Key Trends in Learning & Teaching Part 4: Where the Marketplace Meets Teaching and Learning: Creativity and Innovation

National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) president Pat Bassett has written and spoken extensively about Tough Choices or Tough Times, a Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. In his analysis of this report, produced by the National Center on Education and the Economy, Bassett draws our attention to three points:

[1] “The crucial new factor, the one that alone can justify higher wages in this country than in other countries with similar levels of cognitive skills, is creativity and innovation.”

[2] “[O]ur schools emphasize memory and analytical abilities and therefore may not benefit creative students. This is not true of the best of our independent schools and suburban schools. But it is emphatically true of most of our schools.”

[3] “Those who are comfortable in working in artistic, investigative, highly social or entrepreneurial environments are more likely to succeed. . . Schools will have to learn to simulate those environments.”

Worth noting is the alignment between Bassett’s analysis of Tough Choices or Tough Times, and Daniel Pink’s thesis in his book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Pink carefully and compellingly lays the groundwork for his premise that the Information Age of the past couple of decades, built on the superiority of left-brain (more linear and logical) skills, is now giving over to the Conceptual Age, in which a holistic or whole-brained approach will be essential. This new age and new economy will call for skills and talents that, historically, have been largely discounted in the workplace – creativity, empathy, intuition, and the ability to link seemingly unrelated objects and events into something new and different.



Pink states that we are entering the Conceptual Age in which we will need to complement our more left-directed linear reasoning with six more right-directed aptitudes or senses, which are:

Design (“Today it’s economically crucial and personally rewarding to create something that is also beautiful, whimsical, or emotionally engaging”)

Story (“The essence of persuasion, communication, and self-understanding has become the ability to fashion a compelling narrative”)

Symphony (“Synthesis—seeing the big picture, crossing boundaries, and being able to combine disparate pieces into an arresting new whole”)

Empathy (“[L]ogic alone won’t do. What will distinguish those who thrive will be their ability to understand what makes their fellow woman or man tick, to forge relationships, and to care for others”)

Play (“In work and in life, we all need to play”)

Meaning (“Purpose, transcendence, and spiritual fulfillment”).

A question worth exploring in schools--all schools from early childhood through graduate school--is this: What might a school day look like IF we strategically incorporated and drew on these six right brain-directed aptitudes or senses in our design of curriculum?

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Key Trends in Learning & Teaching Part 3: Tuning in to the Developmental Needs and Characteristics of Children

In a world of high stakes (group administered, standardized) testing, educators and parents must not allow their focus to be taken away from addressing the developmental needs and characteristics of children. In a well-researched, thoughtful and compelling book entitled YARDSTICKS: CHILDREN IN THE CLASSROOM AGES 4-14, writer and educator Chip Woods provides a must-read primer for both educators and parents on growth patterns in children’s physical, social-emotional, language and cognitive development.

Woods links these specific developmental needs and characteristics to appropriate and effective choices for curriculum in reading, writing, math and thematic units, driving home a crucial point in the education of our children: The social-emotional lives of children are inextricably linked to their academic success. Further, Woods offers a strident caution about the risks schools run in emphasizing paper/pencil testing over authentic, engaging, hands-on/minds-on learning:

“In our rush to ‘fix’ our schools, we are supplanting essential aspects of childhood education—imagination, play, creativity, scientific curiosity, reading for pleasure—with testing in every subject. Recess and special area subjects such as art and music, world languages, and even computer literacy are held hostage to subjects that are measured by standardized state assessments.”

The work of the Northeast Foundation for Children (to which Woods is a long-time contributor) along with organizations such as National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the International Reading Association (IRA) provide compelling, longitudinal research in support of teaching that reaches the whole child—and, thereby, promotes a level of learning with which mere paper and pencil can’t compete and which group administered, standardized tests can’t ever hope to measure. Interested in cultivating deep understandings and learning that transfers to new or novel situations? Engage children in authentic, meaningful projects; supply them with real audiences; and provide real-time feedback. It’s called experiential learning—and Summit School has been engaging in remarkably varied and effective forms of it for 75 years.

