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ATC21S Overview ...................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Organization of the Analysis ................................................................................................................................................... 2
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Incorporating 21
st
Century Skills into Curriculum ........................................................................................................... 4
Curriculum Challenges .............................................................................................................................................................. 8
Teaching in National Contexts """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" %
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st
Century Skills ....................................................................................................................... 8
Challenges for Teaching ............................................................................................................................................................ 9
Assessing 21
st
Century Skills """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" #&
Influences of International Assessment ............................................................................................................................. 1u
National and State Assessment Programs ........................................................................................................................ 1u
Local Assessments ................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Pathways for Adopting ATC21S """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" #'
Adoption Challenges ............................................................................................................................................................... 1S
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21
st
Centuiy Skills in Austialia's Cuiiiculum .............................................................................................................. 18
Austialian Teacheis' Implementation of 21
st
Centuiy Skills .............................................................................. 19
Assessing 21
st
Centuiy Skills in Austialia .................................................................................................................... 2u
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Pathways foi ATC21S Auoption in Austialia .............................................................................................................. 2S
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21
st
Centuiy Skills in Costa Rica's Cuiiiculum ........................................................................................................... 26
Costa Rican Teacheis' 0se of 21
st
Centuiy Skills ....................................................................................................... 26
Assessing 21
st
Centuiy Skills in Costa Rica .................................................................................................................. 27
Lessons fiom ATC21S in Costa Rica ................................................................................................................................ 27
Pathways foi ATC21S Auoption in Costa Rica ............................................................................................................ 28
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st
Centuiy Skills in Finlanu's Cuiiiculum ................................................................................................................. 29
Finnish Teacheis' 0se of 21
st
Centuiy Skills ............................................................................................................... Su
Assessing 21
st
Centuiy Skills in Finlanu ....................................................................................................................... S1
Lessons fiom ATC21S in Finlanu ..................................................................................................................................... SS
Pathways foi ATC21S Auoption in Finlanu ................................................................................................................. SS
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st
Centuiy Skills in the Netheilanus' Cuiiiculum ................................................................................................. SS
ii
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st
Centuiy Skills .................................................................................................................. SS
Assessing 21
st
Centuiy Skills in the Netheilanus ...................................................................................................... S6
ICT Reauiness in the Netheilanus ................................................................................................................................... S7
Pathways foi ATC21S Auoption in The Netheilanus .............................................................................................. S7
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Assessment ................................................................................................................................................................................ 41
Piogiess on ATC21S .............................................................................................................................................................. 4S
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Centuiy Skills in Cuiiiculum anu Teaching in the 0.S. .................................................................................. 46
Assessing 21
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Centuiy Skills in the 0.S. ........................................................................................................................ 48
Lessons fiom ATC21S in the 0.S. ...................................................................................................................................... 49
Pathways foi ATC21S Auoption in the 0.S. .................................................................................................................. Su
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1
Introduction

Over the past two decades, many stakeholders in education have discussed the need for students
to develop what some call 21
st
century skills (21
st
CS). Employers have requested that
educators enhance students knowledge of content areas with crosscutting competencies such as
collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, and other skills. Some governments have
recognized the importance of economic competitiveness and sought methods for infusing
education systems with these 21
st
CS in pedagogy, curriculum, and assessment. To support these
endeavors, Cisco, Intel, and Microsoft developed a project called the Assessment and Teaching
of 21
st
Century Skills (ATC21S). Beginning in 2009, the ATC21S research project has included
working teams that identified technical and methodological issues surrounding the identification
and assessment of these 21
st
CS.
ATC21S Overview
The initial phase of ATC21S involved analyses of twelve different 21
st
CS frameworks from a
number of countries. From this larger list, the working group identified ten core 21
st
CS that
they categorized by four different areas of learning, as shown in Table 1.
1
Finally, the technical
teams made recommendations guiding the process of developing assessments of two topics
encompassing some of the ten 21
st
CS identified by the team. The two task areas are
collaborative problem solving (CPS) and Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
literacy.

Table 1. Categories and Ten Core 21st CS
Ways of Thinking Ways of Working

Tools for Working

Living in the World

1) Creativity and innovation 4) Communication

6) Information
literacy
8) Citizenship local and
global
2) Critical thinking, problem
solving, decision making
5) Collaboration
(teamwork)

7) ICT literacy

9) Life and career

3) Learning to learn,
metacognition
10) Personal & social
responsibility, including
cultural awareness and
competence
Source: Adapted from Binkley et al., 2012.
Four founding countries Australia, Finland, Singapore, and the United States conducted
cognitive laboratories, pilots, and field trials of CPS and ICT literacy assessment tasks. Two
associate countries Costa Rica and the Netherlands also conducted tests on the roles of
language and culture in the tasks.

1
A full uiscussion of the iuentification of 21
st
CS is helpful foi unueistanuing the evolution
of the ATC21S pioject. See Binkley et al. (2u12) foi a complete piesentation of these
concepts.

2

This analysis focuses on the policy environments influencing the adoption of both 21
st
CS in
general and the results and products of ATC21S research and assessment strategies in particular.
Information in this analysis was collected from interviews with country project managers, their
representatives, other participants in the ATC21S project and the international assessment
community, and advisory board members from international organizations and the funding
companies, and supplemented by published information about national and state education
systems.
Organization of the Analysis
We first discuss how member countries have sought to incorporate 21
st
CS into their education
systems, independent of the ATC21S project. Over more than a decade, many countries have
made progress in the integration of these problem solving, reasoning, communication,
technology, and life skills into curriculum, teaching, and assessment. Table 2 provides a
comparison of approaches in different organizations and countries by mapping them to the
ATC21S framework. This comparison illustrates both the significant overlap and important
differences to incorporating 21
st
CS in different contexts. Of course, all countries still face
challenges in developing the full set of skills across all classrooms. We briefly describe the
progress and these challenges.

We then discuss the piloting of current ATC21S tasks from the vantage points of educators,
schools, countries, and international organizations. Finally, we present feedback regarding how
this type of work might be integrated into countries curriculum and/or assessment systems, and
the considerations and issues under discussion. Each country has an individual policy context,
but useful parallels exist across environments, and they receive attention both as future directions
for member countries and as potential roadmaps for the potential use of ATC21S materials in the
future.
3
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Cieativity anu
Innovation;

Ciitical thinking,
pioblem solving,
uecision making;

Leaining to leain,
metacognition
Leaining to leain

Cieativity anu
innovation;

Ciitical thinking,
pioblem solving

Buman giowth (C);

Skills foi thinking,
leaining anu pioblem
solving (W)
M9N5 7K M7SQIPR
Communication;

Collaboiation
(teamwoik)

Communication in the
mothei tongue;

Communication in the
foieign languages
Communication;

Collaboiation
Woiking skills (W);

Social skills (W);

Active paiticipation
(W)
:77H5 K7S M7SQIPR
Infoimation liteiacy;

ICT- liteiacy

Nathematical
competence anu basic
competences in
science anu
technology;

Bigital competence
Infoimation liteiacy,
meuia liteiacy;

ICT-liteiacy
Neuia skills anu
communication (W);

Buman technology
(W);

ICT-liteiacy (W)
HIDIPR IP :O8 M7SHG

ulobal anu local
citizenship;

Life anu caieei;

Peisonal & social
iesponsibility,
incluuing cultuial
awaieness anu
competence
Cultuial awaieness
anu expiession;

Social anu civic
competences;

Sense of initiative anu
entiepieneui-ship
Flexibility anu
auaptability;

Initiative anu self-
uiiection;

Social anu cioss-
cultuial skills;

Piouuctivity anu
accountability;

Leaueiship anu
iesponsibility
Cultuial iuentity anu
global awaieness (C);

Paiticipatoiy
citizenship anu
entiepieneuiship (C);

Responsibility foi the
enviionment; well-
being anu a
sustainable futuie (C);

Safety anu tiaffic (C)
Souice: Auapteu fiom Ahonen (2u12), manusciipt in piouuction.
4
Curriculum in National Contexts

Many countries and states began infusing references to 21
st
CS in their curriculum documents
during the 1990s. While countries generally agree about the importance of 21
st
CS, some
particular skills are easier to embed in curriculum and assessments than others. Efforts to
develop critical thinking and problem solving skills are better established than research and
practice around skills like creativity and innovation, ICT literacy, and collaboration, for example.
Also, the skills for living in the world such as citizenship and personal and social responsibility
do not fall squarely in the cognitive category that schools have traditionally addressed with
students. The diverse nature of 21
st
CS has led to variable levels of implementation, both in a
temporal sense and across different countries.
Incorporating 21
st
Century Skills into Curriculum
A number of the participating countries have worked for more than a decade to incorporate 21st
century skills into the curriculum. One of the more proactive nations in this regard is Singapore.
In 1997, Singapore introduced a reform under the banner of Thinking Schools, Learning Nation,
which began a process of revising curriculum, teaching, and assessment to incorporate critical
thinking, problem solving, decision-making, collaboration, and innovation. Curriculum
documents emphasized these skills. Training for new teachers began to focus on them.
Singapore even introduced some assessments into the examination system that required project
work and investigation, as well as collaboration.

In 2010, the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) (2010) went further to introduce a new
framework for 21
st
century competencies. The preparation of this framework included results
from the ATC21S paper that identified and classified 21
st
CS (Binkley et al., 2012). The
Singaporean model also contains six core values (respect, responsibility, integrity, care,
resilience, and harmony) nested within the competencies (See Figure 1) (Singapore MOE, 2010).
Both the ATC21S categories and Singapores framework highlight competencies that pertain
both to the internal, cognitive processes of students to their interactions with the outside world.
Singapore also explicitly identifies core values as central to the learner, an approach taken by
Costa Rica and Finland, as well.

Finland, too, has focused on certain 21st century skills for some time, with special attention to
metacognition and the development of students' abilities to "learn to learn. The Finnish national
core curriculum is a lean document, reduced from what was once hundreds of pages of highly
specific prescriptions to descriptions of a small number of skills and core concepts each year.
This core curriculum guides teachers in collectively developing local curricula and assessments
that encourage students to be active learners who can find, analyze, and use information to solve
problems in novel situations.

Finlands attention to 21
st
CS has deepened as the Finnish government recently renewed the
discussion around a new iteration of the national curriculum. This decennial process includes
writing the basic document for the national curriculum and creating corresponding legislation.
The current curriculum includes some 21
st
CS in the outline of goals for teachers, such as
learning through peer interaction, helping students take responsibility for their learning, and
helping them develop strategies for applying skills in new situations (Finnish National Board of
5
Education, 2004). The new curriculum version adds to this approach by including 21
st
CS both
within the curriculum document and codifying them in specific sub-points under the education
legislation. For instance, these sub-points mandate that students have the ability to collaborate
and that both teachers and students increase their learning about and use of ICT (Ministry of
Education and Culture, 2012). While Finland remains a decentralized system with high levels of
teacher autonomy, the curriculum frameworks do provide direction for teacher training,
professional development, and classroom practice.

The Netherlands is even more decentralized than Finland. The country does not have an official
national curriculum program, due to an historical decision to equally fund public and private
schools that long ago ceded curricular autonomy to schools and teachers. For this reason,
decisions about whether and how to incorporate 21
st
CS into curriculum and teaching occur at
the school level. Some schools have worked for 20 years to introduce and improve new ways of
learning. Currently, many schools seek to implement 21
st
CS by having groups of students
collaborate, using the internet actively, and, in some cases, engaging in international exchanges
through the internet that may also include physical visits. In the Technasia project, which
supports a network of schools, students work on technical problems with local companies to
develop their cooperative problem solving.

Some of Australia's states and territories have focused on the 21
st
CS for some time. For
example, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Queensland, and Victoria included a deepened
focus on problem solving, critical thinking, and communications in curriculum guidance during
the 1990s and in project-based components of examinations. Queensland also developed the
"Rich Tasks" project, which created assessments that included collaborative work, decision-
making, problem solving, and metacognition. This work has informed developments in Hong
Kong and Singapore.

More recently, Australia has been developing a national curriculum grounded in key learning
areas. The new national curriculum also includes a delineated set of general capabilities.
These general capabilities use different language than the ten 21
st
CS presented by ATC21S.
However, they do include ICT capability, critical and creative thinking, and personal and social
capability, among others. A recently established national organization, Education Services
Australia (ESA), has responsibility for developing curriculum materials relating to the new
national curriculum. It is hoped that these materials will integrate the general capabilities into
the key learning areas, such as math, English, science, history, and geography, to support
teachers to incorporate the general capabilities into their teaching in classrooms.










6

Figure 1. 21
st
Century Competencies and Desired Student Outcomes

Source: http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/press/2010/03/moe-to-enhance-learning-
of-21s.php

As in Australia, states have traditionally played the key role in education policymaking in the
United States; however, initiatives to create a more centralized approach are underway. Many
states and localities have developed curriculum guidance and materials incorporating elements of
21
st
CS over the last twenty years. Some states have incorporated such skills in state curriculum
documents, and some have integrated work on teaching for these skills in educator development
programs. A private organization that includes state members, the Partnership for 21
st
Century
Skills (P21), has assembled a website with resources for educators, policymakers, and
community members. P21s goal is to facilitate understanding the role of 21
st
CS from the
learner to the classroom and policy.
2
Because of the historically decentralized system in the
United States, and the fact that required tests do not focus on 21st CS, the attention to such skills
in national discourse and some curriculum documents does not translate systematically yet into
classroom practice.

2
http:www.p21.oig
7

More recently, a group of 45 states have developed and adopted "Common Core State
Standards" in English language arts and mathematics. These are aimed at creating "fewer, higher,
and clearer" standards to guide curriculum, instruction, and assessment. They are intended to be
internationally benchmarked, and to focus more intently on problem-solving and critical thinking
skills, as well as information literacy, and the ability to communicate thinking and reasoning in
multiple forms. New science standards under development are also expected to support a multi-
state initiative. These will focus on inquiry in science education. As a companion effort, the
National Research Council recently conducted a workshop on the role of 21
st
CS in science
education, documented in a report covering standards, curriculum, teacher readiness, and
assessments (Hilton, 2010). It is possible that these efforts will have some broader effect on state
and local practice with respect to the cognitive skills they address. These efforts, however, do
not emphasize competencies like creativity and innovation, collaboration, and the life skills.

In 2003, Costa Rica enacted a Plan of Action on Education for All, intended to relaunch the
education system (Ministerio de Educacin, 2002). At the center of 2003 plans lies a view of
education as a broad endeavor to develop social, emotional, and cognitive competencies that
form the foundation of a 21
st
CS approach. The central axis of the curriculum for this plan are
values including the daily practice of achieving a better quality personal, family and social life,
and understanding human rights, health, the environment and sustainable development
(Ministerio de Educacin, 2002). The Minister of Education, Dr. Leonardo Garnier, has
validated the importance of 21
st
CS in particular in a video describing the 21
st
CS from ATC21S
as a direction for the Costa Rican education system.
3


As an example, within the domain of mathematics, the Ministry has introduced comprehensive
curriculum reforms that focus on a student-centered approach. The new national curriculum,
adopted in 2012, aims to demystify mathematics as a discipline and to motivate students by
connecting their everyday experiences with mathematical principles (Garnier, 2012). The
curriculum focuses on five areas to achieve rigor and depth of understanding:

1) Problem solving as the main methodological strategy;
2) Contextualization as a special pedagogical component;
3) Intelligent use of digital technologies;
4) Promoting positive attitudes and beliefs about mathematics;
5) The history of mathematics.

This list incorporates some of the 21
st
CS promulgated by ATC21S such as problem solving,
Information literacy, and ICT literacy (Garnier, 2012). The reform also proposes five attitudes
that include the 21
st
century skill of collaboration (Garnier, 2012). While Costa Rica is rolling
out a 21
st
CS approach beginning with particular subjects, the country has a clear national
imperative to move in this direction across the entire curriculum.

S
http:www.atc21s.cicomponentcontentaiticle124-mensaje-uel-ui-leonaiuo-
gainiei
8
Curriculum Challenges
Curriculum adoption is a national process in some countries, and a state or local process in others.
However, implementation is always a local process, dependent on teachers' commitments,
knowledge, and skills in classroom. Some more centralized countries, such as Singapore and
Costa Rica, not only have national curriculums, but also have a role in the provision of materials
and professional development, and can use these to focus on teachers' capacities to implement
pedagogies relating to 21
st
CS. Australia has also recently established the Australian Curriculum,
Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) with responsibility for developing the new
national curriculum framework. Also recently established, the Education Services Australia
(ESA) has responsibility for developing curriculum materials incorporating what has been
termed general capabilities.

Decentralized countries such as Finland and the Netherlands face different challenges in which
the pathway to adopting 21
st
CS will likely not center primarily on top-down implementation of
new curriculum. In Finland and the Netherlands, teacher and school-led initiatives are the
currency of change in education. Strategies will depend more on school-initiated projects and
strategies and on professional engagement of teachers through their associations and in
collaborative networks. In the United States, highly decentralized approaches have dominated
historically; however, the Common Core standards initiative is expected to lead to more
centralized development and adoption of curriculum materials across the country. Furthermore,
because of high-stakes accountability policies that use test scores to determine teacher tenure,
salary, etc., assessment drives classroom practice to a substantial degree. New multi-state
assessments are being developed to implement the Common Core standards, and it remains to be
seen how much they will incorporate 21st century skills.
Teaching in National Contexts

Differences between centralized and decentralized countries are sometimes also related to the
amount of support, professional development, and guidance countries can readily make available
to teachers. Centralized countries that are focused on teacher support can organize means to
prepare and develop teachers more extensively. In all of these countries, there is substantial
variability in classroom practice. Nonetheless, both centralized and decentralized countries have
found innovative ways to support the transformation of instruction toward 21st century skills.
Helping Teachers Enact 21
st
Century Skills

Singapore has perhaps the most supportive national environment for coherent teacher
development, with only one preparer of pre-service teachers (the National Institute of Education)
and substantial collaboration between NIE, the Ministry of Education, and a new national
Academy for supporting in-service teacher development. All have been focused on developing
21st century skills, through teacher training to use technology, to support critical thinking, and to
enable collaboration, innovation, and creativity. Among the innovative approaches are the
initiatives at NIE to demonstrate to new teachers and leaders what the classroom of the future
will be like and to replicate this collaborative, technology-based environment in the education of
prospective educators themselves. In-service teachers are supported through action research and
9
lesson study to develop their practice. And experimental initiatives to create school models
grounded in technology-supported, inquiry-based education have been planted, studied, and will
be scaled up in ways that allow educators to support the learning of other educators.

This set of aligned efforts has begun to transform practice in Singapore, as is supported by
curriculum and assessment changes. As in every context, efforts toward change are constrained
by the prior experiences of teachers (as both students and teachers), by the traditions of schooling,
and by the elements of the system that have not yet evolved.

