Modern Mathematics global standards announced by CCR

Posted on November 10, 2021 by Charles

November 10, 2021 – The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) is pleased to announce the availability of its Modern Mathematics Standards, four years in the making.

The Modern Mathematics standards for PreK-10^th grade encompass traditional branches such as Arithmetic, Geometry, and Algebra, curated for relevance and augmented by more comprehensive coverage of Statistics/Probabilities and the explicit introduction of Discrete/Computational mathematics. These two branches have been needed for the past 40 (!) years, according to an NSF report to respond to the needs of life and work.

To quote John Allen Paulos, Mathematician at Temple University and widely published author, “Gullible citizens are a demagogue’s dream… almost every political issue has a quantitative aspect” and “numbers and probability provide the basis for statistics, which, together with Logic, constitute the foundation of the Scientific Method.”

Andreas Schleicher, director of the OECD’s Directorate for Education and Skills commented on CCR’s work, “I congratulate CCR on the work it has achieved over the last four years and its contribution to the advancement of Mathematics. CCR has doggedly pursued an agenda of relevance and modernisation of education standards and assessments; PISA’s future and continued success will closely depend on our ability to rethink the question: What should students learn for the 21st century? This is CCR’s seminal question.”

Philanthropic co-funders of this work, MIT alumni Messrs. Jack Little (founder and chairman of MathWorks) and Ray Stata (founder and chairman of Analog Devices), stated, “Evolving standards to emphasize what matters in Mathematics for the modern world is critical for inspiring future generations of mathematicians, engineers, and scientists and for significantly better mathematical literacy for the broad population. The pandemic has sadly demonstrated how very few people truly understood important topics such as exponentials, probabilities and so on. We are very pleased to support CCR’s initiative and its vision.”
Charles Fadel, founder and chairman of CCR, added, “The needs of this century range from deep-level understanding of important subjects/topics such as risk, statistical process control, algorithms etc. which matter to every citizen, as well as for leading-edge mathematics professions such as data scientists. This comprehensive redesign will appeal to a significant number of advanced jurisdictions. We are deeply grateful to Messrs. Jack Little and Ray Stata for their generosity and trust.”

@CurrRedesign @MATLAB @MathWorks @SchleicherOECD
#4DEdu #21stcenturyskills #AIED #OECDPISA

¹ https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED225806.pdf REPORT TO NSB COMMISSION ON PRECOLLEGE EDUCATION IN MATHEMATICS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY

Countries’ Competencies Index Introduced by CCR

Posted on June 24, 2021 by Charles

@CurrRedesign #4DEdu #21stcenturyskills #AIED

June 25, 2021 – The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) is pleased to announce the introduction of its Discussion paper “Assessing Countries’ Competencies (CCR-CSE Leading Education Series #3),” published jointly with the Center for Strategic Education. This paper wishes to promote a healthy global conversation about the necessity for societies and educators to develop and measure competencies such as Skills and Character qualities in addition to Knowledge.

CCR built the 4D Index by combining and weighing 4–8 proxy parameters per competency (e.g., corruption index for Ethics) from trusted sources (OECD, UN, WEF, WB, etc.), and based on CCR’s 4D framework (a highly researched synthesis of more than a hundred frameworks from around the world).

Charles Fadel, founder of CCR, added, “The most interesting results from the paper are:

Even advanced tests like PISA and PIAAC are not correlated with how a country performs on its Competencies, so there is clearly a need for more specific instruments.
Middle-income countries rise significantly when new parameters besides Knowledge, such as Mindfulness, Courage, and Growth Mindset, are introduced (witness Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, and others, in the table below).
Nordic/Baltic countries perform extremely well in all respects, reflecting their UN’s Human Development Index, and perhaps owing to a social model that does not tolerate deep inequities.”

4D Index of Competencies

The paper concludes with the following critical questions:

How can a jurisdiction improve its education system to match the desired outcomes in Skills, Character, and Meta-Learning? Where should it put its educational energies, given its existing social capabilities?
Most critically in a troubled world, how can we measure the rate of change of a jurisdiction without longitudinal analysis over a decade? (Time being of the essence.) Are there proxies to measuring the adaptability of a jurisdiction, and its willingness to change?

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 Contact Us.

FAQs:

Q: Does this mean CCR wants educators to replace knowledge with skills?
A. Unequivocally, no. This is an old debate and false dichotomy that died out in the US about ten years ago. Most educators worldwide recognize that Knowledge is not enough to educate a “whole child.” CCR’s framework shows Knowledge very explicitly, has written two (!) large reports on Knowledge, and has designed knowledge standards for Modern Mathematics. Lastly, note the first paragraph of this release that states “in addition to Knowledge.”