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Key Trends in Learning & Teaching Part 2: Applying Cognitive Learning Theory to Classroom Practice

Dr. John Bransford’s book How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School offers a remarkable bridge between learning theory and classroom practice—a bridge that teachers and their administrators must cross more regularly and comfortably now than at any time in history.

Educators have the challenge and the opportunity constantly to find ways to apply in our day-to-day practices 3 findings on learners & learning and 3 implications for teaching. And parents should hold us accountable for doing so.

Findings on Learners and Learning
1. Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information taught, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions outside the classroom.

2. To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: [a] have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, [b] understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and [c] organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.

3. A “metacognitive” approach to instruction can help students learn to take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them. In short, students must be guided through regular reflection on what they have learned and how they have learned it.

Implications for Teaching
1. Teachers must draw out and work with the preexisting understandings that their students bring with them.

2. Teachers must teach some subject matter in depth, providing many examples in which the same concept is at work and providing a firm foundation of factual knowledge. This does not mean fire-hosing students with disparate pieces of information. Rather, we must provide for students what cognitive scientist and James S. McDonnell Foundation President Dr. John Bruer calls the “connective tissue” of conceptual learning. That is, we must help students connect the dots of information into larger, meaningful wholes.

3. The teaching of metacognitive skills [thinking about thinking] should be integrated into the curriculum in a variety of subject areas.

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What Parents Should Know about Key Trends in Learning and Teaching--Part 1: Embracing Digital Natives

Can you imagine a more exciting or challenging time to be involved in learning and teaching? A host of complex issues (ranging from the changing roles of technology in our lives to the way cognitive neuroscience is reshaping our notions of intelligence) are recasting how we envision the roles and responsibilities of both students and teachers as lifelong learners. And what does this mean for our roles as parents? How can we best serve as advocates for our children in this brave new world of 21st century learning and teaching?

To serve as advocates for our children in school we must remain informed about evolving trends in learning and teaching. In this next series of postings I will explore what I take to be five key ideas and trends in learning and teaching that have implications for how our children learn, how & what we should teach, and how--as parents--we can serve as advocates for our children. These five core ideas involve and require educational innovation. These ideas come from thinkers, writers, teachers, and students who have their fingers on the pulse of 21st century learning, and the kind of teaching that will prepare our children for the world in which they will play leadership roles.

I invite you to question, extend, grapple with, muse on and take issue with these ideas—with friends, educators, other parents, students, and even your own children. As lifelong learners, parents and educators have the opportunity and the responsibility to become part of a larger—truly global—conversation about teaching and learning. Talking to each other about what we read and write is a powerful way to join that conversation.

• Embracing Digital Natives
In a now-famous essay entitled “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” Marc Prensky, internationally recognized speaker, writer, consultant and game designer in the areas of education and learning, coined the terms “digital natives” and “digital immigrants.” Prensky makes three key points that educators (and, I would argue, parents) must bear in mind:

[1] “ Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach. . .[T]he most useful designation I have found for them is Digital Natives. Our students today are all ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.”

[2] “Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants.”

[3] “Today’s teachers [digital immigrants] have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students [digital natives]. This doesn’t mean changing the meaning of what is important, or of good thinking skills. But it does mean going faster, less step-by-step, more in parallel, with more random access, among other things.”

In short, if educators hope to reach and teach their students, we must come to understand how they learn and adapt our approaches accordingly. A host of different sources and resources, including on-line experts Elizabeth Helfant (whose graphic for the 8 elements of 21st century learning appears above) and the “flat classroom” world-wide student collaborative at students2oh.org, offer not only keen insights into how our digital natives learn but what, specifically, we need to consider as we seek to engage and teach them. Helfant, for example, in her blog posting entitled “A Framework for Learning,” posits four essential questions for all teachers:

[1] Is the content essential, relevant and engaging for my students?
[2] Am I addressing the skills my students need to be successful in life?
[3] Am I effectively assessing the learning that is taking place?
[4] Am I fostering the spirit of inquiry (i.e., creative, inventive and critical thinking) that will sustain learning in my students for a lifetime?

