We strive for brevity; our philosophy is: “Perfection is attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

International Baccalaureate (IBO) Awards CCR Grant for Research on Future Employment Skills

Posted on February 26, 2019 by Charles

@CurrRedesign #4DEdu #AIED @iborganization

The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) is pleased to announce it has received a grant from International Baccalaureate (IB), a nonprofit educational foundation offering high quality programs of international education to students from almost 5,000 schools across more than 150 countries. The grant was issued for the study and examination of two IB programs designed to prepare students aged 16 to 19 for future employment, and to recommend areas for improvement to help students thrive in the 21^st century labor market.

With changes in the skills demanded by the current and future labor markets, students need to master new competencies to adapt to these trends in an innovation-driven economy. For the economy to stay competitive, it needs to shift from a knowledge-based economy to a learning-based economy where citizens will not only generate knowledge but also know how to apply it, how to behave and engage in the world, and how to reflect, adapt, and “learn how to learn”

The study conducted by the CCR will provide an overview of current trends shaping the labor market and identify the most important and relevant skills that are required to be successful in these areas. The research will review two of the IB’s global education programs and identify the skills that are addressed and the areas that are missing. To make these insights actionable, the CCR will review best practices in 21^st education of skills and compare it with current IB programs and recommend enhancements to the curriculum.

Brad Shrimpton, Head of Research at the IB, said: “We are delighted to be working with CCR on this study, which will help us gain important insights to develop our curricula.

The study will evaluate the degree to which the IB Diploma Program (DP) and Career-Related (CP) programs incorporate skills associated with high-quality employability.”

Charles Fadel, founder of the Center for Curriculum Redesign, and co-author of “21^st Century Skills” and “Four-Dimensional Education”, added: “The International Baccalaureate enjoys an excellent global reputation for its innovations and pursuit of deeper learning. CCR is excited to undertake this leading-edge work which leverages its broad expertise in whole learners’ four-dimensional education for life and work.”

The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programs of international education and rigorous assessment. These programs encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right. For more information or to contact the IB, please visit ibo.org.

The CCR is a non-profit global organization dedicated to improving education and openly propagating its recommendations and frameworks on a worldwide basis, via answering this question: “What should students learn for the 21^st century?”. The CCR’s focus on relevance in education brings together international organizations, jurisdictions, academic institutions, corporations, and non-profit organizations including foundations. For more information, please visit curriculumredesign.org or contact the CCR at: info@curriculumredesign.org.

CCR and Whittle School & Studios to develop program for global teaching

Posted on January 23, 2019 by Charles

4DEdu #21stcenturyskills @CurrRedesign @WhittleSchool

Whittle School & Studios is pleased to announce a partnership with the Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) to develop teaching programs for its international campuses. CCR was selected because of its breadth of knowledge of global education and its expertise in best practice, with ideas drawn from around the world.

The announcement follows in-depth scrutiny by Whittle School & Studios of more than 20 educational curricula. The partnership has been formed as Whittle prepares for the opening of its first campuses in Washington DC and Shenzhen, China, in September 2019.

CCR’s framework for curriculum design emphasizes the four dimensions of knowledge, skills, character, and meta–learning. Whittle School & Studios intends to deliver education that is truly global, tailored to the individual and fit for the innovation age.

“CCR is pleased to have been selected by Whittle as the best-in-class for its 4-D Framework and for its curricular expertise. Whittle’s international focus and footprint embeds CCR to offer a comprehensive and truly global education,” said Charles Fadel, Founder of CCR. “This framework is available in 18 languages representing about 80% of the world, and serves an international system such as Whittle for its future expansion as well.”

“We chose to partner with The Center for Curriculum Redesign after an exhaustive global search to find a curricular framework to best prepare our students to contribute to tomorrow’s world. CCR’s framework guides our development of a program that privileges not just knowledge but also personal development, real world problem solving and teaching how to learn (meta-learning). It aligns with our vision to provide a holistic education that goes beyond content. Both CCR and Whittle School & Studios are committed to providing the most relevant curriculum possible for a globally connected world,” said Morgan Silver Greenberg, Chief Product Development Officer at Whittle School & Studios. “Whittle School & Studios has been founded on the belief that a new model for education is needed, one based on the very latest in learning science and tailored to the needs of individual students.”

The CCR distinguishes its approach to curriculum development by:

Providing the most up-to-date, rapidly evolving, real-world-centric curriculum by modernizing Knowledge and emphasizing essential content and core concepts, with an eye towards both expertise/mastery and transfer.
Explicitly embedding “21st century skills” and social/emotional learning via the CCR’s Four-Dimensional Education Framework. Through instruction and experience, students develop skills, character and meta-learning abilities such as: creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, mindfulness, curiosity, courage, resilience, ethics, leadership, metacognition and growth mindset.

