Learners around the world need advanced skills to succeed in the globalized, knowledge-based world of today. 21st Century Learning Design, or 21CLD, professional development helps educators redesign their existing lessons and learning activities to build learners’ 21st century skills. Transforming education by focusing on 21st century skills is one of Microsoft’s focus areas, and providing workshops for educators on the 21CLD curriculum has been successful.

The 21CLD curriculum – developed to enhance 21st century skills in student learning – builds on the 21CLD research methodology, providing a collaborative, practice-based process that helps educators transform how they design enriching learning activities for their learners. The eight courses incorporate online tutorials, video, readings, educator-discussion and self-assessment. Educators have the opportunity to actively engage with evidence of 21CLD in action in classes across the globe.

The 21CLD curriculum is based on rubrics, which were developed and tested internationally for the Innovative Teaching and Learning (ITL) Research project. These rubrics help educators identify and understand the opportunities that learning activities give learners to build 21st century skills. A learning activity is any task that learners do as part of their school-related work. It can be an exercise that learners complete in one class period or an extended project that takes place both in and outside of school. The 21CLD rubrics incorporate a research-based methodology for coding learning activities to ensure you’re embedding 21st century skills in your teaching practices.