Learning at the 21st Century

This study explores the concept of 21st century learning, including the role of teachers, needed skills and values, and challenges in implementing 21st century learning. Insights from interviews with teachers provide firsthand data on the learning of this age.

Running head: Learning at the 21st century
LEARNING AT THE 21ST CENTURY

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Learning at the 21st century
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
21st century learning.........................................................................................................................2
Role of teachers in 21st century........................................................................................................3
Needed skills, values and learning support......................................................................................3
Accommodation of needs................................................................................................................5
Interview findings............................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
Recommendations............................................................................................................................8
Reference list...................................................................................................................................9

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Learning at the 21st century
Introduction
Social development is a continuous form of development that is responsible for each and
every change brought in the society. Development comes with new and expanded sources of
information that ultimately impacts the educational field in a society. Similarly, 21st century has
also brought limitless possibilities in the field of education globally. So, this study focuses on
various newly emerged aspects of learning in the 21st century. For that reason, the notion of 21st
century learning has been explored along with a discussion of the role of teachers in this kind of
learning. In addition, a detailed identification of relevant learning skills and values related to 21st
century learning has been focused on. Furthermore, the strategies and techniques to fulfill those
skills have been mentioned in the study. For that reason, an interview has been taken from some
randomly selected teachers and students of this age in order to know the challenges they have
been facing today regarding learning. Moreover, certain recommendations have been given in
order to deal with the identified challenges in the field of 21st century learning.
21st century learning
The concept of 21st century learning has gained its popularity after the developments of
21st century got its full acknowledgment. The development in the technological advancements is
one of the main factors behind this new notion of learning (Kereluik, Mishra, Fahnoe & Terry,
2013). This is so because digital literacy has become one of the most important areas of learning
in the digital age. Thus, 21st century learning is quite different from the traditional form of
learning when the most importance used to be given to the theoretical knowledge of the learners.
On the contrary, learners of this age require mastering the equilibrium between the
content and skills. In this age, the sources of information have been increased in number and the
learners need to be aware of all the available sources in order to not only learn but also to
produce content. For producing contents, the learners need to learn various skills that can be
helpful in preparing them for their future (Bernhardt, 2015). However, civic responsibility is as
much relevant as digital literacy for the 21st century learners. Thus implies that not only skills but
values are also equally important aspects of 21st century learning.

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Learning at the 21st century
After many researches on education in the previous era, it has been realized that without
acquiring the needed skills, the learners can only become efficient in rote learning. This kind of
learning can never help them to match with the high paced developments that out world has been
witnessing every day (Alismail & McGuire, 2015). As a result, they will be unable to
systematically access the vast range of information available in the digital media. So, this can be
said that 21st century learning is something that accommodates the past in order to deal with the
risks that the future comes with.
Role of teachers in 21st century
The time has been passed when the teachers used to control the classroom and learners
used to be the passive knowledge receivers. Now, the classrooms have become learner centric
where the teaching learning process has become a two directional phenomenon (Tucker, 2014).
This has happened due to the need of the present century that we live in. So, in this age, the role
of the teachers has been changed in order to match the needs and demands of each and every
student of this generation.
As mentioned earlier, the learners of this generation need to be efficient in several skills
that will be helpful in their future career. Thus, in that case, the teachers need to support the
learners to enhance their skills of problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration and
communication (Kivunja, 2015). The teachers can guide the learners in the process of skill
building by being a resource provider in order to facilitate their active learning.
For that reason, the teacher needs to be efficient in digital knowledge or in the
technological knowledge so that they can facilitate a multimedia driven learning atmosphere for
the learners of 21st century (Brun & Hinostroza, 2014). Moreover, globalization has brought
culturally diverse learners under the same roof and thus the teachers need to teach important
values to the learners so that they can learn easily in a culturally diverse learning environment.
Needed skills, values and learning support
In order to discuss the various
ranges of skills needed by the 21st century learners, the skills can be categorized into sections