Q: What about the challenges posed – in conceptualization, in data sources, in construction, and in establishing validity – how have you solved them?
A. We do not claim to have done that, as this is not a research paper. But CCR’s proxy approach is commonly used by numerous indices around the world, even in education circles: for instance, the construction of university rankings, with several competing views about which parameters matter, and their weights. Please refer to the Preamble section of the paper.

Embedding Competencies in Disciplines

Posted on June 18, 2021 by Charles

Is math appropriate to teach leadership or is critical thinking more likely? Beyond Communication and Creativity, what should language and arts focus on? After three years of research, CCR publishes its ground-breaking recommendations in a new report, Embedding Competencies within Disciplines: Deliberately, Explicitly & Systematically that describes which disciplines are most conducive to teach given Competencies. Among the findings:

The importance of the arts for the development of many Competencies
The importance of modern disciplines such as entrepreneurship for competencies that are difficult to cover via traditional disciplines (such as Courage and Leadership).

Executive Summary

While CCR’s Competencies outline a framework beyond Knowledge of what people must learn for success, teaching them explicitly can be difficult or overwhelming even for expert teachers. To explicitly teach the Competencies, a framework matching them to specific Disciplines is necessary. This system allows each Discipline to focus on specific Competencies that can be systematically designed to guarantee comprehensive coverage of Skills, Character, and Meta-learning for any individual student moving through the system. These Competencies should be matched with the disciplines best suited for their learning. Such a system also limits the scope of what teachers must incorporate and master to the most relevant and essential Competencies so as to prevent overload. CCR recommends the mapping between Disciplines and Competencies as described in the report – a strong suggestion about which Competencies should be taught in which discipline. These conclusions were reached based on both top-down (synthesis from research) and bottom-up (opinions from US State Teachers of the Year) approaches.

CCR is grateful to the Oak Foundation for its multi-year generous and trusting support.

Dr. Dirk Van Damme Welcomed to CCR

Posted on May 17, 2021 by Charles

The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) is very pleased to announce that Dr. Dirk Van Damme, formerly of the OECD, will join its ranks as Distinguished Senior Research Fellow, starting June 1, 2021.

Dr. Van Damme’s achievements are numerous:

He is, until May 31, 2021, Senior Counsellor and Head of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division (IMEP), which covers both the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) and the Indicators of Educational Systems (INES) program in the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills. He has been leading and inspiring CERI’s innovative research portfolio for the past 13 years.
He holds a PhD in educational sciences from Ghent University (Belgium) and is professor of educational sciences in the same university (since 1995). He was also a part-time professor in comparative education at the Free University of Brussels (1997-2000) and visiting professor of comparative education at Seton Hall University, NJ, USA (2001-2008). He was general director of the Flemish Rectors’ Conference, the main advisory body for higher education policy in the Flemish part of Belgium, between 2000 and 2003.
He was professionally involved in educational policy development between 1992 and 2008 and served as chief of staff of Mr. Frank Vandenbroucke, Flemish minister of education between 2004 and 2008.
His current interests are evidence-based innovation in education, comparative analyses of educational systems, the science of learning, and knowledge management in education.

Charles Fadel, founder and chairman of the CCR, stated, “The ability of CCR to attract a world-class expert like Dirk is a comforting proof that CCR is on the right track in its “Education Engineering™” efforts. CCR is the only organization with an official partnership with CERI, and it makes a lot of sense to continue this harmonious relationship. This is also a deep pleasure for me very personally, as Dirk has been an inspiring colleague for a decade now, a fellow traveler and critical friend of CCR, and an empathic and profound force in education improvement around the world.”

Andreas Schleicher, director of OECD’s Directorate for Education and Skills, stated, “Dirk has been invaluable to the OECD, and since the CCR has provided important inspiration to OECD’s work on the future of education and curriculum design, I hope this new role will help to strengthen our collaboration further. I wish Dirk and CCR continued success, and will rejoice in continuing to interact with them at OECD meetings.”

For inquiries, please Contact Us.

@CurrRedesign #4DEdu #21stcenturyskills #AIED

MathWorks Grants CCR Funding for “21st Century Mathematics” Courseware

Posted on November 19, 2019 by Charles

November 19, 2019 – The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) is pleased to announce it has received support from MathWorks to develop “21^st Century Mathematics” courseware, aimed at assisting high, middle, and lower school teachers and students.

The Mathematics courseware covers ten areas of change in PISA Mathematics 2021, stemming from recommendations the CCR produced for the OECD’s PISA 2021 and Australia’s ACARA. The courseware brings together into a single cohesive implementation, all of modernized knowledge (context, content and concepts), interdisciplinarity and projects, and skills, character, and meta-learning abilities. The design will allow for self-paced student work, significant teacher professional development, and demonstrate multiple pedagogical approaches to courseware publishers.