Finland's teaching environment is much more decentralized. However, all teachers receive is
high-quality common preparation to teach. With a focus in the Finnish curriculum on "learning
to learn," teachers are encouraged to cultivate students active learning skills by posing complex
problems and helping students address these problems. Teachers are taught to cultivate
independence and active learning, as well as to develop metacognitive skills (Lavonen, 2008).
Because Finnish teachers are free to choose their methods, they define if and how they
incorporate 21
st
CS in their classrooms. Many teachers also include a focus on social and
collaborative skills. Nonetheless, some research shows that teachers often privilege traditional
subject matter instruction over aspects of 21
st
CS that go beyond disciplinary instruction.
Furthermore, teachers cite these skills as the most difficult part of the curriculum. Additional
opportunities for professional learning will be needed to support a pervasive adoption of all of
the 21st century skills in classrooms.

Some Australian states have provided extensive professional learning opportunities for teachers,
with a focus on teaching 21st skills. New initiatives may have more pervasive influence across
the country. In 2010, for example, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership
(AITSL) was established with three primary responsibilities for working with teachers: 1)
developing rigorous national professional standards; 2) fostering and driving high quality
professional development for teachers and school leaders; and 3) working collaboratively across
jurisdictions and engaging with key professional bodies to support the national policy agenda for
schools. AITSLs work seeks to develop stakeholder agreement on teaching and setting new
national standards of teacher expertise It is hoped that this national standards model will increase
the status and professionalism of the teaching profession in Australia. With training to support
the teaching of the Australian Curriculum, Australian teachers will be better able to scaffold
student learning and use assessment data to pinpoint the areas in which students require the most
attention.
Challenges for Teaching
In some locations, teachers can find adopting 21
st
CS difficult for a few reasons. First, a general
dearth of example lessons with accompanying assessments leaves teachers needing to invest
more time to develop their personal materials. Second, in some places, few professional
development opportunities for incorporating 21
st
CS exist to address the need for greater teacher
knowledge about the skills. Finally, from an assessment perspective, the pressures of older test
formats and differing viewpoints about the role of teachers and testing can in some cases
adversely impact the teaching of 21
st
CS.
10
Assessing 21
st
Century Skills

The nature of a state or national assessment system can have substantial influence over whether
21
st
CS are a legitimate point of focus for teachers. The kind of influence is a function of the
nature of the assessments, the stakes attached to them, and their reach. These aspects of
assessment differ significantly from one nation to the next. In general, as the focus moves from
assessment for accountability to assessment for learning, teachers have more space to adopt new
pedagogies and foster new 21
st
CS.
Influences of International Assessment
Since the development of international assessments from the Organization of Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Association for the Evaluation of
Educational Achievement (IEA), policymakers have noted the national scores in core subjects
such as language arts, math, and science relative to other countries. Performance on these
international assessments - TIMSS, PIRLS, PISA and others - has influenced the direction of
national policy. For instance, the Netherlands education agenda currently focuses on core
subjects in an attempt by the ministry to improve scores in these areas. On the other hand,
countries like Singapore have performed well on these assessments, so stakeholders may see
changes in the system as unnecessary.

However, in 2015, PISA will begin testing collaborative problem solving (CPS), offering a
political opportunity for countries to adopt approaches towards the 21
st
CS that CPS involves. In
addition, the IEA is now organizing an international assessment called the International
Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS). These international assessments may focus
some nations on the skills that they measure while providing models of assessment that may
inform national, state, and local assessment systems.
National and State Assessment Programs

In Australia, the influence of the new international assessments will be especially direct. Julian
Fraillon from the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) is both the international
director of the new IEA assessment program and the director of Australias NAP-ICT Literacy
assessment. The actual international instrument and scale of ICILS are part of Australias
national assessment work. The connection between the international and domestic assessment
will allow Australia to benchmark its system's performance.

This international focus operates alongside a new national organization, the Australian
Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) that is developing the national
curriculum and national assessment. In addition to its national tests of literacy, numeracy, and
science Australia has developed assessments for two skills outside of core subject areas: ICT
literacy and Civics and Citizenship. Begun in 2005, the ICT Literacy assessment is a triennial
national sample of Year 6 and Year 10 students on their ability to appropriately access, manage,
integrate and evaluate information, develop new understandings and communicate with others in
order to participate effectively in society (ACARA, 2011b).

State examination systems continue to operate at the secondary school level alongside national
testing. There are plans to review the national assessments and to deepen their approach as the
11
new national curriculum comes on line. The state tests vary across states in the extent to which
they focus on a more traditional transmission and recall of information or cultivate deeper
problem solving, collaboration, creativity, and innovation. Some states, such as ACT and
Queensland, require students to design and conduct inquiries and investigations, both
independently and collaboratively, and encourage students to define their own problems as well
as solving those posed for them.

Singapore has also signaled its interest in developing 21st century skills by infusing some
forward-looking approaches in its examination system. As in the UK and some Australian states,
some of the examinations include a classroom-based project component that asks students to
design and manage a complex problem-solving task, and to communicate about the results of the
inquiry. Among these is a Project work (PW) assessment, which is completed in collaborative
teams as part of a compulsory interdisciplinary course for all pre-university students. The
centrally-set tasks are designed to be sufficiently broad to allow students to carry out a project
that they are interested in while meeting the requirements. Both product and process are
assessed through a written report, an oral presentation, and a group project file. In carrying out
the PW assessment task, students are intended to acquire self-directed inquiry skills as they
propose their own topic, plan their timelines, allocate individual areas of work, interact with
teammates of different abilities and personalities, and gather and evaluate primary and secondary
research material. These PW processes reflect life skills and competencies, such as knowledge
application, collaboration, communication, and independent learning.

In the United States, accountability testing at the state level currently measures basic reading and
mathematics skills through selected-response items that largely do not tap 21st century skills.
Because the test results influence high-stakes decisions about students, teachers, and schools,
teachers typically feel they must focus on these basic skills in the formats used for testing at the
expense of a broader array of learning objectives. However, the National Assessment of
Education Progress (NAEP), a large-scale sample assessment, is broadening the types of items
included in its content area tests and is launching a technology and engineering literacy
assessment in 2014. This assessment will focus in part on ICT literacy as a 21
st
century skill in
the ATC21S framework. Another possible large-scale location for assessing 21
st
CS is within
the new multi-state assessment consortia. The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
(SBAC) has requested advanced release of the ATC21S tasks, although incorporating them
within the testing time windows currently under discussion seems unlikely. Both consortia
(SBAC and PARCC) plan to increase assessment of problem-solving, critical thinking skills, and
at least written communications skills in their tests.
Local Assessments
Finland does not conduct standardized tests developed outside of individual schools until its
voluntary matriculation examination in 12th grade. Finnish education authorities periodically
evaluate school-level samples of student performance, generally at the end of the 2nd and 9th
grades, to inform curriculum and school investments.

All other assessments are designed and managed locally. These local assessments are, in part,
guided by national curriculum documents, which indicate the kinds of assessments teachers
should develop and use to evaluate particular aspects of the curriculum within the designated
subject areas. Typically, assessment guidance indicates that students should set their own
12
learning objectives and should engage in self- and peer-assessment as well as being evaluated by
the teacher. Both active learning and self-reflection are emphasized.

ATC21S national project manager, Arto Ahonen, at the University of Jyvskyl, suggests there
may be value in creating non-content-based assessments of 21
st
CS, because Finnish teachers
tend to focus as the national curriculum does on the content domains they teach, more than
the development of cross-cutting skills. He thinks that Finland would benefit from a generic 21
st

CS assessment to promote their inclusion in Finnish classrooms. Presumably, such assessments
would need to be offered to teachers for local use, since assessment is decentralized in Finland.

A wide range of interesting approaches to assessing 21st century skills occurs within schools in
the United States, ranging from portfolios of research and inquiry projects, presented using oral,
written, and technological tools, to more standardized assessments that have sought to
incorporate 21st CS in the evaluation of specific content. One example of the latter approach is a
set of science tasks developed by the Stevens Institute for Technology and used in a group of
schools for evaluating collaborative problem-solving skills. Student research groups tackle a
complex problem (such as sequestering carbon from the air and the ocean), access data about
different aspects of the phenomenon as though they were independent research groups working
on a specialized part of the question, meet together to combine their data, and figure out a
solution that requires the synthesis of data and analyses conducted across the groups. The
collaboration is authentic and necessary to solving the problem. Later, they answer a series of
questions to see if they understood the information and the solution. The variety of interesting
approaches developed locally and in universities has not yet been taken up by state tests that
determine the instruction in most schools, but it is possible that this will happen as the
accountability system in the U.S. continues to evolve.
Pathways for Adopting ATC21S

A variety of pathways exist for the continuation of ATC21S in partner countries: task
incorporation into assessments; use of tasks as exemplars; continued research on the learning
progressions and the effects of the tasks on students; duplicating and designing similar tasks; and
formative professional development for teachers. To continue along these avenues, regional
connections seem possible between Singapore and Australia, the Netherlands and Finland, and
Costa Rica and other Latin American countries under the auspices of the Inter-American
Development Bank. Countries with similar contexts and/or goals might work together to
develop more robust tasks and materials than would otherwise be possible.

The scientific work from ATC21S offers countries and research agencies significant
contributions to their efforts in this arena and several members see the value in building directly
upon this work: The project has developed not only sample items, but also a scale, a set of
instruments, and a set of developmental progressions that can inform other work in this area.

One option that may be possible in some countries, like Australia, where there is a close
connection between national goals and ATC21S tasks, would be to conduct an assessment trial
that could simultaneously make people more conscious of the importance of 21
st
CS and provide
13
information to the public and policymakers on whether and how the education system is meeting
the aspirations outlined in the national goals.

To achieve a larger goal of influencing classroom practice, participants believe that countries are
likely to need the suite of materials developed by the project for classroom implementation. The
project has made an explicit link between a defined developmental progression for students and
the assessment scale mapping onto the progression. This link allows the development of
teaching materials that help teachers to help students move along the progression.

Countries like Australia that have invested in the development of technology-based support
systems for teaching have some possibility of offering formative tools within an online system
for assessment and curriculum materials, which might include the learning progression results as
well.

Costa Rica has also been investing heavily in technology tools, and, with substantial ministry
involvement, may look to use the tasks as exemplars for teaching and assessment that can help
transform educational practice in a pervasive national effort to infuse 21st CS.

Finland and the Netherlands both view the project as more of a research and development project
than a policy prospect. In Finland, the University of Jyvskyl has also been working on a
project that focuses on the teaching of 21
st
CS. This project complements ATC21S because,
while one focuses on assessments tasks, the other helps to develop the teaching that can help
students develop the relevant 21
st
CS.

A number of countries see future research questions to pursue with ATC21S. For example, the
CPS tasks use different real-world partners, and it is not yet known whether these different
partners may make a difference in the outcomes. Other research possibilities include the
articulation of learning progressions, the use of online assessments compared to paper-based
ones, and the relative effectiveness of different measures of CPS skills or digital literacy skills.
These and other forward-looking research questions can create grist for formulating design
pilots, an area of research that participants in several countries are interested in exploring.

In the U.S. context, it is most likely that the ATC21S materials could be useful in the near term
as prototypes of what is possible in measuring collaborative problem solving and ICT literacy
skills. Kathy Comfort, ATC21S NPN anu Biiectoi of the Paitneiship foi the Assessment of
Stanuaius-baseu Science, suggests that an on-line resource could provide a suit of materials to
inform interested potential users. These should include: the background of the project, the
definition of 21
st
CS, how 21
st
CS fit into curriculum and instruction, and how they may be
taught and assessed. It would potentially be useful to develop an asynchronous online
professional development package with some portions online and other components to be used in
settings where teachers gather together and they discuss and practice instructional strategies.
Adoption Challenges
ICT Access
The online location of ATC21S tasks requires a certain level of ICT readiness in multiple
locations. First, schools need consistent access to computers on modern equipment. In all
14
countries, access to ICT varies between and within schools. Singapore reported a high level of
ICT engagement, to the point where bandwidth to support the high level of use had become an
issue. Finland and the Netherlands also have a large portion of schools and students with ICT
access. Due to their size and relatively decentralized systems, the U.S. and Australia have more
variable access to ICT countrywide. Costa Rica has a reasonable level of ICT access, but the
rural areas are still receiving help in that domain. A planned program of one-to-one computing
for rural areas may change that variability quite soon.

Second, the tasks and the servers must be capable of handling the traffic that occurs during
implementation of the tasks, an issue that arose during pilot testing. Finally, different countries
have different rules regarding Internet use. In the U.S. for instance, districts must have a firewall
as a legal protection for children, necessitating more consideration about how to operate an
assessment open to the Internet.
Task Development
From the perspective of the actual tasks, implementation in different countries may require
translation for both language and cultural context. Costa Rica, Finland, and the Netherlands all
translated the tasks, and Finland experienced some difficulty with younger students accessing
Internet sites in English that they could not navigate. Internationally used assessments will need
to plan for translation of both tasks and Internet sites that students need to access to perform the
tasks.

With respect to cultural translation, Costa Rica's experience illustrates a useful example for
future prototyping. Costa Rica adapted a task that includes an imaginary trip to the Arctic. For
Latin Americans, the Arctic is very far away, and most children are not familiar with it. To
address this, Costa Rica changed the trip location to the Antarctic and shifted the protagonist
from a polar bear to a penguin. This example demonstrates the importance of developing tools
that students in particular context can use with less distraction and more familiarity.
Level of Centralization
The level of centralization in countries has an effect on the ability of governments to support
policy and curriculum changes that local agencies and schools will be likely to implement. Of
the partner countries, Singapore has a highly centralized system with a national curriculum and
national assessments. They have already built some 21
st
century skills into their system and have
the capacity to roll out ATC21S tasks if they prove reliable measures of CPS and ICT. Costa
Rica also has a somewhat centralized system with national ministry level support for the
development and use of 21
st
CS and a head start in certain subject areas, such as mathematics.
Costa Rica would like to foster the use of 21
st
CS through pre-service and in-service teacher
training programs, using the tools and lessons provided by ATC21S.

Australia has new national organizations for curriculum and teaching and some national
assessments, but the states still maintain a substantial amount of authority. The new national
curriculum incorporates general capabilities that reflect 21
st
CS. Furthermore, the Australian
Government is interested in exploring how the products developed under the ATC21S project
might provide a baseline sample measure of students capacity with 21
st
CS and inform the
teaching and learning of 21
st
CS in Australian schools.

15
The U.S. has a similar federal system to Australia, with states holding the bulk of responsibility
for education, but it also employs a strong national accountability system through federally-
required, state-implemented high stakes testing. The importance of these assessments to many
educational decisions makes changing them a challenge. However, new Common Core
Standards across 45 states have led to the emergence of multi-state assessment consortia seeking
to broaden the types of tasks used to assess students on these internationally benchmarked
standards.

Finland and the Netherlands have similar systems: both have Ministries of Education with little
authority over classroom practice. While they offer curricular frameworks and guidelines,
teachers have the freedom to decide on the content and methods of teaching. Finland has a
national curriculum implemented through local level assessments, while the Dutch leave
curriculum decisions to the schools, but have some school-level accountability measures based
on national assessment performance. Both countries have included 21
st
century skills in their
curriculum frameworks for the past two decades, although Finland's newest versions are
becoming even more explicit than in the past. In general, both countries are interested in the
research findings offered by ATC21S so that they can further develop systems that help teachers
learn how to effectively teach 21
st
CS.

The different ways in which nations organize their educational and political governance certainly
influence the ability of countries to incorporate the ATC21S tools into their systems. In addition
to direct uses of the tools planned in some countries, ATC21S country-level NPMs have also
expressed an interest in regional and/or international collaboration to continue the project
research, to further explore the learning progressions and their implications for teaching, and to
develop new tasks.

One strength of the project is that partnerships already exist between universities, ministries of
education, research organizations, and the technology companies to continue both the
development of materials and further research. These partnerships could demonstrate a way for
new countries to become involved in the project of teaching and assessing 21
st
century skills
using more rigorous and previously tested approaches.
Conclusions

Around the globe, nations have been making gradual progress in infusing 21st century skills into
educational systems. Most have embedded skills of critical-thinking, problem solving, decision-
making, communication, collaboration, and citizenship into curriculum frameworks or related
documents. Some have also included skills like information literacy and ICT literacy. Less
visible are expectations for the cultivation of creativity and innovation, but these, too, are
beginning to become more salient.

Moving these aspirations from curriculum documents to classrooms is a more challenging task.
Several policy strategies appear to be key in supporting this process:

Developing materials that illustrate where and how these skills may be integrated into
16
content area plans and lessons, which are the common organizers of curriculum

Incorporating pedagogies for teaching these skills in pre-service preparation and in
ongoing learning opportunities for teachers

Ensuring that classroom tools are widely available for enacting these skills including
access to technologies, materials, and exemplar tasks that will allow teachers to organize
and students to engage in productive activities

Creating assessments that can evaluate these skills and that create incentives for these
abilities to be widely taught as a regular part of the curriculum

Developing an understanding of how these capacities may develop over time with
opportunity, scaffolding, and instruction so that teachers can envision how to organize
supports for learning in these complex domains.

Countries participating in this project have undertaken a variety of these strategies, and most
have had success in some domains while looking to develop their practice in others. The advent
of international assessments of collaborative problem solving (OECD) and ICT literacy (IEA)
will spur further interest and opportunity for research and development.

ATC21S provides critical supports for these efforts by providing exemplars for defining and
assessing key skills such as collaborative problem solving and ICT literacy. These can inform
curriculum and assessment development in both national or state systems and local schools.
ATC21S is more than model assessment tasks, however.

A critically important advance provided by the project is the creation of a defined developmental
progression for students as they acquire these skills and an assessment scale which maps onto the
progression. This will allow the development of curriculum and teaching materials that teachers
can use to help the student reach the next step in the progression with a fairly high level of
confidence.

Because the ATC21S appioach is ambitious on many levels, fiom task uevelopment to
classioom auoption, paitneiships between countiies will be necessaiy anu useful. Cuiient
possibilities, beyonu fuithei uevelopment of the assessments themselves, shoulu incluue
woik on ueteimining what actually influences teachei classioom piactice. uoveinments
neeu to know if teacheis unueistanu the leaining piogiessions anu have the cuiiiculai
mateiials they neeu. The woik of linking the assessments anu cuiiiculum to the leaining
piocess anu conceiving how teacheis might uevelop these skills anu achievements in
stuuents is uifficult anu fuithei complicateu with mouels spanning giaue levels, such as the
CPS uomain in ATC21S.

In oiuei to accomplish these goals, the pioject neeus opeiating scoiing tools with a
scientific founuation. It likely also iequiies a website facility foi stuuent iegistiation. In
oiuei to iun the full piocess of teacheis using the seivei to iun the assessments, the
17
scoiing tool, the iepoiting tool, anu cieate the iepoit, the iuentity of the stuuents neeus to
be contiolleu oi each system will neeu to builu its own seivei.

