We specialize in professional staff development and curriculum design. Our goal is to assist educators in creating schools and classrooms that are truly 21st century. See our continually evolving essay, What is 21st Century Education?. We will help you develop an authentic paradigm of 21st century education, discover an almost infinite variety of ways to create schools and classrooms aligned to the 21st century, and learn specific strategies to make your 21st century schools a reality.   We provide new program design as well as curriculum "makeovers" that prepare learners for 21st century academic and career pathways.  We realize that "one size does not fit all", and we will help you develop education defined by critical attributes of the 21st century while maintaining the integrity defined by your unique community.

21st Century Schools is an independent company founded in 1995 by Anne Shaw. We specialize in professional staff development and curriculum design. Because we consider ourselves agents of change, we do not cater to the traditional ways of designing and delivering education that are no longer appropriate for the 21st century.   Click here to see our Advisory Board (who are also available for occasional keynotes), and click here to see our Professional Development Consultants.

Our goal is to assist educators in creating schools and classrooms that are truly 21st century. See our continually evolving essay, What is 21st Century Education?. We can help you develop an authentic paradigm of 21st century education, discover an almost infinite variety of ways to create schools and classrooms, and learn specific strategies to make your 21st century schools a reality.

Our programs are supported not only by our consultants' personal experiences and successes in the classroom, but by the examples of many classrooms and schools as well as by a growing body of research published by leading research universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Princeton and others of similar prestige.

See our Digital Brochure

Who We Are Not - Although the names are similar, we are not the federal program, 21st Century Community Learning Centers, a program established by the federal government. Our company, 21st Century Schools, was established 7 years prior to the federal program with a similar name. That said, our workshops are perfect for, and have been attended by, many people running these federally funded programs at their districts!

21st Century Schools is unique among the many providers of professional staff development.

First of all, our workshops are limited to small groups. This allows the presenters to provide truly personalized, individual assistance to the participants.

We don't just talk about the 21st century classroom, we model it. These are NOT the typical "sit and get" lectures you are used to attending. They are highly interactive, and, in addition to the serious reflections and comments we receive, we frequently hear exclamations of how the workshop was "truly amazing" , "fun", and "the best workshop I ever attended". Read additional comments by attendees.

Other providers offer a traditional, fragmented, content-focused, almost textbook-driven menu of topics. We feel that what they offer serves to maintain the current (and past) educational system, and that they do not address authentic 21st century schooling.

Our menu is 21st century, interdisciplinary and integrated. We connect directly to skills and knowledge required for success in the 21st century. Please see our article, What is 21st Century Education? Also see our chart comparing the traditional classroom to the 21st century classroom.

You've got a cell phone at one ear and an iPod at the other. You know that Blackberry is now a verb and that Spam is not just canned meat. It's the 21st century . . .

Today's students, digital natives, were born into a media-saturated world, and their lives are immersed in technologies from cell phones, iPods, handheld gaming devices, PDAs, and laptops they take everywhere, to the computers, TVs, and game consoles at home.

Even toddlers are utilizing multimedia devices and the Internet through handheld video games such as Leapster, and web sites such as www.PBSkids.org and www.NickJr.com, where preschoolers (including my 2-year-old grandson) easily navigate these electronic, multimedia resources to play games in which they learn colors, numbers, letters, spelling, and more complex tasks from mixing basic colors to creating new colors, problem-solving activities, and reading. Even many of their cartoon characters such as Dora the Explorer, and a character named Pixel on LazyTown utilize the Internet, digital cameras, printers and other technologies! 

At 21st Century Schools we focus on these aspects of the new millennium

• Multimedia and Technologies connected to our Media Culture

• Global Classroom - for a Globalized World

• Diversity - linguistic, religious, racial, physical ability, class and more

• Service Learning

• Multiple Literacies for the 21st Century

• We take you and your students beyond the standards - more than mere test prep for NCLB

• Classroom strategies for independent, self-directed, interdependent student learning

• Integrated, project-based and interdisciplinary

• Directly connected to the real world of the 21st century

• Connected to the community

Benefits to Educators -

• New understanding of what a 21st century classroom IS

• How to create 21st century curriculum

• Delivery of curriculum via multimedia and technologies

• Specific strategies to create and maintain a 21st century classroom

• Design and deliver meaningful curriculum AND exceed NCLB

• Personalized - create curriculum designed for YOUR classroom, school and community

• Fun

• Opportunity to attend in cities that are fun and have excellent curriculum resources

Benefits to Students -

• High levels of student motivation

• Higher levels of student learning

• Higher test scores

• Higher graduation rates

• More students go on to college

• Curriculum is connected to students' interests and experiences

• Curriculum is connected to real world

• School is aligned to media-saturated world