Critical thinking for 21st-century education: A cyber-tooth curriculum?

It is often assumed that the advent of digital technologies requires fundamental change to the curriculum and to the teaching and learning approaches used in schools around the world to educate this generation of “digital natives” or the “net generation”. This article analyses the concepts of 21st-century skills and critical thinking, to understand how these aspects of learning might contribute to a 21st-century education. The author argues that, although both critical thinking and 21st-century skills are indeed necessary in a curriculum for a 21st-century education, they are not sufficient, even in combination. The role of knowledge and an understanding of differing cultural perspectives and values indicate that education should also fit local contexts in a global world and meet the specific needs of students in diverse cultures. It should also fit the particular technical and historical demands of the 21st century in relation to digital skills

Future-Proofing Postgraduate Learning and Assessment Strategies for Deeper Learning

In the twenty-first century, teachers in postgraduate education are, consciously or otherwise, attempting to prepare students to operate in “complex” contexts where outcomes are often unknown. The teaching role and task for academics is evolving from content provider and knowledge guardian into process designer and professional coach. Conversely, the learning role and task for students is emerging as one that requires engaging with personal “attributes” and developing capacities for knowledge integration as part of a lifelong learning strategy. To prepare graduates for a rapidly changing world and workplace, this chapter demonstrates future-proofed teaching and learning strategies together with attribute-based approaches to assessment using innovative software. The implementation of these in different postgraduate degrees at two Australian universities is used to demonstrate how these changing paradigms can be embraced by students, academics, and external accrediting bodies