Future Wise (PDF)

How to teach big understandings and the ideas that matter
most

Everyone has an opinion about education, and teachers face
pressures from Common Core content standards, high-stakes testing,
and countless other directions. But how do we know what today's
learners will really need to know in the future? Future
Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World is a toolkit
for approaching that question with new insight. There is no one
answer to the question of what's worth teaching, but with the tools
in this book, you'll be one step closer to constructing a
curriculum that prepares students for whatever situations they
might face in the future.

K-12 teachers and administrators play a crucial role in building
a thriving society. David Perkins, founding member and co-director
of Project Zero at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, argues
that curriculum is one of the most important elements of making
students ready for the world of tomorrow. In Future Wise,
you'll learn concepts, curriculum criteria, and techniques for
prioritizing content so you can guide students toward the big
understandings that matter.

* Understand how learners use knowledge in life after
graduation

* Learn strategies for teaching critical thinking and addressing
big questions

* Identify top priorities when it comes to disciplines and
content areas

* Gain curriculum design skills that make the most of learning
across the years of education

Future Wise presents a brand new framework for thinking
about education. Curriculum can be one of the hardest things for
teachers and administrators to change, but David Perkins shows that
only by reimagining what we teach can we lead students down the
road to functional knowledge. Future Wise is the practical
guidebook you need to embark on this important quest.