Role of the 21st Century Teacher

Dear Colleagues:

Typically, teachers are referred to as classroom teachers, fourth grade teachers, high school teachers, mathematics teachers, college professors, or home school teachers. These conventional descriptions focus on where they teach, what level they teach, or what subject they teach. And they tend to sustain the roles and images of teaching in the past!

In the 21st century, we envision an ever-changing and disruptive learning improvement vision and role for all teachers.

• The role of the 21st century teacher combines what people do best -- nurture and support learners -- with advanced digital technology to do what it does best -- process data, information, and knowledge at the speed of light.

In this role, people will become dynamic learners -- to be their own teachers, able to ask themselves good, new questions and guide both online and collaborative face-to-face efforts in answering them. In this role, 21st century teachers focus on the following vision of teaching as they increase both collaboration and learning:

• Moving from one teacher and many learners to thousands of teachers for each learner!

The preliminary characteristics posted here and in our WikiTask begin to describe this emerging vision and role in the field of learning improvement. What do you think about the vision and role of the 21st century teacher? Add your ideas to this WikiTask in LearningFront!

Nick Hobar