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Learning at the 21st century
including life skills, learning skills and literacy skills. Learning skills are those that help the
students adapting the new learning environment. On the other hand, life skills assist the learners
in developing both professional and personal qualities. According to Van Laar, van Deursen, van
Dijk & de Haan (2017), literacy skills are one of the most important skills required to be 21st
century learners. These skills help the learners mainly in separating the non trustworthy
information available in the internet from the trustworthy information. In the opinion of Mishra
& Mehta (2017), learning skills comprise of mainly four skills such as communication skills,
collaboration skills, creativity and the skill of critical thinking. All these skills are equally
important employment skills that are really needed for establishing a stable future career (). The
difference between the traditional learning skills and the learning skills required in 21st century is
that these skills have been decided keeping the diverse nature of learners in mind.
This implies that each and every
learner comes with different learning potentials and different talents and thus acquiring 21st
century skills can enable them in improving their individual skills. On the other hand, literacy
skills include digital or technological literacy, media literacy and information literacy. As
mentioned by Suto (2013), media literacy guides the learners to know about mediums and
methods through which the various ranges of information have been published. On the other
hand, technology literacy supports the learners to know the use of new and advanced
technologies and technological gadgets. So, it can be said that literacy skills can empower the
digital knowledge of the learners in a way so that they can access information available online.
However, the life skills are
slightly different in nature from the above mentioned two categories of 21st century skills.
According to Pellegrino (2014), life skills include skills related to social interaction,
productivity, initiative, flexibility and the skill of leadership. This is obvious of the naming of the
skill that these skills are highly important for learners of this age in order to brush up their
professional abilities. This is so because more people have been being enrolled in the education
system due to increased global opportunities and refined educational policies. Thus, the demands
of the corporate world as well as the government sectors have been increasing day by day.

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Learning at the 21st century
However, the 21st century learners
also need to aware of the core values that are highly important for leading a socially active and
responsible life. As opined by Benton-Borghi (2013), the value education of this 21st century
supports the learners to respect others and their cultural, social and linguistic diversities. In
addition, the learners of this age need to be socially responsible in order to be responsible
citizens in the future. The positive sense or community, social interaction also falls under the
values that 21st century learners need to learn. Moreover, all these skills and values are expected
to make the learners socially, academically and civically competent.
Accommodation of needs
Before explaining how to incorporate the above mentioned skills in the learners, first we
need to know what kind of learners and what kind of learning environment we are talking about.
So, the main essence of 21st century learning is that now learner diversity has been given a huge
amount of importance by the educators (Irvine, Code & Richards, 2013). This is so because
students cannot maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses if they get
discriminated before getting to learn. Thus, acknowledgement of learner diversity is very
important for building an inclusive learning environment which is at the centre of 21st century
education. However, the notion of diversity has been changed over the ages. According to Koh,
Chai, Benjamin & Hong (2015), diversity does not necessarily point to any kind of physical,
mental or learning disability.
On the contrary, the acknowledgment of learner diversity enables the teachers and
educators to perceive that each and every learner has diverse in their learning potentials. For that
reason, a linear and single teaching strategy can not be sufficient in mitigating diverse learning
needs of the learners. Thus, the teachers need to incorporate a differentiation teaching approach
for managing the learners in the classroom. In opinion of Thang et al. (2014), this approach
enables the teachers to allow the students to learn at their individual pace and style of learning. In
this regard, it can be mentioned that there can be three learning styles commonly followed by
learners in an inclusive classroom. These styles include visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning
styles. This implies that some learners learn better through auditory senses such as through
listening.

