1. Town School for Boys
st
21 Century Learning – Cofod
Presentation
Board Retreat Presentation 9/9/2011
As a school, how are we relevant and flexible?
How can we teach to our students’ future and not to our past?
How do we better focus teaching and learning on process, perspective, experimental,
self-directed learning and critical thinking?
How should technology play a part in school?
How do we promote interdisciplinary learning?
How do we as global educators help students understand communities, cultures,
counties, and countries?
How do we celebrate all boys and make them feel known?
You may recognize these questions as some of the so called “9 Points.” In the Spring of
2010 a series of off site retreats was held involving all faculty and admnistration. Our
task was to envision what Town School needs to become to serve the needs of 21st
century learners. We have a very strong teaching staff, and our goal was to allow them to
help create a vision for Town. Last fall, we refined these ideas into nine guiding
questions. These represent nine lines of inquiry to guide our transformation as a school.
The documentation of the process that generated the 9 Points represents a vision of
what Town School will look like in the near and more distant future.
Our process over the course of the last year involved a number of strands. First we
worked with faculty to create a CAIS action plan that maps out some structures we
would like to build and changes that we would like to see over the next several years.
Second, we worked with MKThink to look at how building changes at Town School can
support new approaches to teaching, collaboration, and interdisciplinary learning.
Finally the school has engaged in multi-faceted professional development related to our
vision. Consultants from Lime Design have been teaching us the design thinking process
both as a way to help us innovate as well as a way to teach students innovation and
creativity. They did a workshop with us last spring and another workshop two weeks ago
in which we were asked to design the ideal 21st century classroom. The Lime Design
instructors, some of whom are associated with the Design School at Stanford, were very
well received by teachers. A few faculty attended an additional design thinking
workshop this summer as well. A number of faculty attended responsive classroom and
developmental designs workshops to teach social emotional skills and build community
at the elementary and middle levels respectively. These programs, well establisthed in
the lower school are now moving into the upper school. A group of six, including me,
attended the Project Zero workshop at the Harvard Graduate School of Education this
summer. We put on a workshop about Project Zero for faculty before school began. Our
all-faculty summer reading consisted of two books: The Project-Based Learning Starter
Kit from the Buck Insitiute for Education as well as Dr. Milton Chen’s Education

2. Nation: Six Leading Edges of Innnovation in our Schools. Dr. Chen spoke to our faculty
and some of this group before school started. The goal for his talk was to affirm some of
the initiatives we have already started as well as show us some avenues to take as we
innovate further in other areas.
Thats a snapshot of what we've been doing. Let me step back and say a little
bit about some of the thinking that has informed our idea of 21st century
learning.
There are a number of current movements in education that suggest what schools
should look like in the future. Broadly, they attempt to provide answers to two
questions, "What should students learn?" and "How should students learn?"
Lets first consider the question of what students should learn.
There has been a lot of talk over the past few years about 21st century skills. Examples of
these skills include critical and analytical thinking, creativity, effective oral and written
communication, collaboration, and social-emotional skills. Different overlapping lists of
essential skills have been promoted by Tony Wagner in his Global Achievement Gap
book, by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and by NAIS. These lists are more or
less derived from lists of the skills needed by workers in the present and future
economies. The 21st century skills line of thinking answers "skills" to the question,
"What should students learn?"
Another movement focuses on core knowledge rather than skills and has proposed a
common core of content standards that a many state school systems have adopted.
Some of the more combative members of this movement attack the 21st century skills
lists as too abstract and point out that the learning of skills and content are inextricably
intertwined. Skills are important, but this group holds they take a back seat to the
content knowledge students need.
The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between. The lists of 21st century skills bear a
strong resemblance to traditional liberal arts skills. Students have long been asked to
think analytically, communicate effectively, and work together. These skills remain
tremendously important. What is different today is that we are beginning to make
students more self-aware about these skills. When we ask students to think critically or
work collaboratively, more and more we are defining what those skills mean in age
appropriate ways and giving feedback that allows students to practice. This is in contrast
to the past where schools gave students experience working in groups without giving
them the feedback needed for them to get better at doing it. The goal here is for a
student to be able to articulate his strengths and challenges in the area of teamwork just
as well as he can articulate his strengths and challenges in content areas like math or
Spanish. We should teach 21st century skills explicitly and intentionally rather than
leaving them as an implicit by-product of our program.
Following the common core strand, we recognize that students do need a base of content
knowledge. Sometimes one hears the idea that content doesn't matter because the web
puts all the world's knowledge at our fingertips. But I doubt anyone has the experience

