Curriculum21 - Mapping the Global Classroom of the Future

Curriculum 21 – Visual Book Review

Cross Posted to Langwitches Blog

Curriculum 21

I am usually a fast reader, but I have been taking my time with this book. There is not only a wealth of information, but it connects to so many of my thoughts and ideas I have contemplated in my mind as well as on this blog over the last few years. It resonated with me when Heidi Hayes Jacobs says:

a school does not need reform— it needs new forms.

Heidi advocates that

New essential curriculum will need revision- actual replacements of dated content, skills, and assessments with more timely choices.

I really liked her approach when she suggests the distinction between a “growth model” instead of a “change model” that needs to be introduced to a school’s culture.

As I was reading the book (hard copy, not on my Kindle), I was using highlighters to not miss thoughts or quotes that I wanted to remember. It did not take long to realize that I was highlighting too much 🙂 How was I going to get through this book and make sense of it, connect and wrap it around my thoughts which were floating around but had not been verbalized?

I know that I work best through concepts and ideas when I create diagrams or use mind mapping tools. I really like using the SmartArt Graphics in PowerPoint. The visuals below are a summary of what I “read out of the book”, the most important points in my mind and quotes.

• Understanding of knowledge, creation & authority
• Make meaning of information to create new knowledge
• Find, evaluate, organize, interpret & distribute information
• Pattern recognition, critical thinking, perception
• Gather knowledge to become intelligent vs. apply knowledge

• Social production is enabled by power of networks to connect people
• Nature of learning & teaching
• Locating experts & eyewitnesses
• Relationships NOT technologies determine learning
• Enhancing the process of learning to be (Identity)

• Compete. Cooperate & connect with global peers
• Greater understanding of 95% of world’s population
• Knowledge-driven global economy
• Global competency knowledge, language &respect
• Global perspective

• Critical Thinking
• Literary Authority & participatory culture
• Media is shaping the way students think and express themselves
• No longer print-centric world
• Find, analyze, evaluate, organize, remix, store and share media

• Collecting-Selecting-Reflecting
• Metacognition
• Gather data about own learning
• Self-Modifying as lifelong learner
• Alternative assessment tool

• Non-linear learning
• Semantic Web
• Interdisciplinary linkage to real world applications
• Global Connectivity
• Ubiquitous connectivity

• Learning is social
• Collective Intelligence
• Engage students to produce meaningful contributions
• Students making contributions to learning communities
• Establishing & maintaining working relationships

• Tools to share what we learn open up new ways of thinking
• Professional Development
• Community
• Nationally/ Internationally
• Foreign Languages

I also like taking quotes and create visuals of them.