These four essential questions resonate with many of the postings by students throughout the world on students2oh.org, including regular contributor Anthony C., who writes,

“Laptop programs and computers in the classroom aren’t the goal, they are a tool that we use to reach our goal, namely students being able to think creatively. I love that you guys are in such support of laptops in the classroom, but my question for you is this: Is it the laptops or how we use them that will make the difference in your education? In other words, what is the change in education that makes laptops such critical learning tools?”

That is precisely the kind of critical and creative thinking we want all of our students doing.

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Next: Applying Cognitive Theory to Classroom Practice

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Leadership and Success in One’s Family, Community and the Marketplace in the 21st Century: Where Research and Summit’s Program Come Together

National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) President Pat Bassett has a well-earned reputation for clear, compelling, thought-provoking and innovative thinking and writing about the field of education. His piece “An Education President for the 21st Century: An Open Letter to the Next President, ” published in the Fall 2008 issue of Independent School, does not disappoint.

While interesting on many levels, Mr. Bassett’s piece lands in my blog this week for two reasons. First, Bassett’s essay reflects a simple but profoundly important fact: The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) prizes innovation, creativity, clarity, child-centeredness and leadership in the increasing complex field of education—exactly the kinds of things we value in our Summit School teachers as experts in the areas of child development, curriculum development and teaching & learning. What key points from the “research and trend analysis” in which he engages as president of NAIS does Bassett choose to share with his reading audience? In his “samplings” of research that “point to the direction education must go to serve children well,” Bassett refers to:

• Tough Choices or Tough Times by The New Commission on the Skills of the American Work Force (which Bassett characterizes as arguing for the fostering of “creativity and innovation; facility with the use of ideas and abstractions. . .and the ability to function well as a member of a team”)

• Harvard Professor and author Howard Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future (which Bassett characterizes as telling us that “our culture needs diverse minds, including the disciplined mind (expertise in a field); synthesizing mind (scanning and weaving into coherence); creating mind (discovery and innovation); respectful mind (open-mindedness and inclusiveness); and ethical mind (moral courage)”

• The Personal Potential Index criteria for recommendation letters to accompany a candidate’s Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores to graduate school (which Bassett describes as “point[ing]



to the importance of knowledge and creativity; communication skills; teamwork; analytical reasoning; and real-world problem-solving skills”)

Second, Bassett’s answer to the following question sounds strikingly similar to the dispositions and competencies we so value and cultivate at Summit School: “What skills and values will be essential for leadership and success in one’s family, community, and the marketplace in the rest of the 21st century?” Bassett argues that there are six skills and values—and that these “results are always the same and match completely with the findings from the most thoughtful contributors to the debate on what we should teach.” What are these skills and values?

• Character (self-discipline, empathy, integrity, resilience, and courage)
• Creativity and entrepreneurial spirit
• Real-world problem-solving (analysis and synthesis)
• Public speaking/communications
• Teaming
• Leadership

It is no small matter that the skills and values identified by Pat Bassett in his analysis and synthesis “of findings from the most thoughtful contributors to the debate on what we should teach” align with fundamental dispositions and competencies we cultivate in our Summit students, including:

• to continually build on their strong academic, athletic, artistic, and technological foundations

• to operate from an ethical compass with character, confidence, and competence

• to exhibit intellectual curiosity, creative and critical thinking with a commitment to lifelong learning

• to demonstrate global awareness, embrace diversity, and work collaboratively within and beyond the school community

• to engage in civic responsibility, service, and stewardship--locally and globally

NAIS President Pat Bassett offers six skills and values which he argues reflect what the best research says we ought to teach. And Summit School offers five complementary dispositions and competencies we believe the best research says our children--and eventual 21st century leaders--ought to learn, embrace, and live. In the spirit of my September 15 blog posting “Back to the Future: Teaching in the Service of Learning,” I want to end with Alfie Kohn and Louise Futrell's point: It’s not simply what we teach that is important, but what our students learn.

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