Trilling and Fadel (2009) found five key findings that may help guide and reshape learning to meet the needs of the 21st century learner. They suggest that teachers create more authentic learning experiences, since 21st century learners need more real-world problem solving opportunities in a suitable environment. Teachers should allow mental model building, since these learners should be provided with opportunities to be involved in situations that incorporate new experiences which will change their views over time. It is important for teachers to create lessons that have an emotional connection to what is being learned and to create more personalized learning opportunities for learners. Trilling and Fadel (2009) suggests that teachers embed social learning into lessons where learners learn from each other. They also suggest that teachers incorporate online communication within the learning environment.
In order for teachers to accommodate the needs of the 21st century learner, teachers too need to develop some crucial skills to fit in the 21st century educational paradigm and to adequately prepare today's students for their future (Trilling & Fadel, 2009). Trilling & Fadel (2009) suggest that teachers share and model the use of current internet tools, participate in professional networks, assist learners as they build their learning networks, provide sufficient learning opportunities for learners to become digitally literate and inspire every learner to be quality digital global citizens.
Scott (2015) suggest specific pedagogies and perspectives that will offer learners the best opportunities to acquire competencies and skills needed to successfully navigate a complex
and uncertain future. One of the perspectives is to renew the focus on quality. In order to achieve the goal of highly competent and committed teachers using active pedagogies, government must ensure that there is an adequate supply of well-trained and motivated teachers and school leadership, improve teachers’ training and offer sufficient professional development opportunities.
Teachers’ need to foster participation within a 21st century learning environment (McLoughlin & Lee, 2008). In the 21st century, learning and social interaction is encouraged through participatory learning. Potential school-entering learners, and current learners, are already exposed to a peer-participation. Through this participation, learners are able to collaboratively, and socially, identify new developments regarding social networks and the impact on her personal improvement. It is evident that teachers should be experimenting with social networks to engage and provide new opportunities for the learners in a 21st century learning environment (McLoughlin & Lee, 2008). McLoughlin and Lee (2008, p.9) highlight that it adds a “further dimension to participative learning by increasing the level of socialization and collaboration with experts, community and peer groups, and by fostering connections that are often global in reach”.
Scott (2015) suggests that teachers personalize and customize learning. As people learn in a variety of ways and may take multiple pathways to skills acquisition, education must be reorganized around each ‘learner’s journey’ (Leadbeater & Wong, 2010). Twenty-first century education will require more personalized learning with an emphasis on supporting creativity. Scott (2015, p.12) stress that “personalization has implications for what, how and where we teach”. Personalization occurs through collaboration, provides for more rapid sharing of innovation and good practice, and quickly captures information about learners’ aptitudes and progress.
Furthermore, it is important for teachers to emphasize project and problem-based learning within the learning environment. McLoughlin and Lee (2008) highlight that students receive opportunities to direct and manage their own learning process and cite evidence about the effectiveness of giving learners control over and responsibility for their learning. This is the main concept behind project and problem-based learning and is central to twenty-first century pedagogy. With project and problem-based learning, students learn by designing and constructing actual solutions to real-life problems.
Collaboration and communication is another 21st century trend that shifts learning from teacher-centred settings to collaborative ones where students communicate. Collaborative learning is the intentional grouping and pairing of learners for the purpose of achieving a
learning goal. Collaborative learning is a broad term for a variety of educational approaches involving joint intellectual effort by learners, or learners and teachers together. In most collaborative learning situations, learners work in groups of two or more, mutually searching for understanding, solutions, or meanings, or creating a product (Scott, 2015).
The 21st century learner needs to be engaged and motivated, since research emphasizes the importance of the teacher’s role in motivating learners and finding ways for them to build intrinsic motivation. According to Malone and Smith (2008) motivation is based on developing the interest of learners, maintaining their involvement and encouraging confidence in their abilities to perform a specific task. Teachers can foster learning and motivation by ensuring that success is recognized and praised. Scott (2015) also suggest that teachers should foster motivation by clarifying the purpose of lessons with learners and sharing their long-term learning goals.
Scott (2015) argues that innovation and creativity are very valuable competencies in knowledge societies. Creativity is deeply social, with most creative insights typically emerging from collaborative and creative circles. In the 21st century teachers must be courageous in their pursuit to disrupt conventional wisdom and development of a learning environment that encourages learners to improvise and be innovative above rote learning (Scott, 2015). Scott (2015) argue that learners’ are not being taught to create knowledge. Learners’ have the misconception that knowledge is static and complete and in order for them to become an expert, they must consume knowledge rather than produce it. In the 21st century “the ultimate goal of learning is to stimulate learners’ capacities to create and generate ideas, concepts and knowledge (McLoughlin & Lee, 2014). A 21st century teacher will play a key role in helping learners recognise and develop their creativity by encouraging, identifying and fostering creativity in the learning environment.
It is important that teachers employ appropriate learning tools within the learning environment which will ensure the accommodation of 21st century needs. The transformation of pedagogy goes beyond the idea that new technologies will produce new forms of learning and new competencies. While technological developments play an important role in learning and can create new and unprecedented opportunities, technology alone cannot ensure a successful learning experience (Davies, Fidler and Gorbis, 2011). There are many different instructional tools available to teachers to stimulate learning and help learners create new knowledge in collaboration with their peers. Teachers can use instructional tools such as strategic questioning, capitalizing on learners’ interest in mobile technologies and making the most of social media.
In order to accommodate the needs of the 21st century learners teachers need to design relevant and real-world learning activities. Learning activities that are designed to connect student experiences to real-world problems will transform their focus. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2007, p.11) echoes this point: ‘when students realize the connection between what they are learning and real-world issues that matter to them, their motivation soars, and so does their learning’.