The global economy today looks very different than it did at the beginning of the 20th century, due in large part to information and communications technologies (ICT)—not just computers, smart phones and other devices wirelessly connected to the Internet but audio and video file sharing, social networks, and a variety of digital resources and services. The economy of leading countries is now based more on the manufacture and delivery of information products and services than on the manufacture of material goods. The start of the 21st century also has witnessed significant social trends in which people access, use, and create information and knowledge very differently than they did in previous decades, again due in many ways to the ubiquitous availability of ICT.
Systemic Education Reform
These trends have significant implications for education. Yet most educational systems operate much as they did at the beginning of the 20th century and ICT use is far from ubiquitous. Significant reform is needed in education, world-wide, to respond to and shape global trends in support of both economic and social development. What is taught, how it is taught and learned, how schools are organized must be transformed to be more responsive to the social and economic needs of students and society as we face the challenges of the 21st century.
Systemic education reform is needed that includes curriculum, pedagogy, teacher training, and school organization.Assessment Reform – Impact on Education PracticeReform is particularly needed in education assessment—how it is that education and society more generally measure the skills that are needed for productive, creative workers and citizens. In contemporary business, people work in teams and use a variety of social, digital, and physical resources, unconstrained by disciplinary boundaries, to solve complex, ill-structured problems, or to create new ideas, products, and services and share these with colleagues, customers, or a larger audience. But traditional instructional practices require independent student work that is shared with and judged by only the teacher or examiner.
Similarly, traditional assessment practices require students to work individually as they recall facts or perform simple procedures in response to pre-formulated problems within the narrow boundaries of school subjects and do so without the aid of books, computers, social networks, or other resources.
The structure of current assessments mirrors but also profoundly shapes what is taught in schools and how it is taught. This disconnect between what goes on in schools and what goes on in business and society outside of school must be resolved if schools are to address the economic and social needs of the 21st century. Existing models of assessment are typically at odds with the skills, knowledge, attitudes and characteristics of self-directed and collaborative learning that are increasingly important for our global economy and fast changing world.
New assessments are needed that measure these skills and provide information that is needed by students, teachers, parents, administrators, and policymakers to catalyze and support systemic education reform. These assessments should engage students in the use of technology and digital resources and the application of a deep understanding of subject knowledge to solve complex, real world tasks and create new ideas, content, and knowledge.
