Researchers, educators, and students agree that today’s students are noticeably different from those being
educated a century, or even 20 years, ago. Looking into today’s classroom, you will often find students whose first
language is not English, students with behavioral and attention challenges, students from a variety of cultural
backgrounds, and students who are not reading at grade level (Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development, 2014). And yet, while today’s young people are measurably different, too often the methods and
means by which they are taught have not changed accordingly.
An opening section of this report described 21st century student as the most diverse and technologically-advanced
generation of students to ever enter our nation’s classrooms. For these students, historical “stand and deliver”
teaching approaches simply ring hollow.