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Latest trends in education, part 2

Please enjoy posts from Golden Apple’s own Penny Lundquist for the next few weeks.  Penny is a 1986 Golden Apple Fellow. She has been on the staff of Golden Apple for 17 years, and currently serves as Golden Apple’s Director of Professional Development. Prior to working at Golden Apple, she was an English teacher with 23 years of classroom experience in grades five through twelve. Her interests include literacy and teacher professionalism.

What follows is a highly personal list of what I perceive to be 5 key education trends . . . expressed as injunctions.  I would love to have readers comment on my choices and list picks of their own.  These are in no particular order, just things I’m picking up surfing the internet, reading Educational Leadership, Edutopia and other education publications, and following Obama’s/Duncan’s education priorities. 

A few days ago, I published the first two trends: It’s the Teachers, Stupid! and It’s the Students, Stupid! Here’s #3:

3.  Children need 21st Century Skills.
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, a collaboration including business and technology leaders such Apple, Dell, Microsoft, and Verizon, and educational organizations such as Discovery Education, Scholastic, and the NEA, advocates for the full implementation of a new framework for conceptualizing education in the 21st Century, arguing that,

There is a profound gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21st century communities and workplaces...U.S. schools must align classroom environments with real world environments by infusing 21st century skills.

The framework, which has already been adopted by state partners in ten states, emphasizes a wide variety of themes, including critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, technology skills, self-directed learning, leadership, and cross-cultural understanding…

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