Countiies coulu, inuiviuually oi collectively, invest in auuitional item wiiting anu scaling.
This will allow teacheis to know that they have access to a pool of items that can
uisciiminate among stuuent ability anu achievement levels. They neeu enough items in the
assessment on the scale to uo that. Repoits that coulu emeige fiom this type of platfoim
woulu be helpful foi both teacheis anu policy makeis anu coulu fulfill both foimative anu
summative ioles.

Next steps in building upon this promising beginning should include the following:

Investment in developing a body of tasks, adapted for different cultural contexts, that can
be used to evaluate student learning along the progressions and to support research on
how task design features affect performance;

Conduct of wider assessment trials that can provide benchmarking information about
performance of students as well as diagnostic information about the behavior of tasks and
the learning and needs of both teachers and students;

Integration of research on specific classroom practices for developing 21st century skills,
such as that underway in the Innovative Teaching and Learning project, with the use of
ATC21S assessment tasks and tools.

Development of teaching materials that embed the tasks as assignments in formative
learning opportunities linked to the developmental progressions;

Training of educators to develop and score tasks, and to contribute to the body of
teaching materials, so that they deeply understand the underlying theories of learning and
performance that can help them deepen their instruction;

Creation of on-line platforms that offer a suite of educative materials, including an
explication of the goals and meaning of specific 21st century skills, links to relevant
national / state curriculum standards or frameworks, discussion of the learning
progressions, curriculum and teaching materials, and embedded exemplar tasks with
information about scales and scoring.

Inclusion of expectations for teaching 21st century skills in teacher education curricula,
and enlistment of teacher educators in creating practical models (courses, clinical
experiences, and materials) for developing pedagogies to teach such skills in pre- and in-
service preparation.

These steps will be enhanced by policy efforts to extend the availability of technology tools in
classrooms and to include such skills as collaborative problem solving and ICT literacy in formal
assessment systems, to signal the importance of moving affirmatively into the 21st century.
18
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In contiast to smallei countiies such as Finlanu anu Sweuen, which have national
cuiiiculum guiuance, each state oi teiiitoiy in Austialia has histoiically hau its own
cuiiiculum anu assessment piogiam. In most states anu teiiitoiies, school-baseu
peifoimance assessment is a well-uevelopeu pait of the system. In some cases,
juiisuictions have also uevelopeu centializeu school assessment with peifoimance
components. Bowevei, ovei the last uecaue theie have been seveial uevelopments at the
national level in school cuiiiculum anu assessment. The National Assessment Piogiam -
Liteiacy anu Numeiacy (NAPLAN) was intiouuceu seveial yeais ago anu new national
cuiiiculum anu piofessional stanuaius fiamewoik foi teacheis aie cuiiently being
intiouuceu thioughout all Austialian states anu teiiitoiies.
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Pait of Austialia's paiticipation in ATC21S incluueu consiueiation of the potential foi
incluuing the pioject iesults in this new cuiiiculum anu assessment woik. The national
cuiiiculum has thiee paits. Fiist, it incluues key leaining aieas in, foi example, math,
English, science, histoiy anu geogiaphy. Seconu, it has thiee cioss-cuiiiculum piioiities:
Aboiiginal anu Toiies Stiait Islanuei histoiies anu cultuies; Asia anu Austialia's
engagement with Asia; anu Sustainability. The thiiu pait has a set of "geneial capabilities"
(ACARA, 2u11a). These geneial capabilities aie similai to the ten 21
st
CS fiom ATC21S, anu
incluue ICT capability, ciitical anu cieative thinking, anu peisonal anu social capability,
among otheis. The national euucation compact amongst the Austialian anu state anu
teiiitoiy goveinments incluues a statement of goals foi the schooling system. These goals
encompass both stuuent content piepaiation as well as a commitment to the uevelopment
of woikfoice capacity thiough the geneial capabilities.

Schooling in Austialia opeiates as a paitneiship between the Austialian uoveinment at the
Commonwealth oi feueial level, state anu teiiitoiy goveinments anu the non-goveinment
school sectoi. This paitneiship iecognises a iange of national objectives anu outcomes, as
well as a numbei of shaieu iefoim uiiections of national significance, incluuing the national
cuiiiculum anu the National Assessment Piogiam. Austialia's schooling system is maue up
of thiee types of schools, each with significant eniolment shaie. Aiounu 6,7uu schools aie
pait of the goveinment sectoi anu aie uiiectly owneu anu opeiateu by state anu teiiitoiy
goveinments (BEEWR, 2u1u). Aiounu 1,7uu schools aie Catholic anu aie affiliateu in some
way with the Catholic Chuich (BEEWR, 2u1u). Nany people who enioll theii chiluien in
Catholic schools aie not Catholic, but piefei an alteinative to the goveinment system.
Catholic schools opeiate unuei ceitain cuiiiculum anu assessment iegulations anu must be
iegisteieu in the state oi teiiitoiy to ieceive goveinment funuing. Thiiu, just ovei 1,uuu
schools aie inuepenuent anu aie owneu anu opeiateu inuepenuently (BEEWR, 2u1u). They
must also iegistei with theii state oi teiiitoiy to ieceive goveinment funuing, but they
maintain theii own goveinance.
19

To biiuge the uistance between national policy anu classioom piactice, Austialia has put
thiee new national oiganizations in place that have an explicit iole given to them by
euucation ministeis. The Austialian Cuiiiculum Assessment anu Repoiting Authoiity
(ACARA, 2u11b) "is the inuepenuent authoiity iesponsible foi the uevelopment of a
national cuiiiculum, the National Assessment Piogiam anu a national uata collection anu
iepoiting piogiam that suppoits 21st centuiy leaining foi all Austialian stuuents." The
seconu oiganization, Euucation Seivices Austialia (2u12) uevelops cuiiiculum mateiials
foi use in all schools ielateu to the new national cuiiiculum. Cuiiiculum mateiials aie
being uevelopeu to focus on geneial capabilities anu to integiate them with the key
leaining aieas, so that teacheis will be able to incoipoiate the geneial capabilities into
theii teaching in classiooms.

Finally, the Austialian Institute foi Teaching anu School Leaueiship, oi AITSL, has been
establisheu with thiee piimaiy iesponsibilities: 1) ueveloping iigoious national
piofessional stanuaius; 2) fosteiing anu uiiving high quality piofessional uevelopment foi
teacheis anu school leaueis; anu S) woiking collaboiatively acioss juiisuictions anu
engaging with key piofessional bouies to suppoit the Austialian uoveinment's policy
agenua foi schools. The AITSL has an impoitant national iole foi gaining stakeholuei
agieement on teaching anu setting new national levels of teachei expeitise.

It is expecteu that, as juiisuictions acioss Austialia incoipoiate the national piofessional
stanuaius uevelopeu by AITSL into theii teachei iegistiation policies, a genuinely national
set of levels of expeitise foi teacheis will emeige. It is hopeu that this mouel will inciease
the status anu piofessionalism of the teaching piofession in Austialia in a similai mannei
as Singapoie, Koiea, Bong Kong, oi Finlanu. Fiom the AITSL biokeieu agieements, state
goveinments can then set accieuitation stanuaius foi teachei piepaiation that ieuuce
iuiosynciatic couise offeiings anu insteau piepaie teacheis as a piofessional woikfoice.
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0ntil iecently, piofessional uevelopment foi teacheis has been manageu piimaiily at the
state anu local levels. Teacheis' engagement with teaching foi 21CS has been vaiiable
acioss the countiy as a function of uiffeiences in both access to piofessional leaining anu
the extent to which uiffeient states have focuseu on such skills in theii cuiiiculum anu
assessments. The new national initiatives uesciibeu above aie likely to cieate a moie
common set of expectations anu expeiiences foi teacheis. The extent to which these focus
on 21CS will uepenu on: 1) how the geneial capabilities aie built into cuiiiculum mateiials,
2) the extent to which these emphases aie ieflecteu in the content anu foim of national anu
state assessments, anu S) the extent to which they aie a focus of piofessional piepaiation
anu ongoing uevelopment.

0veiall, an Austialian goal in cieating the thiee oveiaiching national bouies is to moie
effectively suppoit classioom piactice by ueveloping ielevant mateiials, by impioving
teachei-tiaining piogiams, anu by offeiing assessment tools. Foi Austialian teacheis to
suppoit stuuent leaining of 21CS in theii classiooms, they will neeu to know how to
20
incoipoiate the geneial capabilities into theii content lessons in the key leaining aieas,
such as mathematics, science anu geogiaphy. The ESA is ueveloping cuiiiculai suppoits foi
teaching in this mannei anu teacheis neeu to know how to finu anu use these tools anu
integiate them within the leaining piocess (ESA, 2u12).

Fuitheimoie, in oiuei to implement assessments such as CPS fiom ATC21S, they will neeu
to know how to use the piouucts uevelopeu unuei the piojects, such as the foimative,
scoiing, anu iepoiting tools, anu be able to inteipiet the uata geneiateu. They neeu to
unueistanu uevelopmental piogiessions anu how they fit within the geneial leaining
pathways foi stuuents in the subject aieas.
?88988,*G '#
83
19*3.45 6:,008 ,* ?.834/0,/
Staiteu in 2uu8, Austialia's !"#$%&"' )**+**,+&# -.%/.", 0 1$#+."23 "&4 !5,+."23
assesses stuuents in Yeais S, S, 7, anu 9 on Reauing, Wiiting, Language Conventions
(spelling anu giammai, anu punctuation) anu Numeiacy on an annual basis (NAPLAN,
2u12). The tests aie focuseu on the essential liteiacy anu numeiacy skills anu knowleuge
that pioviue the ciitical founuation foi othei leaining in schools anu aie constiucteu
laigely in multiple-choice foimat. In auuition, Austialia has population assessments foi
two skills outsiue of coie subject aieas: ICT liteiacy anu Civics anu Citizenship (NAP, 2u11).
Begun in 2uuS, the ICT Liteiacy assessment is a tiiennial national sample of Yeai 6 anu
Yeai 1u stuuents "on theii ability to appiopiiately access, manage, integiate anu evaluate
infoimation, uevelop new unueistanuings anu communicate with otheis in oiuei to
paiticipate effectively in society" (NAP, 2u11).

Inteinationally, the IEA is now oiganizing an inteinational assessment calleu the
Inteinational Computei anu Infoimation Liteiacy Stuuy (ICILS). }ulian Fiaillon, fiom the
Austialian Council foi Euucation Reseaich (ACER), is both the inteinational uiiectoi of the
IEA assessment uevelopment anu uiiectoi of Austialia's NAP-ICT Liteiacy assessment anu
the actual inteinational instiument anu scale aie pait of Austialia's national assessment
woik. The connection between the inteinational anu uomestic assessment helps Austialia
because it can benchmaik the system peifoimance. 0thei countiies can paiticipate in ICILS
knowing that the scale anu instiument aie similai to the ones useu in Austialia, although
the inteinational gioup will use a uiffeient age cohoit.

Anothei summative population assessment in Austialia in an aiea not coveieu by othei
assessments is Civics anu Citizenship. Staiteu in 2uu4, the tiiennial stuuy of Yeai 6 anu
Yeai 1u stuuents tests stuuents on theii civic knowleuge anu unueistanuing anu the skills
anu values neeueu foi active citizenship. This assessment incluues item-iesponse types,
such as multiple choice, uual-choice (tiuefalse) anu constiucteu iesponses. These
assessments pioviue the Austialian goveinment with some insight into attainment,
knowleuge, anu skills in ICT anu citizenship because the noimal assessments foi leaving
ceitificates uo not covei these topics.

In iepoiting stuuent piogiess to paients, all Austialian schools must auheie to ceitain
iequiiements. The Austialian anu state anu teiiitoiy goveinments have agieeu that eveiy
school must piouuce foi paients a "plain-English" iepoit that must situate the stuuent on a
21
S-point scale. (A-E oi anothei set of meaningful uesciiptois) foi the aieas stuuieu. The
intention of nationally consistent iepoiting is to pioviue paients with an inuication of the
achievement of theii chilu against othei stuuents in the cohoit to give some context. Plain
English stuuent iepoits weie intiouuceu in iesponse to conceins fiom paients about the
lack of infoimation on theii chilu's achievement, paiticulaily in ielation to the achievement
of peeis. Bow these iepoits aie useu iemains uncleai, but fiom a public ielations
peispective, paients aie accustomeu to ieceiving iepoits foi non-content ielateu topics
such as ICT fiom schools because all schools have been iequiieu to iepoit in this foimat
since 2uuS. This system woulu likely inciease familiaiity foi scoie iepoiting on othei 21
st

centuiy skills as well.

Austialia also has a stiong emphasis on "vetting" scoies (vocational anu Euucational
Tiaining). These piogiams focus on woikfoice paiticipation embeuueu in the school
cuiiiculum in vaiious ways. They aie cioss-cieuiteu into the ceitification system foi othei
sectois outsiue school in which many stuuents paiticipate in when they leave school. In the
qualifications systems of seveial states, these assessments incluue pioject-baseu
couisewoik components that engage stuuents in planning, uesigning, cieating,
investigating, anu communicating about theii leaining.

Schools also piogiessively invest in technology foi stuuents to be able to leain, as pait of
theii piocess, to use ICT. Foi example, if a seconuaiy school has an assignment in histoiy, it
may explicitly iequiie stuuents to incluue in theii ieseaich accessing anu uisciiminating
between online infoimation anu its appiopiiate level of authoiity. This piocess occuis in
moie sophisticateu ways in aieas wheie the pioject itself is focuseu on the web of ICT, foi
example. The piocesses uesciibeu above aie happening in uiffeient schools, but the
Austialian goveinment uoes not cuiiently have enough uata to know systematically oi how
iigoiously these piocesses occui. Assessments such as ATC21S coulu help pioviue moie
infoimation on what stuuents have leaineu anu can uo in this aiea.

Because Austialian states anu teiiitoiies opeiate in a semi-autonomous way, theii
assessment systems meiit attention as well. Nany states have long incoipoiateu aspects of
21CS in the state anu local components of theii high school examination systems. Two that
have ieceiveu attention inteinationally foi theii attention to these kinus of skills - using
somewhat uiffeient assessment appioaches - aie Queenslanu anu victoiia. They seive as
examples of piactices that aie piesent, to vaiying uegiees, in othei states. (Foi a moie in-
uepth uiscussion of these systems, see Bailing-Bammonu, 2u12).
U.99*80/*+ ?88988M9*3 PI/M7098
In Queenslanu, theie has been no assessment system exteinal to schools foi 4u yeais. 0ntil
the eaily 197us, a tiauitional "post-colonial" examination system contiolleu the cuiiiculum.
When it was eliminateu, all assessments became school-baseu. Teacheis uevelop,
auministei, anu scoie the assessments in ielation to the national cuiiiculum guiuelines anu
state syllabi, anu panels that incluue teacheis fiom othei schools as well as at least one
piofessoi fiom the teitiaiy euucation system moueiate the assessments.

22
To cieate the stanuaius useu thioughout the state, Queenslanu Stuuies Authoiity (QSA), a
state goveinment statutoiy bouy, gatheis gioups of teacheis anu subject expeits to wiite
stanuaius that specify uiffeient levels of achievement anu uesciibe the chaiacteiistics of
stuuent woik at each level. The teacheis anu expeits also uevelop samples of woik useu as
exemplais foi the uiffeient levels. These stanuaius guiue the assessments teacheis uevelop
anu theii scoiing.

Extenueu iesponses aie uemanueu in all of the subject aieas, shapeu by the coie concepts
anu moues of inquiiy of the uisciplines. Foi example, in science, stuuents will uesign anu
conuuct an investigation, collect anu analyze uata, anu wiite up theii puiposes, finuings,
anu conclusions in a iepoit that iesembles a scientific jouinal aiticle. Stuuent ieflection is
also a common element of the assessments. Consistent scoiing of such intellectually
ambitious woik is maue possible in pait by inteinal anu exteinal moueiation piocesses,
anu in pait by the cleai guiuance of the syllabi anu iubiics that set stanuaius foi the woik.

Aiming foi even moie applieu, inteiuisciplinaiy woik, Queenslanu uevelopeu a "Rich
Tasks" appioach to stanuaius anu assessment, which was intiouuceu as a pilot in 2uuS.
Pait of the "New Basics" cuiiiculum fiamewoik, this effoit cieateu extenueu, multi-
uisciplinaiy tasks that aie uevelopeu centially anu useu locally when teacheis ueteimine
the time is iight anu they can be integiateu with locally oiienteu cuiiiculum (Queenslanu
uoveinment, 2uu1). These aie "specific activities that stuuents unueitake that have ieal-
woilu value anu use, anu thiough which stuuents aie able to uisplay theii giasp anu use of
impoitant iueas anu skills." These tasks incoipoiate the 21st centuiy skills of pioblem
solving, uecision making, collaboiation, communication, infoimation liteiacy, anu, quite
often, social action anu social iesponsibility.

A bank of these tasks now exists acioss giaue levels, along with scoiing iubiics anu
moueiation piocesses by which the quality of the tasks, the stuuent woik, anu the scoiing
can be evaluateu. Extensively ieseaicheu, this system has hau success as a tool foi school
impiovement. Stuuies founu stuuents aie moie engageu in leaining in schools using the
Rich Tasks. 0n tiauitional tests, these "New Basics" stuuents scoieu about the same as
stuuents in the tiauitional piogiam, but they peifoimeu notably bettei on assessments
uesigneu to gauge highei-oiuei thinking.

The Singapoie goveinment has employeu the uevelopeis of the Queenslanu system to
expanu anu iefine its system of peifoimance assessments. Bong Kong has also begun to
expanu its ambitious school-baseu assessment system in collaboiation with Queenslanu
assessment uevelopeis.
V,B324,/ ?88988M9*3 PI/M7098
In victoiia, a mixeu system of centializeu anu uecentializeu assessment combines these
kinus of school-baseu assessment piactices with a set of state exams guiueu by the victoiia
Essential Leaining Stanuaius. The AIN piogiam, which has now been ieplaceu by NAPLAN,
was useu at yeais S, S, 7, anu 9, to inuicate how well the liteiacy anu numeiacy skills of
stuuents aie ueveloping. The iesults pioviueu infoimation useu to plan new piogiams anu
23
useful feeuback to stuuents, paients, anu teacheis. Assessment tasks incluueu extenueu
open-enueu wiiting iesponses anu some multiple-choice iesponses.

