Are We Ready To Redefine how “21st-Century Learning is defined … yet?

Published: June 16, 2020, 9 a.m.

In this episode, Jeff sits down with Andy Calkins to discuss how Covid-19 has redefined and restructured what happens in the classroom and the board room.


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In This Episode ...Who is NGLC and what is your role in the organization?


What is next-generation learning and your recent change management project?


Why is it imperative for K-12 education to reimagine the education system?


What does transformational change look like in a school district?


Have districts been successful in transforming their systems with the goal of equipping students with 21st-century skills?


How has the work of districts committed to reimagining education been impacted by COVID-19?


With COVID-19, were districts who are committed to the change management project able to continue providing rich learning experiences for students?


What are you hearing from the districts in your network about plans for the fall?


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About our GuestAs the Director of Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC), Andrew Calkins helps to lead a national effort to fundamentally transform secondary and postsecondary education through the development of personalized, competency-based, student-centered, blended learning models, enabled in part by technology. Since its inception late in 2010, NGLC has invested more than $75 million in a range of “building block” innovations and wholeschool and college degree-program models designed by educators to create more personalized learning and substantially improved outcomes for students. These grants have catalyzed many of the leading new models in postsecondary education (SNHU’s College for America and Northern Arizona’s Division of Personalized Learning, for example) and K-12 (Summit, Design Tech, Brooklyn LAB, Cornerstone, MATCH Next, Matchbook, USC Hybrid High, and Horry County Public Schools, for example). The NGLC Regional Funds, seven regional or city-based incubators, are using NGLC funds, supports, and modeling to catalyze 70 more personalized, competency-based, student-centered, blended schools – both charters and in-district schools, by Fall 2016. Together, these breakthrough grantees constitute perhaps the nation’s foremost network of schools, colleges, and universities creating fundamentally new models of learning and institutional organization.


Calkins brings three decades of experience in education reform in leadership positions at Scholastic Inc., where he served as editor of Electronic Learning magazine, Recruiting New Teachers Inc., Mass Insight Education and Research Institute, and the Stupski Foundation. He was the lead author of the influential Mass Insight report, The Turnaround Challenge, which helped to launch the nation’s focused efforts to turn around its most consistently under-performing schools and has been downloaded more than a quarter-million times.


Calkins writes frequently for national publications and websites and has spoken at education conferences and other events across the country. He earned his B.A. from Harvard College and was a Henry Fellow at Pembroke College in the UK. Calkins served for six years as an elected member of the Hamilton-Wenham Regional School Committee and for five years as chair of the board of trustees for the Waring School. He lives in Gloucester, MA with his wife and