Andreas Schleicher, director of OECD’s Directorate for Education and Skills, commended CCR’s work for its contribution to PISA Maths 2021 in a recent letter, “Starting with the Stockholm conference in 2014 in conjunction with the OECD, followed by colloquia in East Hampton, NY and Cambridge, MA and culminating with the Geneva conference in 2018, CCR has doggedly pursued an agenda of relevance and modernization of education standards and assessments, applied to Mathematics in this case.”

The first module of ten that will be featured in the courseware will be available on the OpenEdx platform in March 2020.

Jack Little, president and cofounder of MathWorks, stated, “Evolving the way STEM subjects are taught and learned is critical to inspiring the future generation of mathematicians, engineers and scientists. MathWorks is pleased to support CCR’s courseware initiative.”

Charles Fadel, founder of CCR, added, “It is very rewarding when open-minded thought leaders recognize and embrace the need for moving Mathematics forward. This courseware reflects the needs of this century’s leading-edge mathematics professions such as Data Scientists, Algorithmics, etc. coupled with a far deeper understanding of fundamental math topics such as proportionality and number sense. This comprehensive design will appeal to a significantly larger number of users, who are unfortunately too often turned off by the partial irrelevance of many mathematics subjects and the poor pedagogical practices associated with them. We are very grateful to MathWorks for its clarity of vision and kind generosity, as this work will significantly extend and support the prior grant from Mr. Ray Stata.”

MathWorks is the leading developer of mathematical computing software. MATLAB, the language of engineers and scientists, is a programming environment for algorithm development, data analysis, visualization, and numeric computation. Simulink is a block diagram environment for simulation and Model-Based Design of multidomain and embedded engineering systems. Engineers and scientists worldwide rely on these product families to accelerate the pace of discovery, innovation, and development in automotive, aerospace, electronics, financial services, biotech-pharmaceutical, and other industries. MATLAB and Simulink are also fundamental teaching and research tools in the world’s universities and learning institutions. Founded in 1984, MathWorks employs more than 4500 people in 16 countries, with headquarters in Natick, Massachusetts, USA. For additional information, visit mathworks.com.

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?” 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 Contact Us.

@CurrRedesign @MathWorks @SchleicherOECD 4DEdu #21stcenturyskills #AIED #OECDPISA

Microsoft selects CCR’s “4D” Framework Rev 1.0 for Skills, Character and Meta-Learning

Posted on October 16, 2019 by Charles

October 16^th, 2019 – The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) is pleased to announce that Microsoft Education Research will be using its CCR Framework Rev 1.0 to help different international education systems establish a shared competencies standard equivalency.

This CCR 4D framework is the first of its kind to describe a deeply researched, explicit, and consistent structure for an education of Skills, Character, and Meta-Learning (aka “21^st century skills” or social-emotional learning (SEL)). The framework expresses these dimensions through 12 parameters, their 60 sub-competencies, and a lexicon of 200+ associated and related constructs.

The intent of the 4D framework is to provide jurisdictions, organizations, municipalities and schools with a blueprint for a curriculum that transforms 21^st century competencies into daily practice, helping teachers and students in developing relevant skills, character, and meta-learning qualities, all to be expressed through Knowledge disciplines. These competencies are much needed to update K-12 curricula around the world to make 21^st century education a lot more relevant. The framework is propagating rapidly to a growing number of organizations globally, notably among them the Mastery Transcript Consortium™ and Atlas as previously announced.

Charles Fadel, founder of the CCR, and co-author of 21^st Century Skills, Four-Dimensional Education, and Artificial Intelligence in Education, adds, “It is very validating to CCR that a corporation of the stature of Microsoft selected its framework over numerous other possibilities. The Framework was created at a cumulative investment of approximately $6M over the past six years. We are releasing the tip of the iceberg at this stage, and will soon announce several other high-profile partners. The framework was painstakingly developed as an elaborate synthesis of 75+ other frameworks worldwide, with clear design goals of actionability: comprehensiveness, compacity, orthogonality, abstraction, and global relevance. This will allow learners to thrive in an innovation-driven yet problem-challenged world, one that is shifting to learning-based societies where fulfilled 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.”

Dr. Maria Langworthy, Worldwide Director, Education Research at Microsoft, stated, “CCR’s framework stood out to us because it maps the curriculum frameworks from many different countries and jurisdictions to a common framework that includes advanced competencies in a consistent way. This is important for developing internationally valid work standards that could enable ‘interoperable’ learner profile data. When those learner profiles are expanded to include a broader range of advanced competencies, it will be necessary for them to be represented consistently in education systems’ data platforms.”

Microsoft enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

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?” 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 Contact Us.

