April 2003 — Features
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Redesigning Schools to Meet 21st Century Learning Needs
Subject-area standards serve as building blocks for increasing expertise in a field or aca-demic area. Whether it is ratios, fractions or algebra as core concepts for building mathematical understanding; ecological systems in biology; or grammar, voice and tone in writing, each field has developed a set of standards that form the basis for instruction. Knowledge-centered environments extend to "sense-making" in a domain, helping students continually build and apply their emerging "metacognitive" skills - the ability to think critically about their own thoughts.Community-centered learning environments. Knowledge is individually processed but socially supported (Vygotsky 1978). Learning is dependent on reflection that comes from the power of "intellectual camaraderie" stemming from discussion, collaboration, sharing and building knowledge with peers, as well as with those who are more experienced or advanced in the topic or area of inquiry.
Community-centered learning also means that school should not be isolated from the student's life outside of formal education, because much of a child's learning takes place in times and places outside of school. Today's students spend 14% of their time in school and 53% at home or in the community where a third of the time, not counting sleep, is spent watching television. Increasing amounts of time also are devoted to surfing the Web and chatting with friends online (Donovan, Bransford and Pellegrino 1999). So, schools today are challenged to find ways to ensure learning that occurs during non-school time enhances what is learned in school.
Schools as Learning Communities
Today's challenge is to put this research on effective learning into practice. This article discusses three key elements: creating professional learning communities, downsizing schools to build community and using technology effectively.
Creating professional learning communities. It is time to call an end to the era of solo teaching in isolated classrooms. Quality teaching thrives in a supportive environment created by teams of teachers and school leaders working together to improve learning. Teachers must have opportunities to work with their colleagues to critically examine student performance in order to revise and improve instructional practice. A school's best instructors should be encouraged to become lead teachers who can mentor novices during their entry into education.
Working as a team, teachers should ensure that their school's professional development strategy is focused on the knowledge and skills necessary to meet the specific learning needs of the students they work with in a timely fashion. Teachers should also have the opportunity to collaborate with their colleagues in higher education to link the academic knowledge and resources of the university with the practical expertise they have developed in the schools. In addition, online networks of peers indicate that "community" is no longer defined by geography.
Downsizing schools to enhance community. Often, the first step to restructuring is reducing the size of schools. While size alone d'es not make a school good, size d'es appear to be an important factor in creating more effective schools by facilitating practices conducive to learning. For instance:
