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Table of Contents
 
Praise
Title Page
Copyright Page
 
Table of Figures
List of Tables
Dedication
THE AUTHORS
PROLOGUE
Introduction
The Four Question Exercise
About This Book
A Map of the Book
Epigraph
 
PART ONE - WHAT IS 21ST CENTURY LEARNING?
Chapter 1 - Learning Past and Future
 
Learning a Living: The Future of Work and Careers
Learning Through Time
 
Chapter 2 - The Perfect Learning Storm
 
Knowledge Work
Thinking Tools
Digital Lifestyles
Learning Research
The Forces of Resistance
The Turning of Learning: Toward a New Balance
The Top 21st Century Challenge
 
PART TWO - WHAT ARE 21ST CENTURY SKILLS?
Chapter 3 - Learning and Innovation Skills
 
The Knowledge-and-Skills Rainbow
Learning to Learn and Innovate
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Communication and Collaboration
Creativity and Innovation
 
Chapter 4 - Digital Literacy Skills
 
Information Literacy
Media Literacy
ICT Literacy
 
Chapter 5 - Career and Life Skills
 
Flexibility and Adaptability
Initiative and Self-Direction
Social and Cross-Cultural Interaction
Productivity and Accountability
Leadership and Responsibility
 
PART THREE - 21ST CENTURY LEARNING IN PRACTICE
Chapter 6 - 21st Century Learning and Teaching
 
Learning the P’s and Q’s: Problems and Questions
Roads to Answers and Solutions: Science and Engineering
 
Chapter 7 - Powerful Learning
 
The 21st Century Project Learning Bicycle
Creativity Through Projects
Evidence That Project Learning Works
Obstacles to Collaborative Inquiry and Design Learning
 
Chapter 8 - Retooling Schooling
 
Shifting Systems in Sync
Support Systems
From Skills to Expertise: Future Learning Frameworks
 
Chapter 9 - Conclusion
APPENDIX A - Resources
APPENDIX B - About the Partnership for 21st Century Skills
APPENDIX C - 3Rs × 7Cs = 21st Century Learning
Acknowledgements
NOTES
REFERENCES
CREDITS
HOW TO USE THE DVD
INDEX

Table of Figures
 
Figure 1.1. Value Chains Then and Now.
Figure 1.2. Signs for Our Times.
Figure 1.3. New Skills for 21st Century Work.
Figure 1.4. The Future of 21st Century Work.
Figure 2.1. 21st Century Learning Convergence.
Figure 2.2. 21st Century Learning Balance.
Figure 3.1. SARS Web Site Screenshot.
Figure 3.2. The 21st Century Knowledge-and-Skills Rainbow.
Figure 3.3. Creative Whack Pack Creativity Cards.
Figure 4.1. The 21st Century Knowledge-and-Skills Rainbow.
Figure 5.1. The 21st Century Knowledge-and-Skills Rainbow.
Figure 6.1. Science and Technology, Questions and Problems.
Figure 7.1. Student and Teacher Project Wheels.
Figure 7.2. The Project Learning Bicycle.
Figure 7.3. The 21st Century Project Learning Bicycle Model.
Figure 8.1. Systems Diagram of School Interactions.
Figure 8.2. 21st Century Learning Framework.
Figure 8.3. West Virginia Grade 11 Social Studies Test Question.
Figure 8.4. New Learning Environments.
Figure 8.5 Knowledge Age Value Chain.
Figure 8.6. Possible Future 21st Century Learning Framework.
Figure 9.1. The “Big E” Global Problems.
Figure B.1 . 21st Century Learning Framework.
Figure C.1. 21st Century Learning Outcomes.

List of Tables
 
Table 1.1. Jobs and 21st Century Work.
Table 1.2. Society’s Educational Goals Throughout the Ages.
Table 5.1. Performance Evaluation Criteria.
Table 6.1. Scientific Versus Engineering Methods.
Table 8.1. Grade 5 Science Standard from West Virginia.
Table C.1. P21 and 7C Skills.

PRAISE FOR
21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times
“Trilling and Fadel describe in very readable, practical terms how to infuse 21st century skills from standards all the way into the classroom. The DVD is full of wonderful ‘ah-ha’ moments to illustrate the possibilities. A terrific traveling companion for educators, parents, and business and government decision makers concerned about the future of our kids.”
—Paige Johnson, 2009 Chair of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills; Global K-12 Manager, Intel Corporation
 
“Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel have written a book that is truly visionary, providing sound insight into education in the 21st century. Their book provides solid, practical advice for educators, policymakers, business leaders, and others interested in improving America’s position in the global economy. I recommend it to anyone interested in maximizing classroom effectiveness in this digital age.”
—Dr. Steven L. Paine, West Virginia Superintendent of Schools
 
“A must-read for anyone interested in the ability of the United States to compete in a global economy. Educators, policymakers, business leaders, parents, and students will benefit from the comprehensive information on 21st century skills.”
—Mary Ann Wolf, executive director, State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA)
 
“Working, living, and learning in the 21st century will require an expanded set of skills, competencies, and flexibilities. We must prepare for a continuous learning and reskilling process throughout our lives and careers. This is a powerful exploration of what we collectively face as we live the future. A must-read!”
—Elliott Masie, CEO and chair, The Learning Consortium
 
“Trilling and Fadel take the 21st century skills debate beyond rhetoric, providing a substantive, compelling, and engaging argument for the skills and competencies that our children need to succeed in a Knowledge Age economy. The skills they describe are the essential lifeblood of a productive, engaged, and intelligent citizenry—this book is a must-read for skeptics and enthusiasts alike!”
—Margaret Honey, president and CEO, New York Hall of Science
“Hooray to Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel for demystifying 21st century skills. This book makes clear why education must change: to help prepare students to meet complex challenges, fulfill their civic responsibilities, and live fulfilling lives. Full of crisp descriptions, 21st Century Skills persuasively shows why policymakers and educators should run—not walk—to implement 21st century learning designs.”
—John Wilson, executive director, National Education Association
 
“With 21st Century Skills, Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel have given us a global ‘search and replace’ for outdated educational thinking. Replace ‘scope and sequence’ with the ‘21st Century Learning Framework,’ the P21 rainbow.”
—Milton Chen, executive director, The George Lucas Educational Foundation
 
“Charles and Bernie’s book cuts to the core challenge facing our country—is our education system preparing our children with the skills to succeed in a ‘flat’ 21st century world? Much more than a treatise on what is wrong with education, they provide a compelling vision for education as it should be and a road map for getting where we need to go.”
—Keith R. Krueger, CEO, Consortium for School Networking (CoSN)
 
“This book presents an innovative, comprehensive strategy for evolving education to meet the needs of 21st century society.”
—Chris Dede, Harvard School of Education
 
“The authors have done nothing less than provide a bold framework for designing a 21st century approach to education, an approach aimed at preparing all of our children to successfully meet the challenges of this brave, new world.”
—Paul Reville, Secretary of Education, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
 
“It’s about time that we have such an accessible and wise book about the 21st century skills that so many companies, policymakers, and educators are talking about.”
—Roy Pea, Stanford University, professor of education and the learning sciences
 
“Trilling and Fadel lay out a comprehensive understanding of what is meant by 21st century skills. Read this book with a notepad—you’ll be jotting down ideas for how to use the information in your school district. A must-read for superintendents, curriculum directors, and teachers.”
—Anne L. Bryant, executive director, National School Boards Association
“21st Century Skills is full of interesting examples illustrating both what work will look like in the years ahead and how thoughtful educators are preparing children to thrive in tomorrow’s workplaces. The richness of the examples reflects the authors’ extensive knowledge of how work is changing in the nation’s most innovative firms and their deep involvement in the efforts to improve America’s schools.”
—Richard J. Murnane, Thompson Professor of Education and Society, Harvard Graduate School of Education
 
“Trilling and Fadel have captured powerful insight into critical 21st century learning skills. Life goes on and so must learning—this book is a must for anyone interested in the future of education.”
—Allan Weis, Former IBM vice president, founder of ThinkQuest and Advanced Network & Services
 
“21st Century Skills provides specific recommendations for how we can—indeed must—change the curriculum, teaching, assessment, use of technology, and the organization of our schools to better prepare students to be productive, creative citizens and workers in the global society and economy of the 21st century.”
—Robert B. Kozma, Ph.D., emeritus director, Center for Technology in Learning, SRI International
 
“Bernie and Charles have presented a well-researched and futuristic framework for changing how we teach and learn for the 21st century. It will be up to all of us to accept this challenge and move our country and world into and beyond the 21st century.”
—Kathy Hurley, senior vice president, Pearson K-12 Solutions and Pearson Foundation; Incoming Chair, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills
 
“This is a well-written and referenced road map for the complicated and interconnected collection of skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are essential for citizens to master in our increasingly complex and rapidly changing technological society.”
—John E. Abele, Founding Chairman of the Board, Boston Scientific
 