Whittle’s mission is to modernize education by creating a global school in multiple international cities serving children from age three to 18. Campuses are designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, with faculty drawn from top-tier schools and universities.

About Whittle School & Studios

Whittle School & Studios intends to create the world’s first truly modern school serving students from age 3 to 18, with a global network of high-end private school campuses. Founded by Chris Whittle, an early leader of the charter school movement in the US, the school is forming local partnerships in over 30 major cities around the world. Whittle School & Studios will bring together renowned educators to provide a world-class education for its students, one that is personalized, prepares students for the future, and enables unique global exchange experiences.

For inquiries:

Center for Curriculum Redesign

Please contact: info@curriculumredesign.org

Whittle School & Studio

Lauren Archambeault Keybridge Communications (202) 471 4228 ext. 113 laurena@keybridge.biz

CCR Announces Computer Science Pilot at Waterville, ME High School Thanks to Grant from the Harold Alfond® Foundation

Posted on January 15, 2019 by Charles

#4DEdu #21stcenturyskills @CurrRedesign #Maine @wtvljhs @WatervillesSHS

The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) is pleased to announce it has received a grant from The Harold Alfond^® Foundation for a Computer Science pilot program at Waterville Senior High School. The pilot program furthers the Waterville Senior High School curriculum by providing students with Computer Science skills and experiences for success in an industry that is the number one source* of all new wages in the U.S.

The Foundation’s grant funds will support the design of a one-credit elective, named Cyber Panthers, that introduces students to the breadth of Computer Science and provides opportunities for students to develop career paths within the field. Additionally, all students will have opportunities for internships and interaction with a variety of partners from industry, higher education and successful local organizations supporting the program.

The CCR distinguishes its approach to curriculum development by:
• Providing the most up-to-date, rapidly evolving, real-world-centric, employer-vetted curriculum. Computer Science topics that will be covered during the course include: game development and design, apps development, augmented and virtual reality, blockchain and cyber security, and more.
• Encompassing entrepreneurship-driven, project-based approaches.
• Embedding CCR’s Four-Dimensional Education framework (aka “21st century skills” and social/emotional learning) into the Computer Science curriculum. Through instruction and experience, students develop skills, character, and meta-learning abilities.

Charles Fadel, founder of the CCR, stated: “CCR is delighted for this opportunity to serve the Waterville community with a leading-edge offering that brings together the hottest, in-demand discipline of Computer Science with the needs of employers, for applicability and development of 21st century skills. We are very grateful to the Harold Alfond® Foundation for its enlightened support, and to the Waterville Senior High School entire team – board, administration, and faculty – for its leadership and vision.”

Superintendent Eric Haley for the Waterville Public Schools was quoted as saying, “Waterville Public Schools is dedicated to helping all students reach their academic potential while teaching real world life skills that are marketable in today’s business world. We feel strongly that this new initiative will engage students, increase their academic potential and better prepare them for the world of work and/or post-secondary education no matter what field of work or study they decide to pursue. We are very grateful to Charles Fadel and his Center for Curriculum Redesign for selecting Waterville Senior High School for this pilot program and to the Harold Alfond® Foundation for seeing the game changing importance of this work to provide a higher quality of life for many of our students.”

Principal Laramee from Waterville Senior High School stated, “The Cyber Panther initiative is an exciting opportunity for Waterville Senior High School and our community. This initiative is aligned to our school’s learning expectations and will benefit students by promoting student’s academic expectations, civic expectations, and social expectations. This initiative will help boost student engagement, increase student’s hope for the future, and provide students the career and financial literacy skills they are lacking. I feel strongly that the skills learned in this program will help promote student post-secondary aspirations and/or better prepare our students to begin their careers upon graduation.”

“It is more important than ever that we prepare our students for the age of a data economy,” said Gregory W. Powell, Chairman of the Harold Alfond® Foundation. “So we are delighted to be supporting this pilot initiative to introduce and provide the most relevant computer science education to Waterville’s young people.”
The pilot, which was voted on unanimously by both the Waterville Curriculum Committee and the Waterville School board, will begin in August 2019 for incoming freshman students.

The Harold Alfond^® Foundation’s mission focuses on furthering the legacy of philanthropist Harold Alfond by investing in education, health care, youth development, and other charitable causes that hold the promise of making enduring, transformative contributions to the community and state of Maine.

