From my research, it appears that most disciplines are sharing at least these issues - 21st century teaching, learning, skill sets, resources, methods, support, technology, conferencing, collaboration, retention, motivation (both teacher and student), opportunity and reward.

There are no solutions. There are problems raised as awareness is raised. Trial and error seems to be leading the way. It seems students are learning in ways the education community can't keep up with. Well, perhaps. A faster response to a rapidly changing student environment is necessary. Unfortunately, curriculum changes are usually approved from the Department of Education and on down from there. Some schools have a little leeway to play with, but not enough.

Students are being exposed to a huge amount of information, in many forms. I watch my students and see them "turn off" school and play/learn with their palm-sized computers, like the iPod Touch. And learn they do! But not what we teach them. We try to teach them enough to use as building blocks but sometimes we have to bring them down from the clouds so that WE can assess their comprehension. It turns out, most of the time, that they are ahead of us because they can multi-task so well. We don't even see it. And they take it for granted.

It seems to me that teaching has to come from at least two directions at the same time. This is the challenge for teachers.

Cheers - Mike