In last May’s TC blog, I wrote about what 21st Century Education needs to look like for all students—college bound and those working in the trades—to succeed and be competitive in a global world. Over the summer I read an article that speaks to the challenges in meeting this goal. The article is “21st Century Skills: The Challenges Ahead, written by Andrew…

We hear a lot about how the working environment of the 21^st century will be very different from that of the 20^th century. Constantly we hear of the need to prepare students for a “brave new world.” Education experts extol the virtues of technology and how schools and teachers need to modernize in order to keep up with their students and prepare them for careers in an interconnected world. Pundits and politicians (it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference…

For those who may be working on an advanced degree, you might be aware of how colleges and universities are implementing active learning strategies into their instruction. But for those of us who finished our Masters degrees “back in the day” you might be amazed at how extensively many colleges and universities have embraced the methodology and in departments other than education. To be sure, the majority of classes in higher education still rely heavily on the one-way lecture method to…

Over the past six months, I’ve been posting information on active learning strategies in a variety of contexts: adopting INTERACT simulations to current events with “Black Gold” to explore oil spills and “Gateway” and “Immigrant Journeys” to help students understand U.S. Immigration policies; exploring ways active learning strategies can help address the national dropout problem; incorporating active learning strategies into Advanced Placement classes; and looking at how active learning can…