The CCR is a non-profit global organization dedicated to improving education and openly propagating its recommendations and frameworks on a worldwide basis, via answering this question: “What should students learn for the 21^st Century?”. The CCR brings together international organizations, jurisdictions, academic institutions, corporations, and non-profit organizations including foundations. For more information about the program, please visit WatervilleCyberPanthers.com or contact the CCR at info@curriculumredesign.org.

*(according to Code.org)

What makes the Waterville Sr. High School Computer Science Program Unique?

The course will encompass a broad curriculum not limited to just coding, but also computational thinking, artificial intelligence, and IT devices. It will also focus on real-world applications such as gaming and app development, augmented and virtual reality, cyber security and blockchain, and even applications in the Humanities and Arts, making the program more relevant and interesting to any student.
The course will be frequently updated to remain state-of-the-art in a rapidly changing technology, particularly about Artificial Intelligence.
The course builds “Identity, Agency and Purpose” as a condition to learning for students. These qualities are developed by our partners such as: JMG, CGI, Waterville Senior High School, and the Harold Alfond Foundation.
Embedded throughout the curriculum is a comprehensive and deliberate development of skills, character, and meta-learning – the components of a 21st century education “four-dimensional” framework that provides students the knowledge and competencies needed to thrive in today’s (and tomorrow’s) world.
By the third and fourth year of the program, Entrepreneurship will be included as a component of the program, providing students an additional expertise to nurture their talents to create opportunities after they leave high school.
The program is designed to incorporate projects and career path exploration. Local employers will support the program through job shadowing, internships, and mentoring to further instill material relevance and potential for career development.

ACT Joins CCR’s Assessment Research Consortium @CurrRedesign @ACT #4DEdu

Posted on September 10, 2018 by Charles

The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) is pleased to announce ACT has joined the Assessment Research Consortium, a division of CCR. The Assessment Research Consortium (ARC) is strategically partnering with international and national organizations, corporations and jurisdictions which focus on the global expansion and implementation of 21st Century Skills and Social-Emotional Learning assessments and tools.

Charles Fadel, Founder of the CCR, stated: “The goal of ARC is to establish a collective field for redesigned systems of measuring learners’ progress in learning competencies of Skills, Character, and Meta-Learning (comprehensively described in CCR’s “Four-Dimensional Education“). Membership in ARC is the chance to guide, shape, pilot and participate in the learning assessments needed for the complex present and uncertain future. We are delighted that ACT, an organization with significant depth and expertise, has chosen to join our Consortium.”

Jeremy Burrus, Senior Director, ACT Center for Social, Emotional, and Academic Learning stated “ACT recognizes the crucial importance of social and emotional skills for success in school, work, and life, and is investing heavily in solutions that assess and teach these skills. We are excited to work with the members of the Assessment Research Consortium to expand our knowledge of these skills and to build collaborative relationships across the globe.”

The Assessment Research Consortium is a collaborative entity – a “pre-competitive Research & Development consortium” modeled after industry’s similar endeavors. Its goal is to redesign systems of measuring Learners’ progress, aligned to 21st century competencies and desired education outcomes. Leaders from governments, the private sector, academia, and nonprofit organizations are members of the consortium, which collectively oversees key research projects to define “assessments for and as learning” across the four dimensions of: Knowledge, Skills, Character, and Meta-Learning (comprehensively described in CCR’s “Four-Dimensional Education“). Some of the Consortium’s present members include the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), the Enrollment Management Association (EMA) and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA).

CCR and South Africa’s National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) announce partnership to develop 21st Century learning models and practices @CurrRedesign @The_NECT #4DEdu

Posted on August 28, 2018 by Charles

The EdHub is the innovation unit within the NECT with an explicit mandate to promote and support innovation in education. It aims to coordinate innovation for 21^st Century education so that it can impact, at scale, the public basic education system in South Africa and ultimately improve education outcomes and quality of life for all.

A recently initiated channel within the EdHub is the establishment of the ‘21^st Century Schools Sandbox’ initiative that intends to set up a laboratory for 21^st Century schooling models in the public sector, where various innovative models for teaching and learning can be trialled. Through the implementation of this project, a body of evidence will be gathered to assist in proving the case for the integration of 21^st Century teaching and learning practices into the South African public schooling system.

Godwin Khosa, CEO of the NECT, stated: “The CCR/NECT Partnership is ambitious yet practical, as we are playing in the transformation and not the improvement space; but we will keep focused on trialling and testing while feeding key findings into the basic education sector throughout the process”.

Charles Fadel, founder of the CCR, added: “We are delighted to advise and assist the NECT with its Edhub/Sandbox initiatives to serve as a model for South African schools. The attachment to 21^st Century Competencies of Skills, Character and Meta-Learning is both refreshing and leading edge”.