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Learning at the 21st century
On the other hand, some learners learn better through visual senses such as through
reading. In order to give enough support for all kinds of learners, the teacher can implement the
technique of scaffolding in the classroom. According to Kivunja (2014), scaffolding enables the
teachers to give minimum level of support to the learners in accessing the required skills of 21st
century. For that reason, the teacher can motivate the students to learn on their own by using
their self efficacy skills that will be helpful for them to deal with the outside world as well.
Other strategies like inquiry based teaching, problem solving based teaching can be
helpful in this regard. Moreover, the teaching approaches need to be based on a new teaching
theory namely Digital Connectivism that allows the educators and teachers to concentrate on the
effect of technology on the lives of the learners and on the way they communicate in 21st century
(Fahnoe & Mishra, 2013). This approach is needed in order to match up with the digitally
advance world where learning depends on the cultural contexts around which learning takes
place in a form of networked set of information.
Interview findings
As mentioned above, all the needed 21st century skills and values can only be
incorporated through an implementation of appropriate teaching theories, strategies and
approaches. However, many challenges can be faced by the teachers, learners and the whole
education system while trying to incorporate the learning goals of this generation into reality. For
the identification of these possible challenges, 10 teachers have been interviewed following an
unstructured interview procedure. As per their responses, some challenges have been identified
to be some of the major challenges that 21st century learning can face. Among 10 teachers, 3
teachers opined that management of resources will be one of the major challenges that
educational institutions will face in this age.
This is so because a huge amount of money needs to be invested in every educational
institute so that they can afford having all the required resources of 21st century learning. Lack of
proper teacher training is another possible challenge that can hamper the new educational
initiatives, as per opinions of 2 teachers. They said so because they think that the multifaceted
aspects regarding 21st century learning requires only trained teachers who can properly support

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Learning at the 21st century
the learners. However, there is a lack of teacher training institutions globally that will not only
look after their technological training but also train them to understand pedagogical aspects
clearly.
On the other, 1 teacher, who has been interviewed, opined that not all educational
institutions look after incorporating 21st century skills except for some high budget schools that
very few people can afford. So, this implies that these issues can widen the gap between the
learner capabilities where some of them will be highly knowledgeable while others will lack
basic skills to survive in the future (Dede, Mishra & Voogt, 2013). The teachers also stated that
now the classroom management has become more difficult as it becomes tough to follow
differentiation instruction technique for each and every student present in the class.
Thus, they think that this strategy may hamper the pace of the overall learning of all the
students as every student learn at different paces. Some of the teachers said that the role of
teachers in the recent world has been continuously changing. This is so because now the teachers
are not expected to only present the learning content in front of the learners. On the contrary,
their role is to build curiosity among the learners so that they can engage actively in learning the
content. Thus, it will be difficult for them to apply all the relevant teaching approaches in order
to justify all the roles that the teacher has to play in 21st century. Moreover, the changing
positions of teachers and the students in the learning environment has become a challenge for
both of them to follow properly.
Conclusion
So, in this study, various aspects of 21st century learning have been explored. For that
reason, relevant literature has been analyzed and also some teachers have been interviewed in
order to get some firsthand data regarding the learning of this age. It has been found that 21st
century learners not only need to learn the content but also to acquire the skills that will prepare
them for their future. In this way, the role of teachers has also been shifted from the traditional
roles that the teachers were expected to play. In one hand, the control of teachers in the teaching
learning process has become lessened. So, in that sense, it can be assumed that the role of
teachers has now become less difficult. However, actually their role has become a lot more

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Learning at the 21st century
difficult because now they need to look after the holistic development of the learners. Despite the
fact that the role of the learners has increased in 21st century, teachers need to play the role of a
constant guide or support system until the learners get to learn independently. Moreover, the
above mentioned 21st century learning approaches, such as digital connectivism, learner centric
approach, two directional approaches and more, have the capability to prepare the learners for
both their professional lives and their personal lives.
Recommendations
Inclusion of values and skill building can make the learners socially responsible and
skilled citizens at the same time. However, as per the interview, it has been noticed that there are
several challenges that teachers of this generation can face (Voogt, Erstad, Dede & Mishra,
2013). So, in order to overcome those challenges, firstly, more teacher training institutions needs
to be established. This is so that teachers can understand what roles they are expected to perform
as teachers and what are the needs of the learners that need to be fulfilled by them.
On the other hand, governmental bodies need to invest more on educational system so
that each and every school can become able to provide the learners with everything they need to
be holistically flourished. In order to be specific, the teachers need to withdraw their
authoritarian control and instead adopt the role of a guide who will help the learners to adapt to
demands of 21st century (Mortensen & Nicholson, 2015). This can turn the classroom into a
flipped classroom easily.

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Learning at the 21st century
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