At the seconuaiy level, the victoiian Ceitificate of Euucation (vCE) is a ceitificate that the
majoiity of stuuents in victoiia ieceive on satisfactoiy completion of theii seconuaiy
euucation. The vCE pioviues pathways to fuithei stuuy oi tiaining at univeisity oi
Technical anu Fuithei Euucation (TAFE) anu to the woilu of woik. Some stuuents
unueitake a school-baseu appienticeship oi tiaineeship within the vCE. The victoiia
Cuiiiculum anu Assessment Authoiity (vCAA) establishes couises in a wiue iange of
stuuies, uevelops the exteinal examinations, anu ensuies the quality of the school-assesseu
component of the vCE.

vCAA conceptualizes assessment as "of," "foi," anu "as" leaining. Teacheis aie involveu in
ueveloping assessments, along with univeisity faculty in the subject aiea. The exteinal
subject-specific examinations, given in giaues 11 anu 12, incluue about 2S% machine-
scoieu items; the iemaining items aie open-enueu anu aie scoieu by the classioom teachei.
The exams may incluue wiitten, oial, anu peifoimance elements.

In auuition, classioom-baseu tasks that aie given thioughout the school yeai compiise at
least half of the total examination scoie. Teacheis uesign these iequiieu assignments anu
assessmentslab expeiiments anu investigations on cential topics as well as ieseaich
papeis anu piesentationsin iesponse to syllabus expectations. The iequiieu classioom
tasks ensuie that stuuents aie getting the kinu of leaining oppoitunities that piepaie them
foi the assessments they will latei take, that they aie getting feeuback they neeu to
impiove, anu that they will be piepaieu to succeeu not only on these veiy challenging tests
but also in fuithei euucation anu in life. Togethei the classioom tasks anu the exams tieat
a wiue iange of 21st centuiy skills, incluuing ICT liteiacy anu infoimation liteiacy, multiple
foims of communication, ciitical thinking anu pioblem solving, metacognition, anu leaining
to leain skills.

The tasks aie giaueu accoiuing to ciiteiia set out in the syllabus. The quality of the tasks
assigneu by teacheis, the woik uone by stuuents, anu the appiopiiateness of the giaues
anu feeuback given to stuuents aie auuiteu thiough an inspection system, anu schools aie
given feeuback on all of these elements. The iesult is a iich cuiiiculum foi stuuents with
extensive teachei paiticipation anu a compaiable means foi examining stuuent leaining
;/3<=/58 >24 ?@1'#6 ?+273,2* ,* ?.834/0,/
The Austialian uoveinment uoes not cuiiently assess whethei oi how stuuents use 21
st
CS,
so conuucting assessments with a sample of stuuents woulu pioviue empiiical uata on the
levels of attainment of stuuents in 21
st
CS. This infoimation coulu, in tuin, fostei anu infoim
the conveisation about how to best auuiess anu incoipoiate 21
st
CS in the new cuiiiculum
anu assessments. Foi ICT, Austialia has alieauy uone some assessments anu coulu
compaie iesults with ATC21S. Bowevei, the existing ICT assessments in Austialia use a
mix of pen anu papei anu computeis, wheieas ATC21S occuis online. It coulu be useful to
see iesults about stuuent peifoimance piesenteu in teims of the ATC21S uomain matiix
anu substianus, as well as the uiffeientiation in capabilities. The iesults woulu allow
24
euucatois to iefine ICT piogiams that alieauy exist, anu woulu point out the neeu foi such
leaining wheie piogiams uo not exist.

Theie is not cuiiently a nationwiue assessment in collaboiative pioblem solving, so in this
aiea, use of the ATC21S assessment woulu pioviue entiiely new infoimation. With respect
to the skills addressed in ATC21S, collaborative problem solving is not necessarily emphasized
in all Australian schools. It might occur in some schools where students are required to work in
groups on projects or where parts of projects necessitate collaborative learning. However,
ATC21S is explicitly set up to have a problem to solve that requires collaboration, and this type
of situation might not exist in an Australian classroom. Given the current unknown variation in
implementation, then the ATC21S results would produce an important baseline for Australian
policy makers. However, this requires that the instruments are available, validated, can be scaled,
and that the technology exists to facilitate the assessment delivery.

Austialia coulu potentially builu on the scientific woik fiom ATC21S using the scales, the
instiuments, the sample items, anu the uevelopmental piogiessions as a basis foi scaling
up the pioject. It coulu then wiite moie items anu get agieement fiom state anu teiiitoiy
goveinments to uiaw a sample of stuuents in schools anu iun an assessment. This
appioach coulu seive as a stimulus to make people moie conscious of the impoitance 21
st

CS. Foi instance, a sample population assessment foi CPS coulu publish iesults that allow a
state compaiison within Austialia. With this type of infoimation, Austialian anu state anu
teiiitoiy goveinments woulu have uata to consiuei theii cuiient contexts anu potential
stiategies foi fuithei ueveloping these skills in theii Austialian schools.

The ATC21S pioject has laigei goals of influencing classioom piactice, which woulu then
fostei 21
st
CS oi geneial competencies. To achieve this goal, countiies neeu the suite of
mateiials uevelopeu by the pioject foi classioom implementation in auuition to the tasks.
Austialia coulu use foimative tools uevelopeu, foi CPS foi instance, with the uual puiposes
of helping teacheis consiuei the piocess of teaching collaboiation anu giving them some
peuagogical tools to suppoit this woik.

Such tools coulu be placeu on the national Inteinet-baseu assessment anu cuiiiculum
mateiial seivei cuiiently unuei uevelopment by ESA in consultation with ACARA, wheie
teacheis acioss Austialia can go to access anu use foimative assessment tools anu ielateu
cuiiiculai anu suppoit mateiials.

ATC21S offeis an explicit link between a uefineu uevelopmental piogiession foi stuuents
anu the assessment scale mapping onto the piogiession. Pievious assessments have been
uefineu by iefeiencing cuiiiculum expectations, but often without an explicit methou of the
leaining piogiession ovei time foi that uomain as pait of cieating the assessment
fiamewoik. This new ATC21S assessment tool has levels incieasing on the scale not
uefineu simply by iefeience to empiiically obseiving stuuents peifoim on items but by the
leaining piogiession. Consequently, this allows the uevelopment of teaching mateiials that
teacheis can use to help the stuuent ieach the next step in the piogiession with a faiily
high level of confiuence. This contiibution of the pioject will also help Austialia as the
countiy appioaches uiffeient methous of assessment in the futuie.
25
'#
83
19*3.45 6:,008 /*+ ;/3<=/58 >24 ?@1'#6 ?+273,2* ,* 1283/ A,B/

Costa Rica is geneially consiueieu an euucational success stoiy in Cential anu Latin
Ameiica, with a geneially stable goveinment anu economic situation unueipinning a
tiauition of piioiitizing euucation. Costa Rica constitutionally guaianteeu euucation foi all
citizens in 1949 anu uiiecteu the Ninistiy of Euucation to oveisee the public anu piivate
systems in 19S7 (Aitavia, 1997). In 196S, the countiy establisheu a national cuiiiculum
with a common cycle of classes that uiveigeu in couise content at the high school level
(Aitavia, 1997). Bowevei, the oil shocks of the late 197u's usheieu in a peiiou of economic
instability leauing to stiuctuial aujustment boiiowing fiom the INF anu the Woilu Bank,
with at least two impoitant effects (Cainoy & Toiies, 1992). Fiist, the aujustments incluueu
a focus on uecentialization, a uiffeient appioach than the national one outlineu in pievious
goveinment policy. Seconu, uue to the ieuuction in salaiies, eniollment ueclineu anu
antipathy between teacheis anu the Ninistiy of Euucation uevelopeu, making the infusion
of new peuagogies a moie uemanuing objective (Cainoy & Toiies, 1992). These two issues
iepiesent some of the challenges facing Costa Rica as the countiy has focuseu on
incoipoiating 21
st
CS into its classiooms anu cuiiiculum. Bespite these issues, Costa Rica
has continueu its foiwaiu-looking appioach anu imbueu its national appioach with a 21
st

CS fiame since the 199us.

In 1994, Costa Rica implementeu the 8@4&()%#3($ "#$%&' :#+(.@, )*2 /0
,)
123)4.', which
incluueu one axis incluueu a focus on ueveloping the knowleuge, skills, attituues, anu
aptituues of all stuuents (Ninisteiio ue Euucacion, 2uu2). This axis stiongly iesembles the
KSAvE appioach outlineu in ATC21S. In 2uuS, Costa Rica continueu the euucation iefoim
pathway thiough the "$(3 #- 9&)%#3 #3 8@4&()%#3 -#. 9$$, intenueu to ielaunch the euucation
system (Ninisteiio ue Euucacion, 2uu2). The plan focuses on social equity by ieuucing gaps
between euucational oppoitunities in iuial anu uiban stuuents, incieasing the quality of
iuial anu seconuaiy euucation, anu emphasizing technology (Ninisteiio ue Euucacion,
2uu2). The cential axis of the cuiiiculum foi this plan, also enuoiseu by the Bighei
Euucation Council, is the issue of "values" as outlineu in the P()%#3($ :.(%3%3F ".#F.(A %3
D($42, (Ninisteiio ue Euucacion, 2uu2). These values incluue the uaily piactice of achieving
a bettei quality peisonal, family anu social life, incluuing unueistanuing human iights,
health, the enviionment anu sustainable uevelopment (Ninisteiio ue Euucacion, 2uu2).

At the centei of both the 1994 anu 2uuS plans lie a view of euucation as a bioau enueavoi
to uevelop social, emotional, anu cognitive competencies that foim the founuation of a 21
st

CS appioach. Noie iecently at the national level, the Ninistei of Euucation, Bi. Leonaiuo
uainiei, valiuateu the impoitance of 21
st
CS. Specifically, he iecoiueu a viueo uesciibing the
21
st
CS fiom ATC21S as a uiiection foi the Costa Rican euucation system.
4
Bowevei, the
mouification of the piogiams of stuuy is not being implementeu as a complete iefoim, but
iathei within ceitain subjects in the official cuiiiculum.

4
http:www.atc21s.cicomponentcontentaiticle124-mensaje-uel-ui-leonaiuo-
gainiei
26
'#
83
19*3.45 6:,008 ,* 1283/ A,B/T8 1.44,B.0.M
Accoiuing to Elsie Campos, national pioject managei foi ATC21S anu auvisoi the ministei
of euucation, Costa Rica now has new cuiiiculum in the subjects of civics, fine aits anu
music euucation. A uiveisifieu seconuaiy euucation focuses on skill uevelopment anu
attituues that piomote coexistence anu collaboiative pioblem solving. Auuitionally, new
piogiams weie appioveu in mathematics to significantly change the teaching of math using
a moie paiticipatoiy appioach that incoipoiates the use of technology as a iesouice,
uesciibeu fuithei below. 0thei piogiams incluue the FEA (Stuuent Festival of the Aits) that
piomotes the paiticipation of stuuents fiom aiounu the countiy in uiffeient ways to
uevelop aitistic anu liteiaiy cieativity. The technical euucation piogiams aie piomoting
the uevelopment of skills that piomote teamwoik.

Within the uomain of mathematics euucation, Bi. uainiei has uesciibeu compiehensive
mathematics cuiiiculum iefoims fiom the Ninistiy of Euucation towaius a stuuent-
centeieu appioach (uainiei, 2u12). These iefoims iepiesent the latest iteiation in moving
towaius a 21
st
CS fiamewoik in Costa Rica's system as they evolve past the economic anu
euucational challenges of pievious uecaues.

In 2u12, Costa Rica auopteu a new national cuiiiculum foi mathematics with the main
goals of uemystifying mathematics as a uiscipline anu motivating stuuents by connecting
theii eveiyuay expeiiences with mathematical piinciples (uainiei, 2u12). The cuiiiculum
focuses on five aieas to achieve iigoi anu uepth of unueistanuing:
6) Pioblem solving as the main methouological stiategy;
7) Contextualization as a special peuagogical component;
8) Intelligent use of uigital technologies;
9) Piomoting positive attituues anu beliefs about mathematics;
1u) The histoiy of mathematics.
This list incoipoiates some of the 21
st
CS piomulgateu by ATC21S such as pioblem solving,
Infoimation liteiacy, anu ICT liteiacy (uainiei, 2u12). The iefoim also pioposes five
attituues that incluue the 21
st
centuiy skill of collaboiation (uainiei, 2u12).

Campos also iepoits on the uevelopment of two piojects at the national level focusing on
21
st
CS. 0ne is calleu :*%36 %3 9.), anu the seconu, a Piesiuential pioject foi all schools in
the countiy, is calleu the Coexistence Piogiam. These piojects aie uesigneu to help uevelop
skills foi living, competencies foi living in society, anu ways of being global citizens. Finally,
Costa Rica has a piogiam to incieasing ICT liteiacy by pioviuing technology in eveiy school.
Accoiuing to Campos, the 0mai Bengo Founuation, thiough the PR0NIE piogiam, pioviues
an online piesence foi ueveloping ICT liteiacy. This functions in tanuem with the Ruial
Bigh Schools pioject in which stuuents in iuial aieas ieceive a laptop pei stuuent.
1283/ A,B/* @9/B<948T H89 2> '#
83
19*3.45 6:,008
The "$(3 -#. 9&)%#3 2uuS-2u1S call foi the uevelopment of teachei piofessionalism in oiuei
to impiove teachei peifoimance, citing the uynamic element of teacheis as facilitatois as a
main factoi in the quality of stuuent leaining (Ninisteiio ue Euucacion, 2uu2). In 2u12, the
new mathematics cuiiiculum also contains suppoit foi teacheis. In paiticulai, one of its
novel featuies is the inclusion of moie than 16uu specific instiuctions anu pioblems to
27
suppoit the teacheis in the classioom (Ninisteiio ue Euucacion, 2u12). A team of
specialists anu in-seivice teacheis coming fiom vaiious levels, iegions anu euucational
institutions uesigneu the cuiiicula anu piogiams (Ninisteiio ue Euucacion, 2u12). Among
the specific peuagogical goals ielateu to 21
st
CS, the synthesis uocument iecommenus that
teacheis ieceive suppoit to:
1) Stiengthen statistics anu piobability in all school yeais as aieas aimeu at oiganizing
infoimation in uiffeient enviionments anu piepaiation foi uecision making unuei
unceitainty;
2) Pioviue oveiviews of mathematical piactice to guiue the cuiiiculum anu the
uevelopment of cuiiicula, to geneiate the piogiess of stuuents' abilities in
unueistanuing anu intelligent use of mathematics in uiffeient contexts;
S) Piomote an active anu paiticipatoiy stuuent engagement in the constiuction of theii
leaining;
4) 0iganize lessons auuiessing classioom issues anu challenges that encouiage
stuuent inteiest anu fostei communication stiategies anu solutions;
S) Piomote the uevelopment of highei-level cognitive abilities, iooteu in the content,
methouology anu management, with the intiouuction of tiansveise mathematical
piocesses, anu woiking towaius balanceu peuagogical pioblems of incieasing
complexity;
6) Intiouuce ielevant uigital technologies anu pioviue cleai guiuelines foi use in the
classioom action. (Ninisteiio ue Euucacion, 2u12)
While the iesults of the cuiiiculum anu teaching iefoims iemain unknown, the appioach in
Costa Rica has been, especially in the uomain of mathematics, towaius ueveloping both
tiauitional content anu 21
st
CS in theii stuuents.
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Cuiiently Costa Rica has a national assessment system anu a Quality Nanagement anu
Evaluation Boaiu whose aim is to ceitify the capacities anu abilities of stuuents who have
eaineu a high school uiploma. This boaiu auministeis the inteinational assessments SERCE,
PISA, anu Inteinational Baccalauieate as well. Also, Costa Rica has a nation-wiue 0pen
Euucation piogiam in which stuuents who cannot attenu an euucational institution have
the oppoitunity to accieuit theii levels of appienticeship thiough the national tests on
0pen Euucation anu Bistance Biveisifieu Leaining.

Fuitheimoie, the Leaining Assessment Bepaitment is in chaige of opeiationalizing the
Leaining Assessment Regulations anu the teachei tiaining, anu of piouucing the technical
ciiteiia at the national level aiounu issues such as the assessment in the classioom.
Cuiiently, the Ninistiy is tiying to uevelop assessments baseu on skills. Effoits aie being
maue, though, to incluue this skills peispective in some of the piogiams anu cuiiicula, such
as Ethics, Aesthetics anu Citizenship, Science thiough inquiiy, anu logical thinking in
Spanish anu in the new Nath piogiams.
K9882*8 >42M ?@1'#6 ,* 1283/ A,B/
The piocess of auapting ATC21S to Costa Rica anu othei countiies in the Latin Ameiican
iegion incluues a vaiiety of appioaches. Costa Rica has woikeu in conjunction with the
Intei-Ameiican Bevelopment Bank (IBB) to tianslate the platfoim, the test, anu the tools
28
into Spanish, thus making the content of the tools moie compiehensible foi Latin Ameiican
countiies in geneial, not just Costa Rica. In auuition to tianslation, Costa Rica has auapteu
the tasks, uemonstiating both the neeu foi consiueiing inuiviuual countiy context anu
methous foi uoing so.

In paiticulai, one of the task activities incluues a tiip to the Aictic. Bowevei, foi Latin
Ameiicans, the Aictic is veiy fai. Theiefoie, Costa Rica has changeu the tiip to one to the
Antaictic. In the Aictic, the piotagonist was a polai beai, but because polai beais uo not
inhabit the Aictic, Costa Rica iewiote the task using penguins. This example shows how the
pioject team is ueveloping tools that Latin Ameiican stuuents can use with less uistiaction.
In geneial, Costa Rica anu IBB take a iegional vision towaius the pioject to lay the
founuation foi piomoting the initiative in multiple Latin Ameiican countiies.
;/3<=/58 >24 ?@1'#6 ?+273,2* ,* 1283/ A,B/
The Intei-Ameiican Bevelopment Bank (IBB) cuiiently funus Costa Rica's paiticipation in
ATC21S as a pilot case foi Latin Ameiican countiies. The pioject also has a iegional boaiu
incluuing Aigentina, Biazil, Chile, anu Nexico, using the iesults of Costa Rica's expeiience
to uisseminate iesults anu tools in these othei countiies in the iegion. In 2u11, the main
effoit incluueu suppoiting woik in Costa Rica on the auaptation anu tianslation of the tools
anu the implementation of the pilot anu the tiial. Accoiuing to Eugenio Seveiin, ATC21S
Auvisoiy Boaiu membei fiom the IBB, the IBB in 2u12 will suppoit the woik of integiating
the tests anu the iesults in two main aieas iegaiuing teacheis. Accoiuing to Seveiin, the
IBB fiist wants to help Costa Rica anu othei countiies incluue 21
st
CS in both the tiaining of
teacheis anu in theii ongoing piofessional uevelopment. Costa Rica will focus on both
initial teachei tiaining anu in-seivice teachei tiaining. The seconu focus is on ueveloping
new teaching piactices, potentially thiough the ATC21S ieseaich. Both Costa Rica anu IBB
want to uiscovei new anu iecovei oluei teaching piactices that can suppoit the
uevelopment of 21
st
CS. This coulu incluue cieating some mouels foi piactical ways to woik
in oiuei to uevelop these skills in stuuents anu uisseminating these piactices in Costa Rica.

