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.