I attended a workshop run by Bob Pearlman at the BLC07 Conference in Boston during July and what he had to say still resonates with me weeks later as I write this entry.
Bob posed two questions for the session:
What kind of learning and teaching is appropriate for students of the 21st Century?
What kind of learning environments and facilities will support and enhance the education of today’s and tomorrow’s students?Bob is clear on the key requirements of a 21st Century curriclum and describes the characteristics of such a curriculum in numerous publications - the most useful for me was the one entitled 'Educational Leadership' on the ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) website. ASCD is a community from across the world exploring all aspects of the education process. Bob's article can be found here.
Much of what he says is familiar to educators in the UK as we attempt to define personalised learning but in Bob's case he has practical experience of schools where this has been done. His presentation from the BLC07 conference can be found here.
Bob emailed me on 13th August 07 to discuss some aspects of design and provided an additional useful input to the discussion which is an interview he did and which is posted on the DesignShare web site. It provides a very useful context for discussions with designers and others on thinking through what school design needs to achieve.
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