@CurrRedesign #4DEdu #21stCenturySkills #AIED @MSFTNews @microsoft

CCR Releases “4D Framework” 1.0, the First of Its Kind Which Outlines 21st Century Skills, Character and Meta-Learning, and Partners with Global Curriculum Leaders

Posted on September 25, 2019 by Charles

The Center for Curriculum Redesign (CCR) is pleased to announce the release of it CCR Framework Rev 1.0, the first of its kind which outlines a deeply researched, explicit and consistent structure for 21^st century education of Skills, Character, and Meta-Learning (aka “21^st century skills” or social-emotional learning(SEL)). The framework expresses these dimensions through 12 Competencies, their 60 Subcompetencies, and a lexicon of 200+ associated and related constructs.

The intent of the 4D framework is to provide jurisdictions, organizations, municipalities and schools with a blueprint for a curriculum that transforms 21^st century competencies into daily practice, helping teachers and students in developing relevant skills, character, and meta-learning qualities, all to be expressed through Knowledge disciplines. These competencies are much needed to update K-12 curricula around the world, to make 21^st century education a lot more relevant. The framework is propagating rapidly to a growing number of organizations globally, notably among them both the Mastery Transcript Consortium™ and Atlas as announced herein.

Charles Fadel, founder of CCR, and co-author of 21^st Century Skills, Four-Dimensional Education, and Artificial Intelligence in Education, adds, “the Framework was created at a cumulative investment of approximately $6M over the past 6 years. We are releasing the tip of the iceberg at this stage, and will soon announce several other high-profile partners. The framework was painstakingly developed as an elaborate synthesis of 75+ other frameworks worldwide, with clear design goals of actionability: comprehensiveness, compacity, orthogonality, abstraction and global relevance. This will allow learners to thrive in an innovation-driven yet problem-challenged world, one that is shifting to learning-based societies where fulfilled 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.”

Notable Partners announced today:

The Mastery Transcript Consortium™(MTC) is made up of a growing network of public and private member high schools who are codesigning the Mastery Transcript, a high school transcript that supports mastery learning and reflects the unique skills, strengths, and interests of each learner. In the coming years, the MTC hopes to change the way students prepare for college, career, and life.

Stacy Caldwell, CEO of MTC, stated, “MTC is pleased to see strong alignment between the work of our member high schools and CCR’s deeply researched framework. The CCR model offers to schools a blueprint for organizing mastery credits in ways that support the range of higher-order thinking skills and social-emotional learning needed for today’s world, and we look forward to offering it as an option for our member schools.”

Atlas, a subsidiary of Faria Education Group, is a leading international education company that provides curriculum management platforms for K-12 schools. As the trusted choice for over 6,000 schools in 120 countries, Atlas allows schools around the world to initiate, revamp, and continuously refine and improve their curriculum process.

Bernard Merkel, Director of Client Services at Atlas, stated, “We’re excited to work with CCR to provide the 4D framework as an option for our schools to use in Atlas as it adds another tool in our teacher’s pockets to continue to refine and deepen their curricular work.”

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?” 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 Contact Us.

@CurrRedesign @MasteryTranscript @PlanOnAtlas @MastTranscript#4DEdu #21stCenturySkills #AIED

“Artificial Intelligence in Education” introduced by CCR

Posted on March 20, 2019 by Charles

Promises and Implications for Teaching and Learning

What will education look like as it is transformed by AI?

#4DEdu @CurrRedesign #AIED #Edu #artificialintelligence #EdTech

PRAISE FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN EDUCATION

“Artificial Intelligence in Education is really two books in one: the first presents a comprehensive curriculum framework for 21st century learning; the second is a thorough survey of the uses of AI in learning. It is an invaluable resource for those concerned with the future of education.” —Tony Wagner, best-selling author of The Global Achievement Gap and Creating Innovators

“…a must read for educators and all stakeholders interested the future of education which will be impacted – and more than likely transformed – by AI…By staying rooted in the science of learning, the authors provide a critical lens on both the potential benefits and risks of AI without hyping the technology.”
—Jim Flanagan,Chief Operating and Strategy Officer, The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)

ABOUT THE BOOK

The landscape for education has been rapidly changing in the last years: demographic changes affecting the makeup of families, multiple school options available to children, wealth disparities, the global economy demanding new skills from workers, and continued breakthroughs in technology are some of the factors impacting education. Given these changes, how can education continue to prepare students for the future and increase its relevance?

The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has exacerbated the need to have these conversations. Its impact on education and the multiple possibilities that it offers are putting pressure on educational leaders to reformulate the “What” (school curriculum) and the “How” (channels to deliver it).

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

Posted on January 23, 2019 by Charles

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, D.C. 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 (SEL) via the CCR’s Four-Dimensional Education Framework. Through instruction and experience, students develop skills, character, and meta-learning abilities: creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, mindfulness, curiosity, courage, resilience, ethics, leadership, metacognition and growth mindset.

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 Us

Whittle School & Studio

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

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