Editor’s note: RenzulliLearning, a division of CompassLearning , is a state-of-the-art education system that provides tools to support differentiated learning in classrooms across the country. In this interview, Dr. Joseph Renzulli, co-creator of RenzulliLearning, discusses how differentiated learning can help students gain skills needed for success in the 21st century.

Forefront (FF): For the start of a brave new century, is the day of reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic over?

Renzulli: Actually, I think we’re coming out of an entirely different 3R’s era: Ram, Remember, and Regurgitate.

FF: That doesn’t sound like much fun at all.

Renzulli: Not only has this approach stripped the enjoyment, engagement and enthusiasm out of school, we’re robbing our students of the capacities they will need for the 21st century.

FF: What are those skills?

Renzulli: The 21st century needs creative thinkers and problem solvers. Our knowledge-driven world requires time-management skills, cooperative work habits, and a number of critical thinking skills.

But our kids are being taught only to remember. We’re drilling information into them that is quickly forgotten. Even worse, kids know we are asking them to cram information into their brains that they could find with the touch of a finger on the closest cell phone. So when we ask them to remember and repeat, they think we’re out of touch. And they are right; the education system is slow to the table on this.

FF: But is this just “kids these days” wanting to get out of memorizing the multiplication table? Call me old-fashioned, but I want my kids to know how to multiply without needing electronics.

Renzulli: We’re not talking about needing to eliminate achievement of core competencies. There is no question that those are critical—kids need to know how to read, add sums, find Zimbabwe on a map, and understand the difference between a representation democracy and an authoritarian regime. However, the problem is that our education system generally considers only achievement on those measurements. If we stop there—and align our schools to focus only on that, achieving that at any cost, we are simply going to miss key pieces that will make lifelong learners.

The key—and where the biggest failing and opportunity lie—is understanding that the achievement of knowledge is only the starting point. We need to shift teachers from being essentially less-interesting-than-cell-phone fact providers into people who are helping students gain skills that will not only equip them with core competencies, but understand how to learn, synthesize, and make use of increasingly complex subject matter.

Memorization doesn’t create problem solvers. We must infuse these higher kinds of learning into the general curriculum or we will fail to prepare them for the future, if not lose them forever.

FF: So how do we do that?

Renzulli: We’ve got to take into account three other crucial elements: the interests of young people, learning styles and the way in which young people express themselves. Then we have to teach subject matter to kids in ways that intersect with those interests and styles. When we can do that, we’ve piqued their interests, we’ve offered opportunities to interact with the material and they’ve now integrated the subject and the process into their understanding.

It’s this personalized learning experience that will give kids the knowledge AND the skills to dive into newer, more complex issues.

FF: That seems like a great theory, but impractical.

Renzulli: This approach to teaching isn’t new. Decades of research have shown that one-size-fits-all is not ideal in a classroom. We’ve learned that there are nine different learning styles and forms of expression among children. And we know that lessons geared toward those styles help students master the material effectively and with increased degrees of engagement and enthusiasm.

The challenge has always been: how to make that personalized learning paradigm accessible to everyone?

When one teacher has twenty-five students in a class, he or she has up to 9 different learning styles in one classroom. At a practical level, it’s a paperwork nightmare to create lesson plans. At a personal level, it’s an exceptionally creative mind that could craft opportunities for so many different needs and still meet achievement requirements.

It’s never been accessible until we brought technology into the equation like we have with the Renzulli Learning System. Technology and digital storage gave us the opportunity to connect all those dots to create an accessible and effective system. We can take an assessment of a child’s learning styles, gather their interests and then connect those assessments to activities that will allow students to master specific subject matter material more in line with their preferred ways of learning.

FF: Can you give me an example?

Renzulli: Sure thing. Let’s say a class is working through a section on the Constitution. Several of the students are SIMULATION oriented learners who learn very effectively through role-play. The Renzulli System offers a number of activities that intersect lesson requirements with this type of learner. For example, a possible activity could ask these students to dramatize a debate between the Federalists and Jeffersonians, take on different roles, argue positions and then switch sides to argue the other position. These students must think on their feet, using facts to form arguments and see different points of view—all while learning the principals on which our country is based.

FF: That sounds like a lot of fun. But can it be measured?

Renzulli: The University of Georgia just completed a study in which they measured the difference in students’ standardized test scores before and after using the Renzulli Learning method. They saw that after 16 weeks, students who participated in Renzulli Learning demonstrated significantly higher growth in reading comprehension, oral reading comprehension and social studies achievement than kids who did not use our system.

We’re certainly encouraged by these results. But even more importantly, we’re seeing more in what these kids are doing—participating in debate, poetry, robotics—and how they are USING the information. We know the kids have the raw achievement, but we also can document that they are using that information in critical and creative ways.

These are things we should be measuring just as much as the raw test scores.

FF: But the education system is only interested in the first part—the creativity elements aren’t measured.

Renzulli: You’re right, the drive to chase scores as the bottom line measurement has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is so much pressure to meet those test scores, whether for funding or to demonstrate achievement. Even realtors are walking around with test results from neighborhood schools on their clip boards! So administrators feel compelled to align instruction to meet test scores—and when it doesn’t work, they reinforce even more drill and kill programs and parents look for programs that will ensure their kids succeed on the tests through tutoring. And textbook companies are pumping out books loaded with drill and practice material that teach to the test.

The frustrating piece is that if we can approach the bottom line of achievement from a different way of teaching, we are going to meet the bottom line achievement test demands AND produce more creative and productive citizens of the future. Administrators and teachers want this for our kids; it’s just a big institution to turn around when there is so much pressure from national and state education departs to use remedial pedagogy to grind up test scores. And research clearly shows that the billions spent on such models simply hasn’t worked.

FF: So what’s going to break the cycle?

Renzulli: The consequences just can’t be ignored any more. The U. S. is at the bottom of industrialized countries on international comparisons. Things like advanced courses and science fairs and school participation in math competitions is down. We’ve spent billions of dollars on remedial approaches to bring students up to standards but it’s still not working. And even those kids who can do well on the tests don’t have a full skill set to be successful in the long-term—or keep us competitive and successful as a country.

Middle class parents are spending more and more money each year on outside enrichment programs to give their children a complete toolkit. Participation in summer and after school programs, hiring tutors, and enrolling their kids in all kinds of lessons is their way of trying to compensate for an unchallenging curriculum. We’re seeing kids from middle class schools entering college totally unprepared and needing to take compensatory, remedial classes before getting to college-level exploration.

In lower-income communities that don’t have access to those kinds of enrichment opportunities, we’re losing vast numbers of students, students who have the potential to go on to creative and productive careers. And even those low income students who do manage to make it to college aren’t graduating.

FF: Dim prospects for the 21st century.

Renzulli: If we really want to improve the nation’s reservoir of scientists, leaders, journalists, teachers, we’ve got to change our teaching approach. We must look at moving the focus from remediation to enrichment and enjoyment in learning – the exact opposite of the ram, remember, and regurgitate approach to learning that has driven the test prep movement. Enrichment teaching and learning is where excellence comes from – both in terms of student accomplishment and ultimately in national productivity. We’re not talking about replacing core competencies. We’re talking about infusing rich, robust learning opportunities into a school environment.

We’ve got the tools, we’ve got the will. We’re going to get there.

FF: So what are the 3 R’s for the next century?

Renzulli: I’ll answer with the 3 E’s – Engagement, Enjoyment, and Enthusiasm. As far as the 3 R’s go—let’s let the 21st century students get creative so they can tell us.