Accoiuing to Seveiin, most Latin Ameiican countiies aie mainly inteiesteu in the
application of the ATC21S tools anu changing theii piactices at the classioom anu school
level. Campos confiims this appioach within Costa Rica, stating that they aie evaluating the
pioject to potentially establish policies that allow the countiy to fuithei impiove teaching
stiategies, piimaiily in the subjects of Spanish, civics, anu mathematics, while integiating
technology moie often. Seveiin notes that these countiies want to suppoit the teacheis'
woik in oiuei to uevelop these skills in stuuents, so they aie focusing moie on use in theii
classiooms than on national level assessments. They want to cieate the abilities anu skills
in teacheis foi them to woik on 21
st
CS with stuuents.

In teims of political inteiest anu feasibility, Seveiin noteu that the expeiience in Latin
Ameiica has shown that countiies have a piactical inteiest in the tools as well as auvice
anu expeiience about how to uevelop 21
st
CS in the schools. Countiies aie not as inteiesteu
in being pait of the inteinational ieseaich team, but moie in using the conclusions of the
ieseaich to change actual policies in theii countiies. In teims of the policy time, countiies
have some political uigency to enact iefoims moie quickly to offei some piactical solutions.
29

Fiom an histoiical peispective, Seveiin uiscusseu a cleai political motivation in Latin
Ameiica uue to the laige issue with the quality of the euucation. Countiies have tiieu
uiffeient iefoims fiom the 198us onwaius anu these iefoims have not woikeu well.
Seveiin iemaiks that countiies have impioveu teacheis' salaiies, changeu cuiiicula,
impioveu infiastiuctuie in schools, anu uevelopeu new textbooks, but the quality has
iemaineu the same. In Latin Ameiica, they've incieaseu the investment fiom society in
oiuei to impiove quality of iesults in euucation. Theiefoie, Seveiin thinks that the
euucation ministiies anu specialists aie seeking a tipping point in the euucational
uiscussion. These countiies want to change anu fiame the euucation uiscussion in teims of
the 21st centuiy uemanus. Politically, this iepiesents a goou oppoitunity to change the
uiscussion by not talking about pioblems of the past, but challenges in the futuie.
Theiefoie, ATC21S coulu be a veiy impoitant maiketing initiative on the euucation of the
futuie, not on the uebt fiom the past. Countiies want a new way to talk about euucation by
not just iefeiencing teacheis, salaiies, anu infiastiuctuie. They want to uiscuss what they
neeu to achieve the 21
st
centuiy. Theiefoie, ATC21S coulu iepiesent a way to change the
uebate on euucation in Latin Ameiica fiom one about past failuies to one about futuie
piepaiation.
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Finlanu has been much stuuieu since it climbeu iapiuly, ovei a uecaue anu a half, to the top
of the inteinational iankings foi both economic competitiveness anu euucational outcomes.
In 2uu6, it iankeu fiist among the 0ECB nations on the PISA assessments in mathematics,
science, anu ieauing. Leaueis in Finlanu attiibute these gains to theii intensive investments
in teachei euucation anu majoi oveihaul of the cuiiiculum anu assessment system
(Laukkanen 2uu8; Buchbeigei anu Buchbeigei 2uu4).

Finlanu is now in the miust of anothei cuiiiculum change that incluues consiueiation of
auopting 21
st
CS moie explicitly. The cuiiiculum has calleu foi embeuuing many 21
st
CS
since 2uu4, but these skills aie not implementeu evenly acioss all schools anu classiooms.
Since Finlanu is a veiy uecentializeu system, which iests substantially on teacheis'
uecision making in the classioom, the challenge of infusing 21
st
CS is one of piofessional
leaining in the context of the goals anu iesouices offeieu centially.
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Finlanu's national coie cuiiiculum is a lean uocument, ieuuceu fiom what was once
hunuieus of pages of highly specific piesciiptions to uesciiptions of a small numbei of
skills anu coie concepts each yeai (e.g., the full set of math stanuaius foi all giaues is
uesciibeu in about ten pages). This guiues teacheis in collectively ueveloping local
cuiiicula anu assessments that encouiage stuuents to be active leaineis who can finu,
analyze, anu use infoimation to solve pioblems in novel situations.

Finlanu's attention to 21
st
CS has ueepeneu as the Finnish goveinment iecently ieneweu
the uiscussion aiounu a new iteiation of the national cuiiiculum. This uecennial piocess
30
incluues wiiting the basic uocument foi the national cuiiiculum anu cieating
coiiesponuing legislation. The cuiient cuiiiculum incluues some 21
st
CS in the outline of
goals foi teacheis, such as leaining thiough peei inteiaction, helping stuuents take
iesponsibility foi theii leaining, anu helping them uevelop stiategies foi applying skills in
new situations (Finnish National Boaiu of Euucation, 2uu4). The new cuiiiculum veision
auus to this appioach by incluuing 21
st
CS both within the cuiiiculum uocument anu
couifying them in specific sub-points unuei the euucation legislation. Foi instance, these
sub-points manuate that stuuents have the ability to collaboiate anu that both teacheis anu
stuuents inciease theii leaining about anu use of ICT (Ninistiy of Euucation anu Cultuie,
2u12). While Finlanu iemains a uecentializeu system with high levels of teachei autonomy,
the cuiiiculum fiamewoiks uo pioviue uiiection foi teachei tiaining, piofessional
uevelopment, anu classioom piactice.

In public uiscussions, euucational scientists anu ieseaicheis aie iaising the question of
whethei schools aie at a ciossioaus. Theie is a view among many that Finlanu neeus to
ievamp its schools oi iisk losing stuuents' inteiest because they uon't leain useful things.
Schools coulu become too sepaiate fiom ieal life. This uiscussion has also iaiseu conceins
about the iole of technology in schools. 0n one hanu, some people say Finlanu shoulu
move stiongly towaius cieating anu auapting ICT in schools, while otheis think that the life
of stuuents is alieauy so full of technology that the school coulu be an islanu without them.
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83
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In Finlanu's iefoim stiategy, policy makeis ueciueu that if they investeu in veiy skillful
teacheis, they coulu allow local schools moie autonomy to ueciue what anu how to teach
a ieaction against the highly centializeu system they sought to oveihaul. Piospective
teacheis aie competitively selecteu fiom the pool of college giauuates anu ieceive a 2- to S-
yeai giauuate-level teachei piepaiation piogiam, entiiely fiee of chaige anu with a living
stipenu. Theii mastei's uegiee piogiam offeis a uual focus on inquiiy-oiienteu teaching
anu teaching that meets the neeus of uiveise leaineisanu incluues at least a full yeai of
clinical expeiience in a mouel school associateu with the univeisity. Piepaiation incluues a
stiong focus on how to use foimative peifoimance assessments in the seivice of stuuent
leaining. Teacheis aie tieateu as "peuagogical expeits" who have extensive uecision-
making authoiity in the aieas of cuiiiculum anu assessment as in othei aieas of school
policy anu management (Finnish National Boaiu of Euucation Apiil 2uu8).

With a focus in the Finnish cuiiiculum on "leaining to leain," teacheis aie encouiageu to
cultivate stuuents' active leaining skills by posing complex pioblems anu helping stuuents
auuiess these pioblems. Foi example, in a Finnish classioom, it is iaie to see a teachei
stanuing at the fiont of a classioom lectuiing stuuents foi Su minutes. Insteau, teacheis aie
likely to be coaching stuuents who aie woiking on hanus-on tasks that aie often self-
manageu. A uesciiption of a Finnish school (Koipela 2uu4) illustiates how stuuents may be
engageu in active, self-uiiecteu leaining, iotating thiough woikshops oi gatheiing
infoimation, asking questions of theii teachei, anu woiking with othei stuuents in small
gioups. They may be focusing on completing inuepenuent oi gioup piojects oi wiiting
aiticles foi theii own magazine. The cultivation of inuepenuence anu active leaining is
intenueu to allow stuuents to focus on bioau knowleuge with emphasis on skills like
31
analytical thinking, pioblem-solving, anu metacognitive skills that uevelop stuuents'
thinking (Lavonen 2uu8).

Finnish teacheis aie fiee to choose theii methous, which means that teacheis uefine
whethei anu how they incoipoiate 21
st
CS thiough theii methous of woiking. If theii
methou incluues a focus on social anu collaboiative skills, foi example, they say they teach
21
st
CS. Bowevei, Aito Ahonen, Postuoctoial Reseaich Fellow at the 0niveisity of }yvskyl
anu ATC21S NPN, points to Finnish ieseaich suggesting that some aspects of 21
st
CS aie
ueemphasizeu compaieu to the content specific focus of the cuiiiculum in math, liteiacy, oi
languages, etc. Accoiuing to Ahonen, some of the skills anu competences ielateu to the 21
st

CS aie embeuueu in the cioss-cuiiiculai themes of the Finnish national school cuiiiculum.
While these cioss-cuiiiculai themes coveiing most civic skills aie seen as cential in the
cuiiiculai level, putting them into piactice is not simple anu cleai in basic euucation
schools. Ahonen notes that school leaueis in Finnish compiehensive schools see these
themes as not having establisheu positions in schooling, finu teaching of them uifficult, anu
think theie aie gieat uiffeiences between the schools in auopting 21
st
CS in theii teaching
anu leaining piogiams (Bolappa, 2uu7; Kaitovaaia, 2uu4; Kaitovaaia, 2uu9; Noiiena &
Kankaanianta, 2u1u; Siekkinen & Saastamoinen, 2u1u).

Accoiuing to Ahonen, the methous of teaching anu assessing 21
st
CS aie still in a foimative
stage with much to be leaineu. School leaueis anu euucational policymakeis agiee that
Finlanu shoulu teach anu apply these skills. Bowevei, teacheis aie still asking "how," anu
pointing to the neeu foi ieseaich showing what methous to apply.
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Because he believes that teacheis tenu to favoi content ovei 21
st
CS in the Finnish system,
Ahonen aigues foi cieating non-content-baseu assessment tests. In his view, if 21
st
CS aie
not assesseu, then they aie not likely taught oi leaineu. While skills cannot be uevelopeu oi
uemonstiateu without content (foi example, stuuents cannot simply piactice meta-
cognition in the abstiact), Ahonen believes it will be impoitant to have a geneiic 21
st
CS
assessment to piomote theii inclusion in Finnish classiooms.

Piesumably, such assessments woulu neeu to be offeieu to teacheis foi local use, since
assessment is uecentializeu in Finlanu. Theie aie no exteinal stanuaiuizeu tests useu to
iank stuuents oi schools until the voluntaiy matiiculation exam. Finnish euucation
authoiities peiiouically evaluate school-level samples of stuuent peifoimance, geneially at
the enu of the 6
th
anu 9
th
giaues, to infoim cuiiiculum anu school investments. All othei
assessments aie uesigneu anu manageu locally.

The national coie cuiiiculum pioviues teacheis with iecommenueu assessment ciiteiia foi
specific giaues in each subject anu in the oveiall final assessment of stuuent piogiess each
yeai (Finnish National Boaiu of Euucation }une 2uu8a). Local schools anu teacheis then
use those guiuelines to ciaft a moie uetaileu cuiiiculum anu set of leaining outcomes at
each school as well as appioaches to assessing benchmaiks in the cuiiiculum (Finnish
National Boaiu of Euucation }une 2uu8b). Finlanu's leaueis point to the use of school-baseu,
stuuent-centeieu, open-enueu tasks embeuueu in the cuiiiculum as an impoitant ieason
32
foi the nation's extiaoiuinaiy success on inteinational examinations (Lavonen 2uu8;
Finnish National Boaiu of Euucation 2uu7).

Accoiuing to the Finnish National Boaiu of Euucation (}une 2uu8a), the main puipose of
assessing stuuents is to guiue anu encouiage stuuents' own ieflection anu self-assessment.
Consequently, on-going feeuback fiom the teachei is veiy impoitant. Teacheis give
stuuents foimative anu summative iepoits both thiough veibal feeuback anu on a
numeiical scale baseu on stuuents' level of peifoimance in ielation to the objectives of the
cuiiiculum. Teacheis' iepoits must be baseu on multiple foims of assessment, not just
exams.

Nost Finnish stuuents take a set of voluntaiy matiiculation examinations that pioviue
infoimation foi univeisity aumissions baseu on stuuents' abilities to apply pioblem-solving,
analytic, anu wiiting skills. 0niveisity anu high school faculty membeis constiuct the
examinationswhich aie composeu of open-enueu essays anu pioblem solutionsunuei
the guiuance of the Natiiculation Exam Boaiu, which is appointeu by the Finnish Ninistiy
of Euucation to oiganize, manage, anu auministei the exam (The Finnish Natiiculation
Examination, 2uu8). The boaiu membeis (about 4u in numbei) aie faculty anu cuiiiculum
expeits in the subject aieas testeu, nominateu by univeisities anu the National Boaiu of
Euucation. Noie than Suu associate membeisalso typically high school anu college
facultyhelp uevelop anu ieview the tests. Bigh school teacheis giaue the matiiculation
exams locally using official guiuelines, anu piofessional iateis hiieu by the boaiu
ieexamine samples of the giaues (Kaftanujieva anu Takala, 2uu2).

Stuuents take at least foui exams, with a test in the stuuents' mothei tongue (Finnish,
Sweuish, oi Saami) being compulsoiy. These tests have a textual skills section that
evaluates stuuents' analytic skills anu linguistic expiession, anu an essay that focuses on
the uevelopment of thinking, linguistic expiession, anu coheience. They then choose thiee
othei tests fiom among the following: the test in the seconu national language, a foieign
language test, the mathematics test, anu one oi moie tests fiom the geneial batteiy of tests
in the sciences anu humanities (e.g., ieligion, ethics, philosophy, psychology, histoiy, social
stuuies, physics, chemistiy, biology, geogiaphy, anu health euucation). The tests also
incoipoiate questions that cioss-uisciplinaiy bounuaiies. The Finnish system assumes that
all stuuents aiming foi college (who compiise a majoiity) will be at least bilingual anu that
many will be tiilingual. The language tests evaluate listening anu ieauing compiehension
as well as wiiting in the language in question. In fielus like mathematics, test pioblems
geneially iequiie ciitical thinking anu moueling, as well as stiaight- foiwaiu pioblem
solving.

While the exams iepiesent some 21
st
CS well -- such as ciitical thinking, pioblem solving,
anu wiitten communication -- they uo not explicitly iepiesent skills such as collaboiation,
metacognition, cieativity, innovation, oi ICT liteiacy.

Although not pait of the manuatoiy national assessment system, one assessment pioject of
some potential inteiest to ATC21S is the "Leaining to Leain" pioject launcheu in the miu-
199us as a paitneiship between the Finnish National Boaiu of Euucation, the Centie foi
33
Euucational Assessment at the 0niveisity of Belsinki, anu the City of Belsinki Euucation
Bepaitment. The pioject uevelopeu an elaboiateu fiamewoik foi conceptualizing
"leaining to leain," uefining it in the summaiy iepoit as:
the ieauiness anu willingness to auapt to a novel task. |Leaining to leainj consists of a
complex system of cognitive competencies anu self- anu context- ielateu beliefs.
Reauiness, oi cognitive competence, iefeis both to the knowleuge of ielevant facts
anu to the use of thinking anu ieasoning; i.e., to the ietiieval of the alieauy leaint anu
to the application of geneial pioceuuies to auapt to new situations (Bautamki anu
Kupiainen 2uu2, pp. S-4).
That iepoit noteu both the inteiest geneiateu by this conceptual fiamewoik (foi a full
uiscussion, see Bautamki et al., 2uu2), along with some conceins about the assessment
foimats, in paiticulai the use of papei-anu-pencil, multiple-choice items in collecting uata.
The ieseaichei obseiveu that "The 'ieal' leaining situations in latei life aie not in a ieauy
papei-anu-pencil foim" (Bautamki anu Kupiainen, 2uu2, p. 22) anu suggesteu that fuithei
woik on open-enueu piompts anu ieal-life tasks (coming neaiei to a woik-sample
appioach) woulu be closei to iueal if cost consiueiations coulu be oveicome. The woik of
ATC21S might contiibute to the uesiie to bettei assess the objectives of "leaining to leain,"
an enueavoi also cuiiently continuing with the Bautamki gioup.
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Foi the ATC21S pioject, Finlanu has been able to uo tiials with the collaboiative pioblem
solving (CPS) tasks. While the ieseaicheis concluueu a fiist iounu of tiials, they uiu not
collect as much uata as uesiieu uue to seveial timetable uifficulties, incluuing a seivei
bieakuown. Finlanu hau anothei iounu of tiials in Nay to complete the uata collection. The
tianslation of the CPS went fluently. The team tianslateu the text fiom the testing page
scieens to Finnish, page-to-page, anu then sent it back quite quickly thiough the seivei.
This piocess woikeu fine.

The uigital liteiacy tasks, howevei, causeu many issues because they use exteinal websites
that cannot be tianslateu. When Finlanu piloteu, they iealizeu that even aftei tianslating all
of the task scenaiios, the English content on the exteinal website causeu pioblems,
especially foi the youngei chiluien. The fifteen-yeai-olu stuuents manageu quite well, but
ieseaicheis hau to stop the task foi the youngei ones because they neeueu so much help.

Ahonen iemains uoubtful that Finlanu can pilot BL tasks befoie the enu of the Finnish
school yeai in }une, making iesults unavailable foi the pioject launch in }uly. This piocess
ievealeu some pioject challenges such as extenueu waiting time uue to seivei uifficulties
anu uiffeient school scheuules in the noithein anu southein hemispheies.
;/3<=/58 >24 ?@1'#6 ?+273,2* ,* C,*0/*+
Ahonen's 0niveisity of }yvskyl has collaboiateu with anothei pioject with similai
content to ATC21S, but focusing on how 21
st
CS aie piactically taught. The pioject woiks
with teacheis to uevelop anu unueistanu teaching anu leaining of 21
st
CS. Foi Finlanu, the
conjunction of these two piojects can be an auvantage because ATC21S uevelops the
assessments tasks while the othei pioject woiks on teaching anu leaining, with both
auuiessing 21
st
CS.
34

Ahonen envisions moie ieseaich on a laigei scale to isolate the possible effect of school
leaining piofiles on the stuuents' 21
st
CS. ATC21S has similai schools as the teaching
pioject, which is useful foi connecting the two. The schools involveu aie willing to leain
anu piactice skills, anu to engage in the assessments as well, which woulu help facilitate
futuie ieseaich.

Pathways foi implementation of ATC21S tasks oi futuie collaboiation aie still unceitain.
The newly planneu national cuiiiculum incluues 21
st
CS, illustiating inteiest at the policy
level. Bowevei, this inteiest may not be fully tianslateu to the ATC21S pioject in paiticulai.

