What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 6 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post continues a nine-part series explainign what we mean by the first half of that phrase: A 21st Century Curriculum.

6. Increasingly differentiated learning. At some point in the future, every child will have an IEP (Individual Educational Plan) tailored to their own learning intelligences and pace of learning. We already achieve some of this through smaller classes, individualized tutoring and mentoring. Our Veracross system will assist in tracking students better and allowing parents to partner more effectively, especially in understanding the pace at which individual students learn. The commercial software is not yet written to do this on a class by class basis for all grades, but noted economist, Clayton Christensen, in his book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, notes that the majority of private school students will be using such software by 2013. We are beginning the process in the Upper School and those teachers will collaborate with the Middle School teachers to pass on best practices each year while we await even more powerful software tools. The key is to prepare for it through technology upgrades, staff training and curriculum prepared to absorb such different pedagogies and methodologies. The result will be teachers who are focused more on individual tutoring and meeting children where they are each day, rather than on lectures presenting one size fits all lesson plans.

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 5 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post continues a nine-part series explaining what we mean by the first half of that phrase: A 21st Century Curriculum.

5. Curriculum delivered in an increasingly multi-modal format. In the early classes, specific, fundamental skills and information must be presented. Reading, Writing, Math, Bible knowledge and interpersonal skills must all be taught as foundational knowledge. However, we must acknowledge that in today’s culture they actually learn differently. A lifetime of exposure to multimedia has actually wired their brains to absorb, process and interact with information differently than we did as children, and certainly far differently than our parents “learned.” We cannot expect them to comprehend nuance or to develop deep knowledge unless we provide it to them in multimodal applications. This is where the new technology is most effective and should be extensively applied. Whether it is a Podcast exercise in English for speeches, or a Ning discussion in Bible, we must use multimodal tools and allow students to express themselves and acquire knowledge in a manner in which their brain is wired. If we do not provide multimodal experiences, they may not process the information, not retain it, or substitute inaccurate information to fill out their need for multi modality. I remember setting the Periodic Table to music so I could more easily memorize it. Today’s student will probably not be able to accomplish that unless they are give the music (a la Sesame Street) and thus be less able to retain the information, or they may bring in extraneous info searches, visual images or story lines that confuse the original information and they will then remember it incorrectly.

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 4 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post continues a nine-part series explaining what we mean by the first half of that phrase: A 21st Century Curriculum.

4. Helping students to acknowledge a Calling in their lives. In an increasingly desensitized, self centered and culturally amorphous society, it will be essential to assist students in understanding that they are individually called by God to be in relationship with Him and then called to a life purpose here on earth. This gives students meaning, motivation to gain the skills they need, provides a framework to continue a lifetime of learning that will be essential in a quickly changing technological and global marketplace, and anchors them in making increasingly difficult ethical and moral decisions (for example, many of the larger issues currently challenging us such as cloning, DNA manipulation, child gender choice, euthanasia, allocation of limited resources, limits of privacy, limits of digital relationships, etc.) This process must begin in Preschool and be continued throughout a child’s schooling as their reasoning and emotional intelligence matures. Strength finding curriculum, individual mentoring and teacher modeling are all essential parts of the puzzle. Service projects fall within this category as well as they teach empathy, humility and compassion and an obligation to give and not just take. Service to others needs to be part of the Calling of every student.

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 3 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post continues a nine-part series explaining what we mean by the first half of that phrase.

3. Conceptual thinking rather than information delivery. We have been moving away from the need for memorization for years and will continue to do so at earlier and earlier grades as ever younger students learn to obtain information from databases rather than their memories. This will become ever more essential as the amount of information available increases geometrically while our memory capacity does not. I’m sure you already do this in many ways. For example, I used to have all my friends’ phone numbers memorized. Now I have a cell phone contact list. The skill set I need now is wisdom in when and how to appropriately contact people: when do I call, text, email, tweet and who should be included. My database cannot make such conceptual decisions and our children will need help to understand such concepts rather than memorizing facts. Problem solving, group projects, portfolio assessment and student facilitated discussion (in class or online) should increasingly be used in the place of lecture and fill-in-the-blank testing. We also need to help students to understand how to determine the value and validity of information they retrieve, rather than accepting all information at face value. Again, many of these concepts are inherently part of an integrated Christian worldview focus that challenges every student to view any information in light of God’s truth and not man’s opinion.

What is a "21st Century Curriculum"? (Part 2 of 9)

The current tagline of Christian Heritage Academy is "A 21st Century Curriculum. An Eternal Perspective." This post continues a nine-part series explaining what we mean by the first half of that phrase.

2. Communication on a deeper level. As students increase the amount of digital communication, they will decrease the time and depth of conversations, while also narrowing the subject matter to “what,” “when,” “who” and “where” questions. We must provide them with vocabulary to ask “how” and “why” questions and the interpersonal skills to develop deep, personal relationships. We work hard in these areas already in devotions, prayer time; Bible class; on Eagle River, Washington D.C. and Springfield trips; through the Peace Makers program, and countless other ways. We begin in Preschool when we give students a reason to love each other and treat each other with courtesy and respect: Because God has made each one of them and wants them to treat each other the way He would treat them. This is far superior to the general educational model of behaving properly to avoid punishment (which leads to morally ambivalent adults focused on not being caught) or to gain a reward (which leads to narcissistic adults focused on only doing things for recognition or material gain). Events such as Senior History, Legacy Chapel and Lion’s Pride productions provide outstanding opportunities to experience deeper communication with individuals outside the students’ immediate peer group.