Center for Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education The Keck Center of the National Academies 500 Fifth St., NW Room 110 Washington, D.C. Planning Meeting on Education for 21st Century Skills October 28, 2005 DRAFT AGENDA
8:00	Breakfast available in Meeting Room
8:30	Welcome and Introductions
	Martin Orland, Director, Center for Education
	Bruce Fuchs, Director, Office of Science Policy, NIH
	Session 1: What do policymakers want to know about 21st century skills?
	Moderator: Mel George, President Emeritus and Professor of Mathematics Emeritus, University of Missouri
8:50-9:50	Roundtable discussion of the following questions:
	• What questions about 21st century skills do you have that could be answered by research? • How might you use answers to such questions in formulating education, training, or economic policy? • Does currently available research on 21st century skills meet your needs? Are there promising examples of research on 21st century skills informing policy? •
	Bruce Fuchs, Director, Office of Science Policy, National Institutes of Health
	Donald Thompson, Assistant Director, Education and Human Resources Directorate, National Science Foundation
	Benjamin Wu, Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, U.S. Department of Commerce
	Mason Bishop, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor (invited)
	Peter McWalters, Commissioner of Education, Rhode Island, CFE Board Member
	Kerri Briggs, Office of the Deputy Secretary, Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education
10:05	Break
10:20-12:00	Session 2: What do we know about the demand for skills in the 21st century economy and the supply of those skills in the current and future labor force? What research is available, and where are the areas of consensus or disagreement in the research?
	Opening Remarks, Moderator: Martin Orland, Director, Center for Education
	Roundtable discussion Mary Gatta, Director of Workforce Policy and Research, Rutgers Center for Women and Work
	Ken Kay, President, Partnership for 21st Century Skills
	Harry Holzer, Professor, Georgetown University
	• What research is available on the changing skill requirements of jobs? Are there areas of consensus or disagreement about the future distribution of high-skill, low-skill and medium-skill jobs? • What are the challenges to projecting future growth/decline in occupations and in the tasks and skill requirements of jobs? • Is it possible, based on the available research, to define generic, “new basic” or “21st century” skills that will be required across most jobs? To define 21st century skills that will be required for particular groups of jobs (e.g., for “good” jobs)? • What lists of basic skills have been proposed? • What do we know about the education and skills of the current U.S. workforce? The projected future education and skill levels? • What approaches to education and training might help to develop “new basic” skills in the current and future workforce? •
	Questions and General Discussion
	Moderator reflections on session
12:15	Lunch
1:00	Session 3: What do we know about developing 21st century skills through existing academic subjects in K-12 and higher education? What research is available?
	Moderator: Helen Quinn, Professor, Stanford Linear Accelerator, CFE Board Member
1:05-2:00	Roundtable (participants discuss the following questions): • How might efforts to develop 21st century skills intersect with current efforts to reform education, including STEM education? • What research is available on the development of 21st century skills through education in existing academic subjects? Do we have evidence that reforms in instruction, curriculum, and assessment lead to increases in such skills as complex communications, non-routine problem-solving, reading, writing, and mathematics? • What are the challenges (in curriculum, instruction and assessment) to developing 21st century skills? •
	Louis Gomez, Professor, Northwestern University, CFE Board Member
	Judith Ramaley, President, Winona State University
	Robert Linn, Professor, University of Colorado, CFE Board Member
2:45	Break
3:00	Session 4: Small Group Discussions Each team is asked to brainstorm three questions that would guide an NRC synthesis study of education for 21st century skills. Please include your rationale for each question—What makes this a critical question for study? What audience would use the answers to this question? (Write proposed questions and rationale on flip chart).
	Breakout rooms: 110, 106, 205, 1100A (Levison Room)
3:45	Reporting Out by Small Groups
4:00	Determine possible guiding questions for an NRC study
4:30	Reflections on the Day and Next Steps: Kent McGuire, Dean, Graduate School of Education, Temple University, CFE Board Member
4:50	Adjourn