The Rush for ’21st-Century Skills’ in Education – Advanced skills are best learned together

In a seventh-grade science class at Grace E. Metz Middle School in Manassas, 12-year-olds Chris Isaacson and Nathan McCallister were building a bridge out of 30 uncooked pieces of spaghetti. They had drawn several plans. After pushing down on the spaghetti from several angles, they decided that vertical struts were the best way to strengthen their bridge for the test: How many books could it hold before collapsing?

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The notion that basic and advanced skills are best learned together is one of the major findings of a recent report on mathematics education, funded and released by the U.S. Department of Education. The best learning happens, the report asserts, when students learn basic content and processes, such as the rules and procedures of arithmetic, at the same time that they learn how to think and solve problems.

By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer

Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/04/AR2009010401533.html?hpid=sec-education