“Inspirational and motivational, this book is a practical guide to implementing and understanding 21st century skills. Every teacher and parent should read it so they can prepare their children and their students to solve the problems of tomorrow, today.”
—Dr. Barbara “Bobbi” Kurshan, executive director, Curriki
“After all the talk about organizing education, this book leads us back to what education is for. 21st Century Skills is a comprehensive and elegant survey of our changing world, the skills it requires, and how those skills can be taught and learned. Here is a blueprint for 21st century schooling.”
—Michael Stevenson, vice president, Global Education, Cisco
 
“This book presents an excellent case and road map for K-12 schools, for balancing content knowledge delivery with the development of necessary skills for success. It can serve as a valuable guide for parents, educators, and policymakers.”
—Ioannis Miaoulis, Ph.D., president and director, Museum of Science, Boston
 
“For anyone who cares about the future of our children and their success in a global economy, 21st Century Skills is required reading.”
—Gerald Chertavian, chairman, Massachusetts Board of Elementary and
Secondary Education’s 21st Century Skills Task Force; founder and CEO,
YearUp
 
“Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel have been two of the essential intellects behind the growth of the 21st century skills movement. We have been asked for years to provide an in-depth treatment of the 21st century skills framework. Here it is.”
—Ken Kay, executive director, Partnership for 21st Century Skills; CEO, e-Luminate Group
 
“Struggling to understand or explain the imperative for 21st century skills in our schools? Begin here.”
—Julie A. Walker, executive director, American Association of School Librarians (AASL)
 
“21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times is a necessary and readable articulation of the reality of 21st century skills in educating today’s generation of learners. Kudos to the authors for achieving clarity on this timely topic.”
—Karen Cator, past chair, Partnership for 21st Century Skills
 
“Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel have moved beyond the hype and buzz surrounding ‘21st century skills’ to provide an insightful and commonsense guide to rethink learning and teaching in a world that urgently demands innovative, inventive, self-motivated and self-directed, creative problem solvers to confront increasingly complex global problems.”
—Paul Reynolds, CEO, FableVision

001

To the 22nd century learners who will surely wonder what all the fuss was about and why it was so hard for everyone in the 21st century to do the obvious!
—Bernie and Charles
 
 
To Jennifer, Samara, Jeremy, Oriana, and my extended family and friends who keep my learning real, honest, relevant, deep, and everlasting.
And to the parents and teachers of the world’s children who shape our future each day.
May that future be bright, caring, green, and full of hope.
—Bernie
 
 
To my daughter, Nathalie, with all my forever-unconditional love.
To my mother, Aline, for teaching me open-mindedness through example.
To Ray Stata, founder of Analog Devices Inc., who in 1990 kindled my passion for education through his presentation “Accelerating the Rate of Learning.”
And to the little girl in Santo Domingo, whose eyes will forever remind me that “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
May you, and the many millions like you, find the dignity, happiness, and serenity you deserve, through the transformational power of education.
—Charles

THE AUTHORS
 
 
 