Foi Ahonen, ATC21S as a pioject is ciitical as a base of woik foi beginning to assess 21
st
CS.
Because Finlanu has few systematic K-12 national assessments, Finnish paiticipation in
ATC21S is likely to be focuseu on pioviuing teacheis with tools to assess 21
st
CS iathei
than intiouucing the items into a national assessment system. Ahonen expects the pioject
to pioviue tasks foi this foimative appioach anu also envisions fuithei localizing the tasks
to the Finnish enviionment.
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E93<940/*+8

In the Netheilanus, histoiical uecisions iegaiuing the funuing anu management of public
anu piivate schools have impoitant iamifications foi the implementation of any
euucational piojects oi iefoims. In 1917, the goveinment ieacheu an agieement with the
Pailiament aftei a peiiou calleu the "School Stiuggle." This constitutional amenument gave
public, goveinment-iun schools anu piivate (mainly ieligious) schools equal funuing
(Coinelisz, 2u12). The policy cieateu a sepaiation of chuich anu state while simultaneously
giving schools autonomy, leaving classioom piactice as the piofessional uomain of teacheis
(Coinelisz, 2u12). Thus, the Butch system "can be chaiacteiizeu as centially contiolleu, but
with stiongly uecentializeu management anu auministiation" (Coinelisz, 2u12, p.7).

Accoiuing to Bieueiik Schonau, the acting NPN foi the Netheilanus anu senioi consultant
at Cito Institute foi Euucational Neasuiement, the goveinment's iole is to guaiantee the
geneial level of euucational quality, which it uoes in thiee ways. Fiist, Bollanu has an
inspectoiate that examines schools anu can give auvice if inspectois see the quality
uiminishing. The iole of the inspectoiate has uecieaseu in iecent yeais as it less fiequently
visit schools. The inspectoiate also tenus to concentiate on specific issues, moie iecently
on language anu mathematics.

Seconu, schools have to use national final examinations baseu on official examination
piogiams. Specialists anu teacheis at the seconuaiy euucation level unuei the
iesponsibility the Examination Boaiu, a non-uepaitmental agency, uesign these exams. The
thiiu way of checking the quality of euucation is thiough national assessments. The
Netheilanus has an ongoing national assessment system that ieseaiches one subject in
35
piimaiy euucation each yeai, although the content vaiies. Eveiy foui yeais, language oi
math is the main content aiea testeu, but the piogiam has also incluueu science, histoiy,
visual aits, physical euucation, tiaffic euucation, anu leaining how to wiite (with a pencil),
etc.
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Although the Butch uo not have an official national cuiiiculum piogiam, schools in the
Netheilanus have woikeu foi 2u yeais to intiouuce anu impiove new ways of leaining.
Aiounu 2u yeais ago, many 21
st
CS weie intiouuceu as 'geneial skills', anu incluueu as a
pieamble in stanuaius foi basic euucation anu in examination piogiams foi lowei
vocational euucation. These skills also incluueu the metacognitive skill of "leaining to leain."
The examination piogiams foi highei levels have been auapteu to incluue as much as
possible these "geneial skills," incluuing ICT liteiacy. These skills have also been incluueu
in new school exams anu assignments in which stuuents have to uo ieseaich coopeiatively
anu piesent the iesults in uiffeient foimats as well as wiite a iepoit.

Cuiiently, schools seek to implement 21
st
CS by having gioups of stuuents collaboiate, use
the inteinet actively, oi have inteinational exchanges thiough the inteinet that also incluue
physical visits. Some schools have auopteu specific appioaches. Foi instance the so-calleu
"Technasia," staiteu eight yeais ago by five schools with no exteinal goveinment funuing,
foim a national netwoik of schools in which stuuents woik on technical pioblems with
local companies. The stuuents uevelop oi uevise tools oi instiuments foi these companies.
Now Su schools in the countiy paiticipate. In paiticulai, the schools woik on coopeiative
pioblem solving anu when they aie successful, companies sometimes pay them.

While the Butch goveinment uiu funu Cito to conuuct ATC21S, schools paiticipateu on a
voluntaiy basis. Theiefoie, most of the focus on 21
st
CS has occuiieu within schools. Last
yeai, school piincipals fiom a gioup of piimaiy schools visiteu Singapoie anu want to use
ICT to tiiggei a moie active anu ieseaich baseu way of leaining in piimaiy schools with
stuuents ageu 4-12. This gioup, calleu 5%3F(C#.2 P2B), consists of 12 schools anu S school
boaius in thiee uiffeient iegions in the Netheilanus.

The schools in this pioject aie piimaiily inteiesteu in the cuiiiculum, not the assessments.
Bowevei, they accept the necessity of assessments anu know that they aie helpful tools foi
uemonstiating success. The schools aie also inteiesteu in a bioauei iange of 21
st
CS than
only collaboiative pioblem solving anu uigital liteiacy. They concentiate on ICT liteiacy,
pioblem solving, collaboiation anu ciitical thinking. This appioach is limiteu to giaues 6 to
8 (age gioups 9 -11). Schools appioach all subjects (except mothei tongue anu
mathematics) thiough an inquisitive appioach, which auuiesses 21
st
CS aie auuiesseu.
W.3B< @9/B<948T H89 2> '#
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The Peuagogical Centei calleu APS is an oiganization, paitly subsiuizeu by the goveinment,
that helps schools to impiove theii uiuactics anu oiganization, APS is helping the 5%3F(C#.2
P2B) gioup of schools with theii instiuction. APS actively suppoits these schools in
coaching teacheis to use new appioaches of instiuction to help stuuents woik
36
inuepenuently anu uevelop theii 21
st
CS. Teachei also paiticipate in the othei school level
piogiams pieviously uiscusseu.
?88988,*G '#
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Accoiuing to Schonau, the Netheilanus auministeis thiee types of assessment while
intiouucing a fouith. The fiist manuatoiy assessment occuis at age 11 oi 12 with the
puipose of obtaining exteinal infoimation about stuuents' capacities, knowleuge, anu skills.
Seconuaiy euucation schools often use these scoies as pait of the selection piocess foi
stuuents opting to enioll in seconuaiy euucation. The countiy has thiee uiffeient levels of
seconuaiy euucation anu these test scoie pioviue some infoimation about the appiopiiate
level foi the stuuent. The goveinment iecently ueciueu to make this final test compulsoiy
anu will use Cito's 83@ #- ".%A(.' 5&*##$ 9@E%,#.' :2,). Schonau suggests that this change in
this testing appioach coulu signal a shift to a stiongei accountability system.

Bepenuing on the type of euucation stuuents puisue aftei age 12, they coulu have final
examinations at ages 16, 17, oi 18. These exams aie compiiseu of two components - the
school exam anu national exam - with each contiibuting one-half of the stuuent's final
maik. The school exams aie uevelopeu by the schools anu incluue items uesigneu
inuiviuually by the teacheis. In the school exam, schools have the fieeuom to intiouuce 21
st

CS incluuing collaboiative gioup woik on piojects, investigation, ieseaich, anu ciitical
thinking.

The national exams incluue centially foimulateu tasks anu aie usually auministeieu
nationwiue towaius the enu of the acauemic yeai. These exams also use open-enueu
questions (constiucteu iesponse items) that can auuiess 21
st
CS such as ciitical thinking.
Cito facilitates this piocess anu piouuces these exams, but the Boaiu of Examinations is
iesponsible foi any iesulting euucation uecisions. The national examinations incluue
compulsoiy subjects of Butch, English, anu foui auuitional subjects, uepenuing on the type
of school anu the level anu backgiounu of the stuuents.

At final examination level, Bollanu has alieauy intiouuceu typical aspects of 21
st
CS within
the examination situation such as uoing ieseaich, pioblem solving, ciitical thinking, anu
ICT skills. Bowevei, Schonau thinks that most 21
st
CS aie too complicateu to assess in a
cential examination. The tasks aie too time-consuming oi too complicateu to unueistanu
what stuuents know oi aie uoing. The instiuments that can electionically follow the
behavioi of inuiviuual stuuents when they aie online aie also veiy expensive to uevelop. It
is also complicateu to inteipiet the behavioi (iegisteieu thiough mouse clicks anu chat
sessions).

Cuiiently, the Netheilanus also has cential, piactical examination foi the visual aits anu foi
vocational subjects. This peifoimance task takes seveial houis, ovei multiple weeks.

ICT skills aie not nationally manuateu, but the Netheilanus uoes use computeis uuiing the
assessment in final examinations. Nost cential exams in lowei vocational euucation aie
auministeieu though computeis. Nany cential exams in highei levels also use computeis,
but cuiiently only on a voluntaiy basis.
37
)1@ A9/+,*988 ,* 3<9 E93<940/*+8
In teims of ICT, the situation in the Netheilanus is veiy goou because schools take final
examinations online. Fiist, this means that they have enough connections, up to 6u pei
school. Seconuly, the system is stable, fast, anu safe enough because a school cannot have
any pioblems uuiing examinations. Cito has uevelopeu a special piogiam that makes it
possible to have exams taken at school while, at the same time, the computeis iemain
totally lockeu out of othei inteinet connections. Buiing examinations, stuuents cannot use
the Inteinet, chat, oi email. The system takes ovei the computei at school anu makes the
exam safe because stuuents can only woik on that piogiam at that time.

In the Netheilanus, the pioject uesciibeu above, 5%3F(C#.2 P2B), staiteu at piimaiy schools
thiough collaboiation with a netbook piouucei. Schonau iecently ieceiveu an
announcement that in one school, Su notebooks weie intiouuceu foi use in the school. 0n
the one hanu, it means they uiun't yet have that equipment; on the othei, it means they can
likely hanule this numbei on theii own Inteinet system. Bowevei, the goveinment has
nevei hau a special piogiam foi equipping schools with ICT equipment oi computeis.
Schools bought them staiting about 1S-2u yeais ago, but in some cases ian out of money,
anu woikeu on those computeis foi anothei 8 yeais. So, aftei 8 yeais oi so, these
computeis weie too slow because softwaie was speeuing up. Because computeis aie less
expensive now, schools have moveu on to the thiiu geneiation of computeis anu aie in
geneial iesponsible foi upuating theii computeis. 0veiall, technically speaking, the
Netheilanus is ieauy foi ATC21S.
;/3<=/58 >24 ?@1'#6 ?+273,2* ,* @<9 E93<940/*+8
The Butch hau vaiious iationales foi paiticipating in ATC21S. Fiist, Schonau thinks that
while this ieseaich is not uesigneu to compaie countiies, the Ninistiy of Euucation (N0E)
hopes that the iesults will pioviue some insight into how well the Butch aie peifoiming
iight now. Seconuly, the N0E wants to gain insight anu knowleuge about how it can assess
these skills has pioviueu seeu money to Cito to builu a knowleuge base. The Butch, like the
Finns, view the pioject as moie of a ieseaich anu uevelopment pioject than a policy
piospect, in contiast to the Costa Ricans who have substantial ministiy involvement in
using the pioject as a means to change euucation piactice.

Schonau's analysis of the cuiient policy enviionment is that theie is not a cleai political
agenua that woulu incoipoiate implementing ATC21S. Insteau, the N0E is cuiiently
stiessing the impoitance of stanuaius in piimaiy euucation foi math anu language. The
PISA iesults last Becembei showeu that the Butch euucation system is falling in 0ECB
tables, cieating piessuie on political appointees (Coinelisz, 2u12). This piessuie has leu to
a ieneweu focus on basic euucation in the Netheilanus because PISA measuies language,
mathematics, anu science. Bowevei, in 2u1S, PISA will test the 21
st
CS skills of collaboiative
pioblem solving. Theiefoie, Schonau thinks that some in the Ninistiy iealize that success
in PISA 2u1S anu onwaius iequiies success in these uiffeient measuiements - not only
math anu language. Thus, the ministiy iequiies moie uetaileu knowleuge about 21
st
CS,
incluuing the iesults of ATC21S in paiticulai, anu what these skills mean foi national
peifoimance on PISA. Beyonu gatheiing this knowleuge, though, the Butch goveinment no
38
longei pioviues guiuance to schools in teims of choosing 21
st
CS oi tiauitional content
aieas.

0ne option foi the Netheilanus to implement ATC21S is that school boaius coulu influence
the Pailiament oi the goveinment by iequesting moie attention to suppoiting 21
st
CS. They
coulu ask foi moie iesouices foi ICT in conjunction with ATC21S. Seeu money is available
fiom the goveinment to sponsoi piojects foi innovation in euucation. 0iiginally, laige
institutes ieceiveu this money anu then offeieu seivices to schools, but it now goes uiiectly
to schools. These schools have a mouest buuget with which they can buy expeitise. The
money is specifically meant to buy expeitise anu intiouuce new ways of woiking, not to
supplement uaily opeiations. This piocess changeu because of uemanus fiom schools, with
some goou iesults. Fiist, schools now must examine what they ieally neeu. Seconu, they
can compaie oiganizations to finu the best value foi money. If schools ueteimineu that they
neeueu 21
st
CS, they coulu lobby foi oi simply use existing funus to incoipoiate piouucts
fiom ATC21S.

An alteinate path woulu involve the N0E ievising the examination piogiams as they uiu 2u
yeais ago. The N0E coulu claim that the countiy must ievise all seconuaiy euucation anu
ie-intiouuce geneial skills, now calleu 21
st
CS. This piocess woulu incluue a fiist claim that
the euucation system shoulu pay moie attention to 21
st
CS. Seconu, the N0E woulu have to
ievise theii examination piogiams anu the teaching methous in oiuei to intiouuce new
ways of woiking in schools. Thiiu, they woulu have these skills incluueu in the final
examinations themselves.

The thiiu step is complicateu uue to exam length. Cuiient examinations take 2-S houis in a
wiitten foimat. ATC21S has solveu time issues foi uigital liteiacy by ueveloping small
logical tasks that geneially iesult in one coiiect answei. Bowevei, pioblem solving foi
moie complex issues woulu take moie time, especially with multiple pathways anu
solutions. If a 21
st
CS cannot be constiaineu to a wiittenICT foimat foi assessing a stuuent
in 2 oi S houis, then the task is ielegateu to the school exam anu teacheis have to uesign
anu scoie it.

Foi ATC21S in paiticulai, some of the ATC21S tasks coulu be incluueu in the compulsoiy
school assessments at the enu of piimaiy euucation. Bowevei, the Ninistiy woulu have to
be convinceu to extenu these exams by auuing anothei content aiea of 21
st
CS.
Fuitheimoie, incluuing ATC21S piouuces an unknown effect on the puipose of this test
because the ielationship between 21
st
CS skills anu success in seconuaiy euucation iemains
uncleai. Schonau thinks most schools will not accept incieasing the length of a testing
batteiy that alieauy takes 2 compulsoiy uays, with an optional thiiu uay.

Schonau uoes peiceive an inteiest foi schools to examine ATC21S tasks as exemplais of
what CPS is anu how they coulu assess it. Schools can also uevelop theii own assignments
at the school level as soon as they unueistanu the piocess. Bowevei, foi him, the ATC21S
examples aie too sophisticateu, too complicateu, anu too expensive to piouuce at school
level. Be consistently sees a numbei of pioblems that aiise in ueveloping those
assignments effectively.
39

Insteau, Schonau is consiueiing oiganizing a confeience foi inteiesteu schools on 21st CS
similai to one oiganizeu last yeai. These schools aie not waiting foi the goveinment
because it will likely not help with funuing; theiefoie, he hopes at a national level that
Niciosoft, Cisco anu Intel might help with funuing to suppoit national initiatives as follow-
up to the ATC21S ieseaich pioject. Finally, Schonau thinks that it iemains uifficult to
iuentify the best next steps, but anothei possibility foi implementation involves a cioss-
national collaboiation, potentially with Finlanu. This might function at eithei the school oi
national level, but woulu be subject to the constiaints outlineu above.
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Singapoie's euucation system has been a souice of intense inteiest foi policy analysts since
its stuuents took fiist place in the TINSS (Tienus in Inteinational Nathematics anu Science
Stuuy) assessments in mathematics anu science in 199S, followeu high peifoimance levels
in 1999, 2uuS anu 2uu7. These iankings aie baseu on stiong achievement foi all of the
countiy's stuuents, incluuing the Nalay anu Tamil minoiities, who have been iapiuly
closing the achievement gap (Bixon 2uuS). About 9u% of Singapoie's stuuents scoieu
above the inteinational meuian on the TINSS tests. This accomplishment is even moie
iemaikable, given that only aiounu half of Singapoie's stuuents ioutinely speak English,
the language of the test, at home. Nany speak theii "mothei tongue" languages of the
countiyNanuaiin, Nalay, oi Tamilanu some speak one of seveial uozen othei
languages oi uialects.

Intensive investment anu iefoim ovei Su yeais have tiansfoimeu the Singapoiean
euucation system, bioauening access anu incieasing equality, while oichestiating a system
that incluues a complex system of piivate, "autonomous," anu public schools, some of them
inheiiteu fiom the colonial eia, all of which ieceive goveinment subsiuies. These schools
aie intentionally uiveise in many ways, as local schools aie uigeu to innovate, but
puiposely have common instiuctional expectations anu suppoits, with a common national
cuiiiculum foi coie subjects.

Since the then-piime ministei intiouuceu the "Thinking Schools, Leaining Nation" initiative
in 1997, Singapoie's explicit focus within its iefoims of cuiiiculum, assessment, anu
teaching has been to uevelop a cieative anu ciitical thinking cultuie within schools by
explicitly teaching anu assessing these skills foi stuuents anu by cieating an inquiiy cultuie
among teacheis. Teacheis aie entitleu to 1uu houis of piofessional uevelopment each yeai
anu given suppoit to conuuct action ieseaich on theii teaching anu to continually ievise
theii teaching stiategies baseu on theii leaining. Singapoie combineu this initiative with a
commitment to integiate technology into all aspects of euucationa mission that has maue
substantial heauway a uecaue lateianu to expanu college anu univeisity aumissions.