3. of looking up everything all the time on Google. The web is tremendously useful for
filling in gaps in one's knowledge or extending one's thinking in new directions. But
when an elementary school student extends his thinking, he must already have a base of
knowledge that he is building out from. Students need to construct a framework of
knowledge at each level that they can build on when they get to the next level. Moreover,
building 21st century skills must happen in the context of specific knowledge. We don't
inquire, innovate, or think critically in the abstract. We do it in relation to specific ideas
and knowledge. Core knowledge remains crucial. Yet that's not to say that everything
we've traditionally taught is equally relevant and there are examples of things that have
been left out. Islam and the middle east have received short shrift in the past. At Town,
we are again considering how Mandarin could be part of our foreign language offerings.
What's different in education now is that there is an ongoing dialogue about what core
knowledge is. We can no longer just decide on a core and stick with it. It needs
continuous revision, at least around the edges.
And in addition to that revision, there is also an imperative to teach content knowledge
in the context of broad questions that help students build a framework. Students learn
by following broad questions like, “How can I communicate my ideas clearly so that
others can understand them?” “How can events and stories be viewed from different
perspectives?” or “What does it take to create and sustain a community?” By acquiring
knowledge through the consideration of questions like these over time, students see
knowledge as a connected whole rather than a series of unconnected bits. This strand of
our thinking is informed by Project Zero.
So if that's a little about what students should know and be able to do, how
should students learn these things?
The nutshell answer here is that our boys should learn in more student-centered ways.
Traditional teacher-centered techniques are still important, but they need to be
balanced with techniques that center on the learner.
There are a number of reasons for striking this balance. One is that student-centered
techniques like project-based learning can continue to teach core knowledge while more
effectively teaching key skills. Project-based learning asks students to meet a complex
challenge while working in teams. Projects start with an open-ended, driving question
like, “How can we design a completely self-sustaining ecosystem?” or “How did World
War II affect San Francisco differently than other parts of the US?” Teachers then guide
students in a process of inquiry. Students develop an answer to the central question by
using core content knowledge. The context of the project is designed to create a "need to
know" atmosphere and generate curiosity. Students have guided choice in how they
work and in the products they create.
In project-based learning the teacher provides feedback to help students become more
self-aware about skills like collaboration, critical thinking, and communication.
Students use the knowledge and skills they are acquiring in flexible ways that lead to
deeper learning. Presentations ask students to think on their feet in front of an audience

4. of other people beyond the classmates and teacher. Rather than learn, repeat back, and
forget, students learn, use in a new way, and retain. An example might be students
presenting findings from a project to a panel of experts who probe their thinking and
ask how the findings might apply in other areas. This would be in contrast to the
traditional report in which students simply state their findings without being asked to
think about them in a new way.
Another approach to student-centered learning involves blending online learning into
students’ school experience. There is tremendous potential for students to use websites
or software to build basic skills and content knowledge at their own pace. Examples are
the Khan Academy website and online courses like those developed by Mark Kushner's
K12 . This software can adjust to the level of challenge needed by each student. With
students building skills online, more instructional time is freed up for teachers target
individual areas of growth or to facilitate group learning or other kinds of experiences
not possible online.
What I’ve said so far reflects some of our thinking on 21st century learning. At this
point, we would like to allow you a little time to think about the future of learning.
Discussion
As you reflect on 21st century learning and you think about the skills you want your sons
to be facile with in their years beyond Town, we'd like you to consider two questions:
What are the skills that you were taught in school that you have found to be
indispensable?
What skills do you need now that you wish you had been taught in school?
To discuss these questions we would like to divide you up into three groups (we'll count
off in a moment).
Once you're in your groups, please designate one group member to be the recorder and
reporter for the group.
Once you've had a chance to discuss the first question, we ask that your group agree on
the top three to five skills or areas of knowledge that the group found indispensable. The
reporter will write these on one or more sticky notes and report out to rest of us.
We will repeat the process for the second question.
Questions? Ok, please count off by threes.
What did you think of this discussion and the way it was structured?
So why haven't schools taught 21st century skills explicitly or used project-
based learning widely? How is Town going go do it?
One answer to the skills part of that question is that standardized testing has focused on
content knowledge, and schools, by and large, teach what is tested. The good news is
that there are new tests being developed that are designed to assess critical thinking and
communication. The Collegiate Learning Assessment is being given by high schools and
colleges to look at the development of these 21st century skills as well as to examine the
question of what value these institutions add for students. While there is not yet an