 
The co-authors of this book, Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel, have long been completing each other’s sentences at Board meetings of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21). Since 2005 they have co-chaired P21’s Standards, Assessment and Professional Development Committee, which produced P21’s breakthrough 21st century learning framework. This framework, plus the committee’s white papers, skills maps, policy guides, and “Route 21” Web repository of 21st century learning examples and resources (http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/route21) are all helping to guide the transformative work of education across the world.
In their global education roles, Bernie and Charles have spoken to thousands of educators and met with hundreds of education leaders on the move to a 21st century approach to learning.
Though they both have been deeply involved in the development of innovative technologies to reshape learning, Bernie and Charles share a deep conviction that the most important learning tools are our minds, our hearts, and our hands, all working together.
Bernie Trilling is global director for the Oracle Education Foundation, directing the development of education strategies, partnerships, and services for the Foundation’s ThinkQuest program. He represents the Foundation as a board member of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
Bernie has worked on a number of pioneering educational products and services, and is an active member of a variety of organizations dedicated to bringing 21st century learning methods to students and teachers across the globe. Prior to joining the Oracle Education Foundation, Bernie was director of the Technology in Education group at WestEd, a U.S. national educational laboratory, where he led a team of educational technologists in integrating technology into both the instructional and administrative realms of education. He has also served in a variety of roles in both education and industry, including executive producer for instruction at Hewlett-Packard Company, where he helped lead a state-of-the-art, global interactive distance learning network.
As an instructional designer and educator, Bernie has held a variety of professional educational roles in settings ranging from preschool to corporate training. He has written dozens of articles for educational journals and magazines, as well as chapters for educational books, and is a featured speaker at numerous educational conferences.
Bernie attended Stanford University where he studied environmental science and education. He also took some time off from Stanford to help organize the very first Earth Day in Washington, D.C.
Taking Mark Twain’s advice of “never letting school interfere with one’s education,” Bernie has been a lifelong, self-propelled learner, spending much of his career furthering the kinds of learning experiences that he has found most engaging, collaborative, real-world, and powerful, working to make these experiences available to learners of all ages.
Charles Fadel is Global Lead for Education at Cisco Systems, and the Cisco board member on the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, of which Cisco was a founding member. He has engaged with a wide variety of education ministries or boards including Massachusetts, France, Chile, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic, and has worked on education projects in more than thirty countries and states.
Charles has authored articles in publications such as Technology & Learning, New Media Consortium, eSchool News, Education Week, University Business, EETimes, and others. He has presented at numerous education conferences, including the Consortium for School Networking (COSN), the National School Boards Association (NSBA), the National Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI), and the Masie Center’s learning conferences.
He is presently advising two e-Learning start-up companies, two nonprofit organizations, and several professional organizations including the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), and several committees of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Charles has recently served on the Massachusetts Governor’s Readiness Project as well as its 21st Century Skills task force. He served on the advisory board of AIMS Multimedia (now part of Discovery Channel). He is also incubating a nonprofit organization addressing the convergence of 21st Century Skills and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).
Charles is driven by education as the preeminent mechanism to profoundly improve the human condition, and embraces the promise of technology to progressively enable the mass personalization of learning. He also believes that interdisciplinarity is an oft-neglected mechanism of scientific and humanistic progress, and a key growth engine in the future.
Charles has been awarded five patents on video, content, and communication technologies. He holds a bachelor of science in electronics with a course concentration in quantum and solid-state physics with a minor in neuroscience, and a master’s of business administration in international marketing. An avid reader, he has autodidactically learned cognitive sciences disciplines (evolutionary psychology, comparative linguistics, and others), and enjoys the lessons of classical history.

PROLOGUE
THE SEARCH FOR INNOVATIVE LEARNING
 
 
Our visitors were a distinguished delegation of education officials from the Chinese Ministry of Education. They had come to see with their own eyes the U.S. schools they had heard were innovating in teaching and learning.
At the Napa New Tech High School in Northern California, a school famous for its project approach to learning, we were visiting a classroom that looked like a hybrid between a corporate conference room and a miniature media production studio. We were talking, with the help of an interpreter, to a group of students and their teacher, all very proud to show off their recent project work.
As part of their project, the students had recently implemented some clever conservation methods that were saving the school hundreds of dollars each month in utility costs. They also helped protect a nearby watershed from erosion by planting carefully chosen native shrubs and trees.
One of the Chinese delegates, Mr. Zheng, appeared increasingly excited the more he saw and heard. By the time we gathered to recap the day’s experiences, he just couldn’t wait to speak any longer.
He held up the school’s curriculum guide and asked, in English, “Where in here do you teach creativity and innovation? I want to know how you teach this! We need our students to learn how to do this!”
The school’s curriculum director, Paul, took a deep breath, collected his thoughts, smiled, and answered slowly, “I have some not-so-good news . . . and some good news.
“The not-so-good news is . . . it isn’t in the curriculum guide.
“It’s more in the air we breathe—or maybe the water we drink; the history of our country—Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Benjamin Franklin; it’s in our business culture, our entrepreneurs, our willingness to try new ideas; the tinkering and inventing in our garages, the challenge of tackling tough problems and the excitement of creating something new; in being rewarded for our new ideas, taking risks, failing, and trying again.
“In a strange way, our U.S. schools have been becoming more like your schools in China, focused on learning what will be tested in the big exams that determine so much of a student’s future. Our school is trying to keep the spirit of innovation and invention alive in the projects we do. We believe these skills are essential to being successful in our new global economy and in helping to solve the problems we all face together.”
Mr. Zheng, thinking deeply about all that it would take for today’s Chinese traditional school culture to embrace a more innovative approach to learning, asked hopefully, “And what is the good news?”
Paul chuckled.
“Well, the good news is that with the right opportunity and support, we have seen that our students can learn to be more creative and innovative. But it takes good teachers to create the right balance—between learning the facts and principles, and coming up with new solutions to problems and creative answers to questions they really care about.”
Mr. Zheng responded diplomatically, “Maybe we will help you better learn the principles and you will show us how to use them to be creative—we can work together.”
We all laughed politely, shook hands, took the mandatory group photo in front of the school, and our distinguished visitors were off to their next stop.