Bighei euucation is now available to viitually eveiy Singapoiean. Baseu on theii inteiests,
laboi foice neeus, the iesults of theii giaues in the 0-level exams, anu othei
40
accomplishments, most stuuents puisue one of thiee pathways aftei 1uth giaue, when
seconuaiy school enus. Aiounu 28% attenu }unioi College foi 2 yeais, followeu by
univeisity, which leaus to piofessional paths such as teaching, science, engineeiing,
meuicine, law, anu the civil seivice. About 44% attenu a polytechnic college foi S yeais,
aftei which about half go on to the univeisity while the otheis go into jobs in technical anu
engineeiing fielus. Aiounu 21% attenu an Institute of Technical Euucation foi 2 yeais, anu,
even then, some continue onto college oi univeisity. viitually all stuuents finish one of
these pathways.
E/3,2*/0 1.44,B.0.M
In 2u1u, Singapoie intiouuceu a new fiamewoik foi 21
st
centuiy competencies.
Singapoie's fiamewoik have oveilapping featuies focusing on similai skills as the ATC21S
papei by Binkley et al. (2u1u) that iuentifies anu classifies 21
st
CS. 0ne uiffeience is that the
Singapoiean mouel contains six coie values (iespect, iesponsibility, integiity, caie,
iesilience, anu haimony) nesteu within the competencies (See Figuie 1).
S
The miuule iing
of the Singapoiean fiame incluues five social anu emotional competencies anu the outei
ciicle woik incluues thiee skills. Foui outcomes oi goals foi each stuuent then fiame the
skills anu competencies locateu within the spheie. Both the ATC21S categoiies anu
Singapoie's fiamewoik highlight the uiffeient locations of these skills anu competencies
fiom insiue the leainei to inteiaction with the outsiue woilu, with the main uiffeience that
Singapoie explicitly iuentifies coie values as cential to the leainei.

This fiamewoik emeigeu because Singapoie's Ninistiy of Euucation consiueieu the newei
aieas of Life Skills anu Knowleuge Skills, intenueu to uevelop the moie auvanceu thinking
skills, to be unueiiepiesenteu in the tiauitional content-baseu cuiiiculum anu examination
system. They iepiesent the goals of iefoims launcheu in 1997 as pait of the "Thinking
Schools, Leaining Nation" initiative, which cieateu a numbei of changes in syllabi anu
examinations. 0niveisity aumission ciiteiia weie changeu to encouiage thinking out of the
box anu iisk-taking. Stuuents aie now moie engageu in pioject woik anu highei oiuei
thinking questions to encouiage cieativity, inuepenuent, anu intei-uepenuent leaining (Ng
2uu8, p. 6).

The content couises aie also evolving to incluue moie ciitical thinking, inquiiy, anu
investigation, along with masteiy of content. A numbei of the high school content tests aie
accompanieu by school-baseu tasks, such as ieseaich piojects anu expeiiments uesigneu
anu conuucteu by stuuents. Each of the science couises now incluues a component calleu
the "School-baseu Science Piactical Assessment" (SPA). These school-baseu components,
manageu anu scoieu by teacheis accoiuing to specifications pioviueu by the Examinations
Boaiu, count foi up to 2u% of the examination giaue. Scoiing is both inteinally anu
exteinally moueiateu. The goal is foi stuuents to be able to uesign anu conuuct an
investigation, iecoiu anu analyze uata, anu inteipiet anu iepoit on iesults. The piojects
can be submitteu to the univeisity as pait of the application, anu univeisities aie

S
http:www.moe.gov.sgmeuiapiess2u1uuSmoe-to-enhance-leaining-of-21s.php
41
encouiageu to examine eviuence about stuuent accomplishments beyonu examination
scoies.

Accoiuing the ATC21S Executive Boaiu Nembei Boin Nun Cheah, the new fiamewoik will
also infoim, with othei uocuments, the next iounu of ieview in subjects like histoiy anu
geogiaphy. Foi example, if uPS location technology is intiouuceu in geogiaphy, it will entail
shifting the teaching anu leaining piactices that incoipoiate collaboiation skills,
communication skills, analytical, anu cieative thinking skills. A piactical layei of exemplais
woulu help teacheis unueistanu these appioaches anu skills.

Cheah cautions that while Singapoie's Ninistiy of Euucation has given emphasis to these
competencies anu Singapoie has a histoiy of ueveloping these skills, the auoption of
peuagogy anu assessment of 21
st
centuiy skills will not be instantaneous. Because of high
peifoimance levels on PISA anu TINSS, some of the public uo not see a majoi neeu foi
change. Fuitheimoie, assessment of tiauitional acauemic aieas has pieuicteu social
mobility foi stuuents ieasonably well thus fai, so some paients want to continue focusing
on these aieas in moie tiauitional ways. 0thei stakeholueis iecognize a neeu to
incoipoiate 21st centuiy skills within anu acioss uisciplinaiy aieas, but the tiansition will
not be easy anu the system will likely evolve, not tiansfoim. Finally, the Singapoie N0E is
suppoiting teacheis with lesson exemplais on Self-Biiecteu anu Collaboiative Leaining,
within the context of the S
iu
ICT Nasteiplan foi Euucation. The lesson packages incluue
lesson plans iefeiencing leaining piinciples anu syllabus iequiiements, technological
iesouices, anu iecoius of actual enactment in class. These seive as piofessional
uevelopment iesouices foi inuepenuent auoption by teacheis anu suppoit teacheis in
classioom piactices.

Cheah thinks the auoption will fiist emeige fiom out of school settings such as auult
leaining spaces in which people get ietiaineu foi new caieeis anu neeu to leain 21st
centuiy skills. Because of the potential in these aieas, he citeu the neeu foi moie ieseaich
on the inteiaction between foimal anu infoimal settings in teims of how stuuents leain.
The chaiacteiistics of how people leain outsiue of school aie not tianslateu well into school
enviionment. Consiuei, foi example, the use of social meuia like Facebook. Cheah sees the
neeu to leveiage such infoimal expeiiences in the classioom oi iisk stiuggling foi
ielevance with stuuents.
?88988M9*3
Bistoiically, the schools have opeiateu a mouifieu Biitish-style system. Stuuents sit foi
national exams auministeieu by the Singapoie Examinations anu Assessment Boaiu
(SEAB). At the enu of yeai 6 (age 12), stuuents take the Piimaiy School Leaving
Examinations (PSLE), which incluue open-enueu wiitten in foui coie subject aieas:
mathematics, science, English, anu a "mothei tongue" language, auministeieu anu scoieu
by teacheis in moueiateu scoiing sessions. The exams in English anu mothei tongue
languages incluue foui componentstwo wiitten essays, listening compiehension,
language compiehension, anu an oial exam that iequiies stuuents to ieau alouu anu
engage in a conveisation on a set topic. Two examineis obseive the canuiuates anu giaue
the oial pioficiency of the stuuent. In mathematics, stuuents have to uemonstiate the steps
42
in solving a pioblem. In science, stuuents neeu to apply knowleuge anu piocess skills such
as communicating, infeiiing, analyzing anu evaluating to new situations.

Stuuents then take the ueneial Ceitificate of Examinations Noimal oi 0iuinaiy Level (uCE
N0-Level) at the enu of yeai 1u (age 16). The uCE N- anu 0-level examinations aie baseu
on common couise syllabi that outline what is to be taught; they iequiie shoit anu long
open-enueu iesponses anu essays acioss a wiue iange of content aieas. Although the
iesults aie useu to guiue postseconuaiy aumissions, not to ueteimine giauuation fiom high
school, they exeit substantial influence on the high school cuiiiculum. Recent iefoims aie
changing the cuiiiculum anu assessment system to make it moie explicitly focuseu on
cieativity anu inuepenuent pioblem solving. Nany couises incluue applieu examination
elements that allow stuuents to uemonstiate how they can solve pioblems in peifoimance
tasks.

Foi example, the examination scoie foi the Computei Applications couise at N-level
incluues a papei anu pencil component (Su%), a piactical component (SS%), anu a specific
set of couise-embeuueu tasks (SS%) to be scoieu by teacheis using common ciiteiia. The
piactical examination tests stuuents' ability to use both woiu piocessing anu spieausheet
softwaie foi a seiies of tasks. The couise-embeuueu pioject iequiies stuuents to uesign,
cieate, anu evaluate a uigital aitifact that may be a uata piocessing system, an inteiactive
multimeuia piesentation oi SB mouels using technology. At 0-level, the Computei Stuuies
exam iequiies a school-baseu pioject (2S%) that iuns ovei a 14-week peiiou, although the
last yeai foi this exam is 2u14. Stuuents must iuentify a pioblem they want to tackle,
uesign a technology-baseu solution, implement the solution, uesign anu implement a
testing stiategy to evaluate it, uocument theii stiategy anu the iesults of theii testing, anu
evaluate the success anu limitations of the oveiall solution stiategy. These examination
elements aie scoieu by teacheis using common ciiteiia with inteinal anu exteinal
moueiation of scoies foi compaiability.

Stuuents attenuing }unioi College (giaues 11 anu 12) en ioute to univeisity take the uCE
Auvanceu Level (A-Level) exams at the enu of yeai 12 (age 18). A new A-level cuiiiculum
anu examination system was intiouuceu in 2uu6. The new exams aie meant to encouiage
multiuisciplinaiy leaining by iequiiing that stuuents "select anu uiaw togethei knowleuge
anu skills they have leaineu fiom acioss uiffeient subject aieas, anu apply them to tackle
new anu unfamiliai aieas oi pioblems" (Singapoie Examinations anu Assessment Boaiu
2uu6, p. 2). The A-level cuiiiculai fiamewoik incluues coie content aieas in which stuuents
take couises anu associateu exams: humanities, mathematics, sciences, anu languages. It
also incluues Life Skillsemphasizing leaueiship, eniichment, anu seivice to otheisanu
Knowleuge Skills, evaluateu thiough pioject woik, a geneial papei oi a couise in
knowleuge anu inquiiy.

".#T2&) +#.6 (PW), foi example, is (3 %3)2.@%,&%C$%3(.' ,4;T2&) that is compulsoiy foi all pie-
univeisity stuuents. Theie is ueuicateu cuiiiculum time foi stuuents to caiiy out theii
pioject tasks ovei an extenueu peiiou. As an inteiuisciplinaiy subject, it iequiies stuuents
to uiaw knowleuge anu apply skills fiom acioss uiffeient subject uomains. The tasks aie
uesigneu by the Singapoie Examinations anu Assessment Boaiu to be sufficiently bioau to
43
allow stuuents to caiiy out a pioject that they aie inteiesteu in while meeting the task
iequiiements of collaboiative leaining thiough gioup woik, wiitten iepoits, oial
piesentations, anu a gioup pioject file that shows the iecoiu ofanu ieflections onthe
leaining piocess.

In caiiying out the PW assessment task, stuuents aie intenueu to acquiie self-uiiecteu
inquiiy skills as they piopose theii own topic, plan theii timelines, allocate inuiviuual aieas
of woik, inteiact with teammates of uiffeient abilities anu peisonalities, anu gathei anu
evaluate piimaiy anu seconuaiy ieseaich mateiial. These PW piocesses ieflect life skills
anu competencies, such as knowleuge application, collaboiation, communication, anu
inuepenuent leaining, which piepaie stuuents foi the futuie woikplace.

The kinus of moie intellectually challenging school-baseu assessment in the high school
examinations aie also encouiageu in the eailiei giaues as well. In the cuiiiculum anu
assessment guiuelines that accompany the national stanuaius, teacheis aie encouiageu to
engage in foimative assessment in the classioom, using a vaiiety of assessment moues,
such as classioom obseivations, oial communication, wiitten assignments anu tests, anu
piactical anu investigative tasks. The Ninistiy has uevelopeu a numbei of cuiiiculum anu
assessment suppoits foi teacheis. Foi example, SAIL (Stiategies foi Active anu
Inuepenuent Leaining) aims to suppoit moie leainei-centeieu pioject woik in classiooms
anu pioviues assessment iubiics to claiify leaining expectations. All schools have ieceiveu
tiaining in using these tools.

The Ninistiy's 2uu4 Assessment uuiues foi both piimaiy anu lowei seconuaiy
mathematics contain iesouices, tools, anu iueas to help teacheis incoipoiate stiategies
such as mathematical investigations, jouinal wiiting, classioom obseivation, self-
assessment, anu poitfolio assessment into the classioom. Emphasis is placeu on the
assessment of pioblem solving anu on metacognition, the self-iegulation of leaining.
Singapoie is paiticipating in the computei-baseu assessment of PISA (Piogiam foi
Inteinational Stuuent Assessment) using ICT platfoims that will piomote the continueu
implementation of this appioach anu will enable stuuents to inteinalize stanuaius anu
become inuepenuent leaineis (Kaui et al., 2uuS). The teachei tiaining college at the
National Institute of Euucation has helu a vaiiety of woikshops to suppoit leaining about
the new assessments anu integiateu the new stiategies into teachei uevelopment
piogiams.

The countiy will begin using ICT to uelivei paits of the assessments in 2u1S unuei the
piemise that ICT can pioviue a iichei, moie inteiactive enviionment that can test stuuents
moie ueeply with incieasing complexity.
;42G4988 2* ?@1'#6
1200/X24/3,-9 ;42X09M 620-,*G /*+ W,G,3/0 K,394/B5
Singapoie has completeu task concept ieviews, stuuent cognitive laboiatoiies anu pilot
stuuies of the CPS anu uigital liteiacy tasks. Buiing the tiial of the CPS tasks, only two-
thiius of stuuents paiticipateu ieasonably tiouble-fiee uue to a seivei issue anu one school
44
that was uisiupteu is planning to ieuo the tiial. In all, S8 teacheis anu about 12uu stuuents,
ageu 11, 1S anu 1S, has taken pait in the pioject so fai. The tiial of the uigital liteiacy tasks
will commence aftei the tasks aie migiateu to the clouu-baseu platfoim.
)1@ 1/7/B,35
In teims of ICT capacity, Singapoie has finisheu a next geneiation bioaubanu linkup that
pioviues 1uu megabits in schools anu a minimum of 1uumb to homes, although piicing is
still being negotiateu. The next issue within Singapoie is the piovision of wiieless,
especially with the giowth of peisonal uevices anu the move towaius 1-1 computing in the
classioom. Singapoie aims to uevelop the associateu peuagogical piactices that can take
auvantage of this inciease in connectivity.
;/3<=/58 >24 ?@1'#6 ?+273,2*

Singapoie has a school clustei system in place which gioups 11-14 schools unuei the
leaueiship of an expeiienceu Piincipal. This platfoim allows innovations anu goou
piactices to spieau to moie schools anu can be tappeu foi piloting anu scaling if a
paiticulai pioject pioves useful in pilot schools. Platfoims such as piofessional leaining
communities anu othei communication tools anu netwoiks exist to uisseminate
infoimation to iefoim peuagogy anu piactice. Bowevei, the national system has a vaiiety of
piogiams anu will not necessaiily commit to any one appioach such as ATC21S without
stiong ieasons. Neveitheless, when an appioach such as ATC21S is ueemeu woithy, these
vaiious platfoims peimit tailoieu appioaches to implementation, incluuing in uiffeient
schools. The ieal impact of ATC21S lies in the tasks. When the tasks aie piopagateu anu
useu within peuagogical piactices, then Singapoie can assess how impactful the pioject can
be.
W9-9027,*G Y249 @/8:8
The fiist issue incluues the consiueiation of cuiient anu futuie tasks. Nany questions
iemain unansweieu, such as:
1) Aie the tasks ielevant to the cuiiiculai context within a iespective countiy.
a. If not, what can the countiy uo.
2) Bo the ATC21S countiies neeu to cieate moie tasks.
a. If so, who will uevelop them.
b. Will they be commeicializeu.
Eithei inuiviuual countiies oi gioups of countiies neeu to answei these questions as
ATC21S moves foiwaiu.
)*B24724/3,*G @/8:8 ,*32 ;4/B3,B9
A seconu issue conceins how a countiy woulu incoipoiate this ieseaich into actual
cuiiicula. In Singapoie's case, ATC21S may opeiate at both the piactitionei anu the
ieseaichei levels. Foi piactitioneis, Singapoie has alieauy staiteu activity on ielevant
piojects that attempt to ieshape peuagogical piactice. Foi example, with iespect to
collaboiative pioblem solving, Singapoie can cieate uesign pioblems that biing the
teacheis thiough the uesign piocess so that they can uesign pioblems foi the stuuents. In
theii peuagogical piactice, teacheis can use ATC21S tools foi foimative puiposes anu
45
uesign piocesses to measuie whethei stuuents have acquiieu these skills.
C.3.49 W,49B3,2*8
Aftei the enu of the pioject, Cheah thinks that theie is ioom foi bilateial oi multilateial
collaboiation going foiwaiu, possibly focusing on two main activities. Fiist, countiies coulu
piobably uevelop moie tasks. Seconu, countiies neeu to tianslate these tasks into
cuiiiculai activities anu peuagogical appioaches to make the teaching of these skills moie
explicitly ielevant to teacheis.

A numbei of ieseaich questions still iemain to be answeieu. Cuiiently, ATC21S only
uemonstiates the possibility of automating the assessment of 21
st
centuiy skills, but it uoes
not answei all of the potential questions. Foi example, on CPS tasks, the theoiy claims that
it uoes not mattei who a stuuent's paitneis aie, but Cheah's intuitive sense is that a
stuuent's paitneis uo mattei. The pioject has not actually measuieu that vaiiable. These
ieseaich questions then neeu to fostei a ieseaich initiative foi foimulating uesign pilots in
Singapoie's system. These tasks iequiie moie uevelopment anu ieseaich befoie Singapoie
foimally auopts them within a national stiuctuie. To get to auoption, Singapoie can stait
uoing the uesign piocess, continue the ongoing peuagogical ieseaich, anu moie
impoitantly, incoipoiate the tasks into the piocess. Some ieseaich questions can piobably
be auuiesseu by collaboiative woik between Singapoie anu Austialia, foi instance.

As to the shape of the pioject going foiwaiu, the concept is that it will be fieely available.
Whoevei wants to take on anu uownloau the tools, loau up the seivei, use the iubiics, anu
iun the assessment can uo so. Bowevei, this piocess will still iequiie one moie layei of
assistance foi contextualization. If a task is uevelopeu, will it apply to uiffeient countiies
like Bong Kong oi venezuela. These new countiies will likely still neeu a consultancy layei
to access the pioject. While taking the task is fine, these countiies may oi may not have the
capacity to integiate it into theii contexts. Theiefoie, the question iemains about whethei
ATC21S countiies pioviue the consultancy level anu whethei inuustiy paitneis will
paiticipate. Neveitheless, the ATC21S pioject has moveu ieseaich foiwaiu in Singapoie
anu continues to contiibute to the incoipoiation of 21
st
CS within its euucation system.
'#
83
19*3.45 6:,008 /*+ ;/3<=/58 >24 ?@1'#6 ?+273,2* ,* 3<9 H"6"

As a decentralized system with a new set of national standards, the Common Core State
Standards (CCSS) in English language arts and mathematics, the United States (U.S.) has
multiple levels of policy to be navigated for the adoption of 21
st
CS. Most states in the U.S. have
agreed to the CCSS, which incorporates some of the 21
st
CS as important outcomes for
curriculum and instruction, ciitical thinking, ieasoning, communication, anu ICT liteiacy
(P21, 2u11a). Also at the national level, two assessment consoitia have maishaleu the
coopeiation of about 2u states each to uevelop tests foi the CCSS. It is hopeu that these
new assessments will move beyonu the multiple-choice items that uominate tests in the
0niteu States to incluue moie communication, ciitical thinking, anu pioblem solving.