The NECT is an organisation dedicated to strengthening partnerships between government, business, labour and civil society to achieve South Africa’s national goals for basic education – as detailed in Chapter 9 of the National Development Plan 2030. It strives both to support and influence the agenda to reform education through a variety of capacity-building interventions, monitoring and evaluation, research, and advocacy. With cross-sectoral governance spanning government, business, labour & civil society, the NECT is uniquely positioned to identify, enable and fast-track change in the basic education system.

The CCR is a non-profit global organization dedicated to improving Education and openly propagating its recommendations and frameworks on a worldwide basis, via answering this question: “What should students learn for the 21^st Century?”. The CCR brings together international organizations, jurisdictions, academic institutions, corporations, and non-profit organizations including foundations. It focuses on designing and propagating new curricula and assessments.

CCR and SOMOS Eduçao announce partnership on 21st century competencies for the Brazilian national curriculum @CurrRedesign #4DEdu

Posted on August 21, 2018 by Charles

The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) has announced a partnership with Somos Educação, the largest basic education group in Latin America, for the development of 21^st century competencies in its curriculum – which reaches over 30 million students in Brazil.

The Brazilian Ministry of Education has recently released the country´s first mandatory curriculum, the “BNCC”. According to Renato Nunes Dias, head of Curriculum and Assessment at Somos, “the partnership with CCR will result in the delivery of a free platform for schools and teachers nationwide, offering them the tools to build their curricula, transforming 21^st century competencies into daily practice.”

Leticia Lyle, head of Somos Institute, stated that: “This opportunity to give back to our country is unique in our history. We are proud and pleased to be developing deep competencies of knowledge, skills and character and their mapping to the BNCC, including the embedding into disciplines such as Mathematics, Language, etc. Our partnership with the CCR, coupled with our innovative digital platform, are allowing us to develop curricula deeper and faster than at any time before, and make the BNCC vision a reality in the classrooms.”

Charles Fadel, founder of the Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR), added: “In Somos, CCR has found a leading-edge, open-minded and progressive partner that understands that our four-dimensional (“4-D”) framework, available in 16 languages including Portuguese, is versatile and adaptable as well as detailed and actionable. We are delighted to be helping the BNCC and Somos comprehensively assist teachers and students to learn at their fullest”.

Both organizations expect that by September 2018 they will introduce the first instances of the free curriculum on the platform, to test with teachers and students.

CCR announces design of world-leading K-12 Mathematics curriculum with Australia’s curriculum authority (ACARA) @CurrRedesign #4DEdu

Posted on July 24, 2018 by Charles

The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) has partnered with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) to design a world-class mathematics curriculum for schools K-12 that explicitly addresses the learning needs of students for life and work in the 21^st century.

CCR is leading maths experts and practitioners from Australia, the US and around the world to develop an exemplar world-class mathematics curriculum that any country could use to inform their own curriculum design. This is particularly timely as the OECD has embarked on deepening its Mathematics PISA 2021 assessment.

“This is a world first”, said Charles Fadel, founder of the CCR. “We are taking the Australian Curriculum in Mathematics as a starting point because our international analysis shows it is already one of the best curricula worldwide. And we are now applying learnings from recent innovations in curriculum design and professional practice to ensure we modernize the content of mathematics, while also bringing in concepts, interdisciplinary learning and competencies (skills, character, meta-learning)”.

“ACARA is pleased to be working with the CCR on this ground-breaking project”, said Robert Randall, CEO of ACARA. “We have a mandate to assemble evidence for reviewing, designing and refining the Australian Curriculum. This joint project with the CCR will be used to inform any future refinement of the existing Australian Curriculum in Mathematics and to help guide improvements to ACARA’s overall curriculum design and development process”.

Andreas Schleicher, director of the OECD’s Education and Skills directorate, stated “PISA 2021 will incorporate several new features: more focus on essential and relevant subjects and topics such as exponentials, emphasis on modern branches such as statistics/probabilities, and explicit attention to 21^st-century competencies such as reasoning, computational thinking, and resilience. I commend the CCR, our partner in Mathematics for the past 5 years, for leading this endeavor with a world-leading authority such as ACARA”.

The project draws on evidence collected and agreed on as part of the PISA Mathematics 2021 project, which CCR advised, including conferences in 2013 in Stockholm and in 2018 in Geneva. “It is now internationally recognized that the school curriculum needs to allow more time for deeper learning of discipline-specific content and 21st century competencies. In order to do that we need to selectively curate (add, emphasize, de-emphasize or remove) curriculum content so that the core concepts and essential content are focused on, that will best prepare students for life and work in our changing world” said Charles Fadel.