INTRODUCTION
LEARNING TO INNOVATE, INNOVATING LEARNING
 
 
This is a book about hopeful change coming to education and learning. It’s also about rekindling the love of learning inside us all and the joy of working together to help create a better world—something we all could use right now.
Wherever we go in our education travels these days, we seem to be carrying on one long global conversation with variations on the same themes and questions:
• How has the world changed, and what does this mean for education?
• What does everyone need to learn now to be successful?
• How should we learn all this?
• How is 21st century learning different from learning in the 20th century and what does it really look like?
• How will 21st century learning evolve through the century?
• How will a 21st century learning approach help solve our global problems?
The premise of this book is that the world has changed so fundamentally in the last few decades that the roles of learning and education in day-to-day living have also changed forever.
Though many of the skills needed in centuries past, such as critical thinking and problem solving, are even more relevant today, how these skills are learned and practiced in everyday life in the 21st century is rapidly shifting. And there are some new skills to master, such as digital media literacy, that weren’t even imagined fifty years ago.
To help you get a better feel for the changes coming to education and learning, take a few minutes to join in on an informal thought experiment that many other educators, school leaders, and parents have been participating in. It’s an exercise that makes the issue of learning for our times very personal and very real.

The Four Question Exercise

First, imagine (if it’s not already the case) that you have a child, grandchild, a niece or nephew, or a child of friends whom you love and care about deeply, and this child is just starting preschool or kindergarten this year. Then consider the following questions, making notes as you go.
Question #1: What will the world be like twenty or so years from now when your child has left school and is out in the world? Think about what life was like twenty years ago and all the changes you have seen happen. Then imagine what will happen in the next twenty years.
Question #2: What skills will your child need to be successful in this world you have imagined twenty years from now?
Question #3: Now think about your own life and the times when you were really learning, so much and so deeply, that you would call these the “peak learning experiences” of your life. What were the conditions that made your high-performance learning experiences so powerful?
Before going on to Question #4, look over your answers to the first three questions and think about how most students currently spend their time each day in school. Then consider the final question:
Question #4: What would learning be like if it were designed around your answers to the first three questions?
We’ve done this exercise at the beginning of presentations with scores of diverse groups. The big surprise is that the answers to the four questions are amazingly consistent. No matter what their backgrounds are or where in the world they may be, audiences always end up with the same conclusion: it’s high time that learning becomes more in tune with the demands of our times and the needs of today’s students.
Question #1—What will the world be like twenty years from now?—evokes responses that project current events, issues, and challenges into the future. Samples of typical responses:
• A “smaller world,” more connected by technology and transport
• A mounting information and media tidal wave that needs taming
• Global economic swings that affect everyone’s jobs and incomes
• Strains on basic resources—water, food, and energy
• The acute need for global cooperation on environmental challenges
• Increasing concerns about privacy, security, and terrorism
• The economic necessity to innovate to be globally competitive
• More work in diverse teams spanning languages, cultures, geographies, and time zones
• The need for better ways to manage time, people, resources, and projects
Question #2—What skills will your child need in the future you painted?—inevitably generates most of the 21st century skills covered in this book, including values and behaviors such as curiosity, caring, confidence, and courage that often accompany the learning of these skills. The 21st century skills we cover in this book can be placed in three useful categories:
• Learning and innovation skills:
Critical thinking and problem solving
Communications and collaboration
Creativity and innovation
• Digital literacy skills:
Information literacy
Media literacy
Information and communication technologies (ICT) literacy
• Career and life skills:
Flexibility and adaptability
Initiative and self-direction
Social and cross-cultural interaction
Productivity and accountability
Leadership and responsibility
Question #3—What were the conditions that made your high-performance learning experiences so powerful?—generates collective answers that are even more intriguing. The stories we’ve heard over the years often bring out these themes:
• Very high levels of learning challenge, often coming from an internal personal passion
• Equally high levels of external caring and personal support—a demanding but loving teacher, a tough but caring coach, or an inspirational learning guide
• Full permission to fail—safely, and with encouragement to apply the hard lessons learned from failure to continuing the struggle with the challenge at hand
This last point is extremely important. Failures, well supported, can often be better teachers than easy successes (though this is certainly not a very popular approach in today’s “test success”-driven schools).