Phase One
ATC21S began with more than 250 researchers, practitioners and assessment experts defining the current state of education.
Five working groups across more than 60 research institutions produced white papers about their findings to help governments move from theory to the practical implementation of assessing, teaching and learning 21st-century skills.
The white papers are available from our white paper page.
Phase Two
As a result of this work, ATC21S selected two 21st-century skills that encompass all the major skill areas identified by the team:
- Collaborative problem-solving (CPS)
- ICT literacy — learning in digital networks.
Hypotheses were developed around these skills, and the learning progressions from novice to expert were defined.
Phase Three
In Phase Three the ATC21S team focused on task development and pilots. Assessment tasks for the two skills, collaborative problem solving and ICT literacy, were developed.
Our founder countries Australia, Finland, Singapore and the U.S. worked in “cognitive laboratories,” during which researchers interacted directly with students and teachers. This process helped us understand how students think and work through tasks, as well as how teachers help students to develop their competencies.
Phase Four
Now in Phase Four wide-scale fieldwork trials are being conducted in Australia, Finland, Singapore and the U.S., with associate countries Costa Rica and the Netherlands joining in to help test how language and culture affect the 21st-century teaching and assessments.
Phase Five
In the last phase of the project, ATC21S resources will be placed in the public domain. Government policy-makers, teachers, school systems and assessment institutions will be able to use and modify the existing research and materials to bring the two 21st-century skills into classrooms around the world. We envision that the ATC21S model can also be used to build out additional 21st century skills.