Measure of opportunity: assessing equitable conditions to learn twenty-first century thinking skills

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross C. Anderson ◽  
Paul Beach
Keyword(s):  
Thinking Skills ◽  
First Century ◽  
Twenty First Century

Enhancing critical thinking through active learning

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoko Kusumoto
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Active Learning ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
21St Century Learning ◽  
First Century ◽  
Critical Thinking Disposition ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Thinking Disposition

Abstract Today the Framework for 21st Century Learning developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21) is widely recognized and has been used in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand. P21 defines and illustrates the skills and knowledge students need and states that critical thinking is fundamental for twenty-first century success and essential for success in an academic context. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also values the importance of cultivating critical thinking. However, critical thinking is not a part of the EFL curriculum in Japan, and lessons are not focused on the development of meta-cognitive strategies. How do we help students learn foreign languages and twenty-first Century Skills at the same time? Active learning and content and language integrated learning (CLIL) offer such a learning environment where learners enhance their cognitive skills and gain knowledge while they are learning content and language. This paper reports on a study that explores how active learning with CLIL instruction helps Japanese EFL learners to develop critical thinking skills. In the author’s student-centered instruction based class, critical thinking was stimulated with questions based on the revised Bloom’s taxonomy to develop lower and higher order thinking skills while various scaffolding activities were provided. Pretest-posttest results from the Critical Thinking Disposition Scale (CTDS) and the Cornell Critical Thinking Test (CCTT) Level Z were compared to determine to what extent, if any, EFL learners developed critical thinking disposition and skills through active learning in CLIL classes. The results of the CTDS and CCTT suggest that active learning has value for increasing critical thinking.

Internet outfitters: librarians in the twenty-first century

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (6/7) ◽  
pp. 369-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Hallis
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
End Users ◽  
Critical Thinking Skills ◽  
First Century ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Academic Tasks ◽  
Twenty First Century

Purpose In the future, librarians need to prepare users to navigate a profoundly different informational landscape. Addressing issues of information overload and informed selection of both search tools and results, the purpose of this paper is to cast the collaborative relationship between librarian and student in the mode of an outfitter: a guide preparing a client for a journey. Within this context, the authors emerging role involves guiding students through the task at hand using critical thinking skills to access a wider range of publications to meet a broader range of needs. Design/methodology/approach Metaphors created by Raymond and Friedman reflect the current state of information, the relationship users have with these sources, and the role librarians play in a disintermediated environment. In The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond portrays a decentralized environment as a bazaar. In The World is Flat 3.0, Friedman describes how technology flattens organizations through empowering end users. The informational landscape in the twenty-first century is decentralized, and more powerful search tools provide unparalleled access to these sources. Users, however, continue to experience problems finding their information. A librarian/outfitter can prepare users to effectively track information in the new environment. Findings In the twenty-first century, a broader range of sources are available, and search engines are turning to dashboards to prioritize the growing list of results. Users need to adapt to the new environment through viewing the search as an activity rather than a destination. Librarians can help this process through sharing their expertise in uncovering likely places relevant information may be found, in evaluating sources, and locating information in a larger context. Through developing the meta-skill of information management, librarians guide users through the process of finding information for personal, professional, and academic needs. Practical implications The author’s goal is what it has always been: empowering end users to successfully access needed information in a disintermediated environment. Today librarians need to emphasize a fundamentally different set of skills in the interactions they have with students and faculty. People can use dashboards and satisficing to find sources they need, but librarian/outfitters can introduce a broader range of sources and tools suitable for completing specific tasks. This paper illustrates the different skills needed to effectively find information for personal, professional, and academic tasks. Originality/value This paper provides a new context for the process used for locating and validating information in an increasingly broad and diffuse informational landscape. Librarians become advisors in navigating a more complex informational landscape that is used to meet a broader range of informational needs. While focusing on navigating the broader range of resources through decoding dashboards and satisficing techniques, the author can assist users in overcoming information overload and advocate a broader sense of satisficing through using more sophisticated critical thinking skills.

E-Learning in Higher Education

2011 ◽  
pp. 3346-3358
Author(s):  
Dirk Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Deep Learning ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
First Century ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
E Learning ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter discusses the imperative prerequisite to the effective adoption of e-learning by institutions of higher education, namely, the adoption of new pedagogical perspectives and methods. It examines the purposes and goals of higher education, some grounded in tradition, others born of contemporary demands. By focusing on thinking skills, deep learning, and mature outcomes, the author underscores the need for such pedagogical foci to be integrated into the very fabric of higher education’s adoption of e-learning. The hoped for outcome of such a consideration is a transformed institution, enabled to meet the demands of learners and society in the twenty-first century.

Promoting thinking skills in education

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kwame E. Glevey
Keyword(s):  
Thinking Skills ◽  
First Century ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Twenty First Century

How children are guided in the development of their thinking is now crucial in the twenty-first century. Over the past decades special thinking skills programmes have been developed to enhance thinking but these programmes have so far been unable to produce clear evidence to support their effectiveness. This article argues that due to the complex nature of thinking some fundamental changes in education must be tackled if all children are to be encouraged to develop and enhance their own particular ways of thinking.

scholarly journals Introducing design thinking online to large business education courses for twenty-first century learning

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 213-234
Author(s):  
Carmen Vallis ◽  
◽  
Petrea Redmond ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Business Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
First Century ◽  
Support Design ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Problem Solve

Design thinking can be broadly defined as a set of creative skills to understand and problem-solve ambiguous and complex problems, and a practice that places humans at the heart of the design process. Such collaborative ways of design thinking and design-doing are much needed to address twenty-first century challenges such as climate change. Design thinking methodology is well known for teaching and learning in design disciplines, and to a lesser extent, as an innovative problem-solving framework for business education. Typically design thinking has been taught and practised in physical settings and to a lesser extent online. While design thinking is also increasingly practised online, this is challenging at scale in higher education contexts. This case study analyses design thinking activities with educational technologies in a large undergraduate cohort of first-year business students. Eleven students and three teachers were interviewed to ascertain their level of engagement with design thinking with digital tools and to identify common themes that enabled or inhibited such practice. Student artefacts of design thinking are explored and compared to the interview data. Findings indicate that students may develop novice design thinking skills, process knowledge and mindsets in online and remote delivery modes, despite limited experience, technical and time constraints. Broader learning design implications of design thinking constraints in digital practice are discussed to assist educators. It is suggested that higher education adopt and support design thinking, as a subject and practice, more widely.

E-Learning in Higher Education

2011 ◽  
pp. 104-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Deep Learning ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
First Century ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
E Learning ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter discusses the imperative prerequisite to the effective adoption of e-learning by institutions of higher education, namely, the adoption of new pedagogical perspectives and methods. It examines the purposes and goals of higher education, some grounded in tradition, others born of contemporary demands. By focusing on thinking skills, deep learning, and mature outcomes, the author underscores the need for such pedagogical foci to be integrated into the very fabric of higher education’s adoption of e-learning. The hoped for outcome of such a consideration is a transformed institution, enabled to meet the demands of learners and society in the twenty-first century.

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