Although some piogiess has occuiieu in incoipoiating some of the 21
st
CS in stanuaius,
46
anu possibly new assessments to be launcheu in 2u14, state anu uistiict testing systems
still stiongly influence classioom piactice, which still functions, to vaiying extents, as the
uomain of the teachei, uepenuing on the natuie of state anu uistiict policies. Accoiuing to
ATC21S NPN anu Biiectoi of the Paitneiship foi the Assessment of Stanuaius-baseu
Science, Kathy Comfoit, the 0.S. still iequiies a noimative analysis of cuiiiculum,
stanuaius, constiucts, constiuct uefinitions, anu tasks to fully illustiate how teacheis can
teach 21
st
CS within the fiamewoiks of the CCSS anu consoitia assessments.
'#
83
19*3.45 6:,008 ,* 1.44,B.0.M /*+ @9/B<,*G ,* 3<9 H"6"
The 0.S. has a vaiiety of netwoiks to cieate anu influence the auoption of stanuaius into
cuiiicula. Accoiuing to Comfoit, oiganizations like the National Science Teacheis
Association (NSTA) have woikeu with the Paitneiship foi 21
st
Centuiy Skills (P21) to
cieate skill maps showing how 21
st
CS can be integiateu into coie subjects. The NRC also
piouuceu a iepoit uiscussing the inteisection of 21
st
CS with scientific anu engineeiing
piactices. The NSTA (2u11) also enuoises 21
st
CS in a position statement linking the woik
of the NRC anu P21. The National Council on Teacheis of Nathematics (NCTN), the Reauing
Association, anu associations fiom othei content aieas also politically suppoit the infusion
of a 21
st
CS appioach in cuiiiculum uevelopment.

Acioss this laige, uecentializeu nation, theie aie thousanus of local examples of effoits to
integiate 21
st
CS into piactice. Foi example, the Stevens Institute of Technology (SIT) in
New }eisey is woiking with schools thioughout N} to integiate collaboiation anu
communication skills as they aie useu in engineeiing into high school chemistiy anu
biology classes. SIT ieceiveu funuing fiom the National Science Founuation (NSF) to
supplement cuiient high school cuiiicula with scientific anu engineeiing piactices anu 21
st

CS. They have uevelopeu a seiies of mouules that incluue these piactices anu skills, but that
uo not change the context of teaching the cuiiiculum.

In Philauelphia, two non-piofit oiganizations, the Philauelphia Youth Netwoik (PYN) anu
the Philauelphia Acauemies, Inc. (PAI), aie paitneiing with businesses anu univeisities to
impiove euucational anu economic outcomes foi Philauelphia's youth. Both PYN anu PAI
have woikeu with citywiue paitneis to iuentify anu uefine 21
st
CS intenueu to piepaie
youth foi successful seconuaiy euucation anu caieeis, anu to become contiibuting
membeis of a global economy. Both oiganizations have oi aie ueveloping piogiams anu
assessments to suppoit the implementation of 21
st
CS.
The PYN assessment system will be uesigneu to measuie 21
st
CS thiough ieal woilu
contexts that aie motivating anu engaging foi stuuents anu focuseu on the values that PYN
seeks to uevelop in its paiticipating youth. PYN plans to iepoit iesults on piogiam impacts
to infoim youth leaining, piogiam impiovement, anu piogiam accountability. The PAI
online assessments of 21
st
CS will be uesigneu to suppoit its iecently funueu Bigital 0n-
Ramps Bauge System (B0R). The B0R bauges will be oiganizeu into piogiessive levels of
knowleuge within 21
st
centuiy skill aieas. The B0R assessments will be uiagnostic anu will
allow pioviueis to see how youth aie piogiessing thiough bauge assignments.
47
The ACT21S white papei, G2-%3%3F :+23)'UK%.,) 123)4.' 56%$$, was useu to suppoit the
uevelopment of the uefinitions anu constiucts foi the PYN online assessment (Binkley et
al., 2u12).
6
PYN's 21
st
CS, uefineu thiough the lens of woik ieauiness skills, incluue:
cieativity anu innovation, ciitical thinking, communication, collaboiation anu teaming,
Initiative anu self-uiiection, piouuctivity anu accountability, anu flexibility anu
auaptability. PAI's 21
st
CS incluue: uigital liteiacy, cieativity, ciitical thinking,
communication, collaboiation anu tiaining, Initiative anu self-uiiection, piouuctivity anu
accountability, anu flexibility anu auaptability. Table S below shows how the PYN anu PAI
21
st
CS coiielate to the 21
st
CS in ACT21S.
Table S: Coiielation of PYN anu PAI 21
st
Centuiy Skills to ACT21S 21
st
Centuiy Skills
ACT21S Creativity
and
Innovation
Critical
Thinking,
Problem
Solving,
Decision
Making
Learning to
Learn,
Metacognition
Communication
and
Collaboration
Information
Literacy
ICT
Literacy
Citizenship Life
And
Career
Personal &
Social
Responsibility
PYN Creativity
and
Innovation
Critical
Thinking
Communication
Collaboration
and Teaming
Initiative and self-
direction
Productivity and
accountability
Flexibility and
adaptability
PAI Creativity Critical
Thinking
Communication
Collaboration
and Training
Initiative and self-
direction
Productivity and
accountability
Flexibility and
adaptability

Souice: Auapteu fiom Comfoit (2u12), unpublisheu manusciipt.

At the state level, seveial states have auopteu 21
st
CS by builuing them into theii state
stanuaius acioss content aieas. West viiginia :2(&* /0 initiative has a website foi teacheis
(http:wvue.state.wv.usteach21) that pioviues ciosswalks between West viiginia's 21
st

CS anu the CCSS, cuiiiculum fiamewoiks, instiuctional plans, links to inteiim anu
foimative assessments, anu piofessional uevelopment viueos anu piesentations.

Nationally, the P21 (2u11b) has assembleu a website with iesouices foi euucatois,
policymakeis, anu community membeis foi unueistanuing the iole of 21
st
CS fiom the
leainei to the classioom anu policy. The National Reseaich Council has also conuucteu a
woikshop on the iole of 21
st
CS in science euucation, uocumenteu in a iepoit coveiing
stanuaius, cuiiiculum, teachei ieauiness, anu assessments (Bilton, 2u1u). Bowevei, in
most contexts in the 0.S., Comfoit iepoits that ATC21S iemains ielatively unknown as a

6
WestEu is cuiiently woiking with PYN to uevelop theii online assessment of 21
st
centuiy
skills. WestEu hau knowleuge of the woik of ACT21S anu hau the oppoitunity to use the
infoimation in the white papeis to suppoit PYN's woik.
48
iesouice foi consiueiing how to iuentify anu categoiize 21
st
CS. The ATC21S session at
AERA in 2u12 helpeu uisseminate knowleuge about the pioject anu iepiesents the type of
visibility necessaiy foi ieseaicheis, piactioneis, anu policymakeis to leain moie about 21
st

CS.
?88988,*G '#
83
19*3.45 6:,008 ,* 3<9 H"6"
Because of the high-stakes attacheu to basic skills tests in the 0niteu States ovei the last
uecaue, states laigely set asiue the effoits they began in the 199us to assess pioject woik,
communications, collaboiation, ICT skills, anu metacognitive abilities. Some states - like
those involveu in the Innovation Lab Netwoik of the Council of Chief State School 0fficeis -
aie woiking to ieclaim these kinus of assessments in some paits of theii system. Anu some
innovative schools have nevei given up on iich assessments of stuuent thinking anu
constiuction of complex investigations anu tasks. They have maintaineu peifoimance tasks
oi poitfolios of woik that iequiie stuuents to engage in ieseaich anu investigation,
complex pioblem-solving, anu multi-uimensional piesentations anu communication.

As anothei example of a piomising local initiative, SIT has uevelopeu papei-baseu tests of
21
st
CS in biology anu chemistiy. The SIT mouules weie uesigneu (with NSF funus) to
supplement existing N} high school biology anu chemistiy couises with 21
st
CS anu
engineeiing because 21
st
CS anu engineeiing uesign uo not exist in tiauitional biology anu
chemistiy cuiiicula. Accoiuing to Comfoit, one of the tasks, calleu "caibon block," assumes
that a company wants to sequestei caibon fiom the atmospheie anu fiom the ocean. These
two locations foim two bianches anu theie aie two uivisions, making foui souices of
unique infoimation ielateu to the same topic of global waiming anu sequesteiing caibon.
In the task, stuuents uevelop a scenaiio with the uata, using the souices to ieveal how the
caibon, foiests, ocean, etc. inteiact. The stuuents meet togethei foi some peiiou of time to
figuie out a solution foi sequesteiing caibon, uiawing on all the infoimation. The enu of the
task also incluues a seiies of questions about theii solution that tests to see if the stuuents
actually compiehenueu unique pieces of infoimation fiom foui uiffeient souices. The goal
is to unueistanu the level of success foi the stuuents' collaboiation.

Foi Comfoit, this appioach shows how to oveilay the testing of 21
st
CS, like collaboiation,
on any biology oi chemistiy cuiiiculum in SIT oi cuiiiculum at any level of schooling. Fiom
the tasks, teacheis can map wheie inuiviuual stuuents aie anu scaffolu instiuction
accoiuingly. Bowevei, some teacheis uo not know about leaining piogiessions, so the
tiajectoiy of implementing 21
st
CS neeus to incluue piofessional uevelopment using
ieseaich-baseu stiategies to teach teacheis about each of the components. The likelihoou
that teacheis will feel comfoitable incoipoiating these stiategies will uepenu as well as on
the ways in which cuiiiculum anu testing evolve at the state level anu the level of
piofessional uevelopment pioviueu to teacheis.

0n the national level, the National Assessment of Euucation Piogiess (NAEP) - a low-stakes
sample test conuucteu in vaiious subject aieas - is launching a technology anu engineeiing
liteiacy assessment in 2u14. This assessment will focus in pait on ICT liteiacy as a 21
st

centuiy skill in the ATC21S fiamewoik. Anothei possible laige-scale location foi assessing
21
st
CS is within the multi-state assessment consoitia. The Smaitei Balanceu Assessment
49
Consoitium (SBAC) has iequesteu auvanceu ielease of the ATC21S tasks, although
incoipoiating them within the content aieas to be testeu (English language aits anu
mathematics) anu within the testing time winuows cuiiently unuei uiscussion seems
unlikely.
K9882*8 >42M ?@1'#6 ,* 3<9 H"6"
Accoiuing to Comfoit, ieciuitment foi teachei paiticipation in the tiial phase in the 0.S.
uemonstiateu some inteiest, as eight-five teacheis applieu to paiticipate. The piocess
incluueu pilot tests in thiee classiooms in 2u11 foi uigital liteiacy. This expanueu to five
states foi the fielu tiials in }anuaiy 2u12. Aiizona hau seven teacheis, Califoinia hau foui
teacheis, New Nexico hau one teachei, anu Texas hau five teacheis. Bowevei, as in othei
countiies, technical uifficulties with the seivei pieventeu full uata collection foi the
collaboiative pioblem solving (CPS) tasks.

In paiticulai, 0.S. law unuei the Chiluien's Inteinet Piotect Act places iestiictions on
schools ieceiving ceitain types of funuing foi the level of stuuent access to the Inteinet.
Nany uistiicts in the tiials woulu not ieset theii fiiewalls, complicating the seivei issue.
0thei issues incluueu accessibility anu the technology infiastiuctuie in the schools anu the
lack of IT peisonnel on-site at schools. Auministiatois of the NAEP national pilot of ICT
liteiacy bought theii own laptops into the classiooms anu pioviueu IT staff on-site to
alleviate these pioblems, although that solution is not feasible on a national scale.

The task auministiation also poseu challenges. Some teacheis knew some of the
technological piocesses, but the collaboiation piece was not intuitive oveiall. Nany
stuuents, especially the 1u
th
giaueis in the pilot, coulu not figuie out how to collaboiate oi
locate theii paitneis online. In one case, a single stuuent playeu all of the ioles in the task.
Buiing tiaining, Comfoit tolu teacheis to make suie they uiscuss that the tasks woulu
iequiie gioup collaboiation anu explain online collaboiation. They tasks incluue
assumptions that eveiybouy knows what online collaboiation involves, but teacheis
sometimes uo not know. Foi instance, Comfoit hau to infoim the pilot teacheis that one
task incluueu teams of foui anu anothei hau teams of two. Comfoit hau the teacheis
instiuct the stuuents to ask theii paitneis online oi use the Inteinet foi help. Also, the tasks
oscillate between gioup anu inuiviuual woik anu they uo not have a fluiu connection
between uiiections foi when to woik inuiviuually oi collaboiatively. Thus, the pilots
pioveu useful in illuminating the uiveise neeus of teacheis anu stuuents in this novel
testing enviionment.

Comfoit suggests that one methou of intiouucing 21
st
CS to teacheis is having them
peifoim tasks. Thiough this appioach, ATC21S can put teacheis in the position of leaineis.
Then the pioject can ask teacheis, "baseu on what you've just uone as a leainei, how uo
you think youi kius woulu uo on a task like this." Teacheis can pioviue theii estimates of
how stuuents woulu peifoim on a giaffiti wall. Foi instance, some teacheis might say that
8u% of theii stuuents woulu coopeiate anu collaboiate togethei, know how to make
meaning out of poetiy, anu be able to constiuct the giaffiti wall. Bowevei, ATC21S might
then ieveal iesults fiom the pilot oi the fielu tiials anu show that only Su% of stuuents
50
coulu peifoim these tasks. Teacheis can then uissect the constiucts anu think about them
vis--vis theii instiuction anu cuiiiculum.

Aftei achieving the goal of helping teacheis think about the ielationships between
instiuction anu 21
st
CS as uefineu by the pioject, then the question emeiges of how
teacheis can use oi mouify tasks anu builu them into instiuction. They might use the tasks
as foimative oi summative assessments. Teacheis coulu then tiiangulate uata fiom ATC21S
assessments anu uistiict anu state tests to make a continuum of assessments. Comfoit
emphasizes howevei, that this piocess shoulu stait with teacheis in places as leaineis,
because otheiwise teacheis might not unueistanu the skills oi the tasks. Buiing the
tiaining foi the pilot test, teacheis likeu the iuea of 21
st
CS, but some weie not familiai with
them. 0ne of the lessons fiom the pilot tiaining was a basic lack of familiaiity with the tasks
anu 21
st
CS.

Comfoit envisions a futuie step that coulu incluue suppoiting anu woiking with teacheis in
the 0.S. alieauy involveu in the pilot. They coulu see theii iesults anu have a uiscussion of
how to biiuge that new knowleuge about stuuent peifoimance back into the classioom.
This stiategy woulu piouuce piofessional uevelopment piototypes that answei questions
about how to teach anu assess 21
st
CS anu how to infuse them into the cuiiiculum. Foi
example, if a teachei sees that stuuents can uo "x" skill on a task, but not "y," they can think
about the implications foi theii instiuction.

Comfoit thinks the pioject neeus to biiuge a missing link between the completion of the
fielu tiials anu placing the tasks in the public uomain. Without a tiansition peiiou oi
tianslation of the iesults foi teacheis, the question aiises foi teacheis about how to
tianslate uata iesults fiom these assessments into cuiiiculum anu instiuction. The cuiient
iuea is that teacheis woulu stait leaining to map theii teaching on theii constiuct maps.
Bowevei, foi Comfoit, teacheis fiist neeu to leain about 21
st
CS, so they neeu a piimei.
ATC21S neeus to incluue a stiuctuie foi piofessional uevelopment to help teacheis
unueistanu what these skills aie anu how to woik with them.

In teims of public outieach, Comfoit thinks that the piesentation of the mateiials matteis a
gieat ueal in the inteipietation of theii cognitive uifficulty. Piesenting the tasks to the
public iequiies the use of viueo to illustiate the complexity of the inteiactions in which
stuuents have asymmetiical access to infoimation. 0nly pioviuing scieen shots of the tasks
uo not ieveal the ieal time conveisation that is the collaboiation skillset unuei ieview.
Comfoit thinks this is especially impoitant foi communicating with the Bepaitments of
Euucation at the state anu national level, as they will question the cognitive complexity.

;/3<=/58 >24 ?@1'#6 ?+273,2* ,* 3<9 H"6"
Comfoit pioposes that the 0.S. BoE neeus a piototype anu not just the tasks in oiuei foi
them to consiuei auoption. They neeu to have some backgiounu of the pioject, the
uefinition of 21
st
CS, how 21
st
CS aie taught, anu how they fit into cuiiiculum anu
instiuction. This coulu be a package, potentially an asynchionous online PB piogiam with
some paits online anu othei paits wheie teacheis gathei anu they piactice these skills. Foi
51
Comfoit, people neeu to unueistanu how these tasks fit within cuiiiculum anu instiuction
foi auoption to occui.

0ne pioject stiength that coulu be leveiageu is the paitneiships alieauy in place between
univeisities, NoEs, ieseaich oiganizations, anu the technology companies. Anothei
possibility is foi a pioposal to IES oi NSF to continue the uiffeient avenues of ieseaich
openeu by this pioject, such as the aiticulation of leaining piogiessions, the use of online
assessments compaieu to papei-baseu ones, anu the ielative effectiveness of measuies of
CPS skills oi uigital liteiacy skills. ATC21S has set the stage foi potential futuie ieseaich
questions that coulu be completeu, possibly with inteinational collaboiation in auuition to
0.S. involvement.
52
A9>949*B98

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56
?779*+,I ?J )*394-,9=99 K,83

ATC21S Interviews
Interviewee
Name
Interview
Dates
Member Country/
Organization
Position/Title
Tony Zanderigo
9/16/11 &
4/14/12
Australia
National Project Manger -
Proxy for Janet Davey
Arto Ahonen
9/15/11 &
4/14/12
Finland
National Project Manager -
Proxy for Marja
Kankaanranta
Horn-Mun
Cheah & Sean
Tan
9/15/11 Singapore
Member of the Executive
Board and National Project
Manager (Proxy for Chew
Leng Poon)
Kathy Comfort
9/16/11 &
5/30/12
United States National Project Manager
Elsie Campos &
Maria Eugenia
Bujanda
9/14/11 &
4/16/12
Costa Rica National Project Manager
Diederich
Schonau
9/14/11 &
4/16/12
Netherlands National Project Manager
Eugenio Severin 9/14/11
Inter-American
Development Bank
Advisory Panel Member
Michael
Stevenson
9/15/11 CISCO
Member of the Executive
Board
Seamus Hegarty 9/15/11 IEA Advisory Panel Member
Additional Focus Group Participants
Martina Roth 9/16 Intel Corporation Project Taskforce
Greg Butler 9/16 Microsoft Project Taskforce
Note: Founding countries in bold.