to build students’ 21st century skills. It can be linked to your national or local curriculum standards. The program is based on rubrics developed and tested internationally for the Innovative Teaching and Learning (ITL) Research project.

The 21CLD rubrics help educators identify and understand the opportunities that learning activities give students to build 21st century skills. A learning activity is any task that students do as part of their school related work. It can be an exercise that students complete in one class period or an extended project that takes place both in and outside of school. The 21CLD rubrics incorporate a research-based methodology for coding learning activities to ensure you are embedding 21st century skills in your teaching practices. The 21CLD Rubric for Student Work provides a framework to assess students’ development of 21st century skills.

See example learning activities
Educators from around the world have submitted learning activities they have used in their classroom that exhibit strong 21st century skills in practice.

see examples

School leaders
21st Century Learning Design professional development can be used in conjunction with the Microsoft Educator Network School Research. The School Research measures innovative teaching and 21CLD supports teachers adoption of innovative teaching practices.