5. assessment available for elementary and middle school, I wouldn't be surprised to see
something in the not too distant future. That being said, we expect the deeper learning
and skill building promoted by techniques like project-based learning to leave our
students better prepared for traditional standardized tests. They should be able to do
what they’ve done in the past and more.
Another past block to innovation is that we are part of a school system. High schools say
they can't change until colleges do and elementary schools are waiting for the high
schools. The good news here is that the conversation about 21st century skills, core
knowledge, and student-centered learning are happening at every level. Both Nancy
Doty and I have recently heard about similar conversations at UHS. Milton Chen noted
that he sees conversations about a shift in education happening at schools across the
country. As we change, we will track what is going on at the high school level so that we
are neither too far out ahead nor behind where those schools are.
It has been noted that project-based learning is widely acclaimed both by schools of
education and by teachers. Despite that, it is little used in practice. Research shows that
the vast majority of teaching in US schools is individual deskwork or whole-class
instruction by the teacher. The reason is that project-based learning is challenging to
manage successfully. It requires opportunities for teachers to experiment and share
their ongoing classroom experiences with their colleagues. At Town we are
implementing structures to help us innovate, learn from each other, and think
strategically.
This year faculty will be working in groups to develop, refine, and share project-based
learning units that teach existing course content with increasing effectiveness. The
consultants from Lime Design will be working with groups of faculty as they design
these units. Jared Fortunato will be working as 21st century learning coach to develop
projects with teachers using the iPad, an effort also supported through professional
development provided by Apple. Eric Wild's role has been recast as technology
innovation specialist. With this support, faculty will take proven ideas and combine
them with their experience to create something thing new. There is tremendous interest
among our faculty to try new things. As we returned to school, there was a palpable
sense of excitement about what's coming next for education and for Town. To capitalize
on this, we intend to further institutionalize collaborative experimentation and learning
for faculty at Town. This year we will lay out a multi-year roadmap for professional
development that will help us more effectively balance teacher- and student-centered
instruction and more explicitly teach 21st century skills. This plan will include both
formal training opportunities such as workshops and conferences as well as structures
for professional learning in faculty-based groups. These kind of faculty-based groups are
really how outside professional development initiated by teachers or by the school gets
absorbed into the fabric of what we do on a daily basis. As we move forward, the goal for
us is to figure out what’s coming next, how it applies to Town, and how to make it
happen in the classroom.
That’s a little bit about where we are today. To summarize, we have a working definition

6. for 21st century learning:
What should students learn? They should learn broad skills in ways that allow them to
understand and practice those skills, and they should learn core content knowledge.
How should students learn? They should continue to learn through effective teacher-
centered techniques. These techniques need to be balanced with student-centered
techniques that promote deep knowledge of content and essential skills. Examples are
project-based learning and design thinking.
How do we do it? By thinking innovatively and strategically about where we're going and
by building further structures for faculty to take initiative, experiment, and learn from
one another.
Before we break for lunch, Pam and I just want to give you a couple of vignettes of
changes we have already seen in action or in the planning stage.
In the 5th-8th grade Humanities and Lit Writer courses, I’ve observed guiding questions
for the year posted on the wall.
In 5th Humanities and 7th Spanish I’ve observed thinking routines.
In 8th grade a design thinking unit. Student as engineer/designer. To work on the
design process skills, a top. Will be used in later projects designing boats to explore
bouyency, rockets to explore aerodynamics, and experiments to test Newton’s Laws.
References
Rotherham, Andrew J. and Willingham, Daniel, “21st Century Skills: The Challenges
Ahead,” Educational Leadership 67.1 (2009)