Below is an excerpt from a post on Inside Higher Ed recommended by Jeff Straw and Tim Nelson.
How will teaching and learning in the early 21st century differ from its 20th century predecessor? Some shifts are already well underway. These include the growing embrace of open educational resources and of courses collaboratively designed and developed by teams including content area specialists, educational technologists, and instructional designers. Peer mentoring and grading are becoming more common, as is a gradual shift toward learner-centered pedagogies and competency-based, outcomes-oriented approaches.
Alongside these developments are five far-reaching developments.
1. A 21st century education will be geared toward 100 percent proficiency.
A basic assumption of 20th century education was that not all students were capable of achieving a minimal viable competency. Course grades provided an overarching measure of proficiency. Intended as a motivating tool and a measure of students’ performance on various assessments, grades also embodied the assumption that one of college’s primary purposes is to rank students in terms of their academic accomplishments and their mastery of relevant skills and knowledge.
The growing prevalence of grading rubrics is a sign that faculty members were becoming more explicit about clearly delineating learning objectives and articulating performance standards. As higher education moves toward a heightened emphasis on learning outcomes, higher education will focus more attentively on the ways we can help all students master the skills and competencies that we seek.
2. It will rest on the science of learning.
Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-beta/five-ways-21st-and-20th-century-learning-will-differ#ixzz2vCp1Oyif
Inside Higher Ed