Twenty-first century classrooms often influence cognitive processes more than the content they learn. That sea change requires schools to help teachers learn new skills and new ways of teaching so they can change their classrooms.

The professional development needed to develop 21st century educational environments share key characteristics.

They all:
* Ensure educators understand the importance of 21st century skills and how to integrate them into daily instruction.

* Enable collaboration among all participants.

* Allow teachers and principals to construct their own learning communities.

* Tap the expertise within a school or school district through coaching, mentoring and team teaching.

* Support educators in their role of facilitators of learning.

* Use 21st century tools.

A white paper from the Partnership for 21st Skills recommends that pre-service teachers should undertake programs of study that include 21st century skills instruction, especially in emerging fields, such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It is also recommended that teacher education institutions add 21st century skills competency to the accreditation criteria for teacher education programs. For in-service teachers, "just-in-time" preparation that includes coaching and identification of new pedagogical tools and approaches to weave 21st century skills into content areas should be made available. Ideally, teaching academies, or other special initiatives, should exist so that teachers can develop and renew 21st century skills and pedagogy in structured programs.

Although classroom teachers may be the best-known recipient of professional development, professional learning is an ongoing process and can occur at multiple levels of the educational system. For example, professional development in support of 21st century skills can also target state-levelleaders, district leaders, and building teachers.

Looking forward, it is possible to anticipate additional characteristics for high quality 21st century professional development programs. New programs should:

• Focus on 21st century skills and content, such global awareness, civic literacy, ICT literacy, critical thinking, problem solving, and life skills.
• Illustrate how a deeper understanding of subject matter can actually enhance problem solving, critical thinking, and other 21st century skills.
• Cultivate teachers' ability to identify students' particular learning styles and intelligences. Certain types of intelligence, such as those having to do within formation synthesis or technological know-how, are becoming increasingly relevant as the advent of new technologies and media trigger a constant and vast deluge of information.
• Help teachers develop their abilities to use various strategies (such as formative assessments) to reach different students and create environments that support differentiated teaching and learning.
• Provide models of instruction that show what 21st century skills look like in real classrooms and allow ample time for teachers to observe and learn
• from them.
• Highlight ways teachers can seize opportunities for integrating 21st century tools and teaching strategies into their classroom practice - and help them identify what activities they can replace/deemphasize.
• When appropriate take advantage of21st century tools, such as real world, rich media examples, video clips, interactives, simulations based on historical or real-time data sources, acoustically- and visually-rich primary sources and digital repositories, to support 21stcentury skills.
• Encourage knowledge sharing among communities of practitioners, using face-to-face, virtual and hybrid exchanges.
• Are scaleable and sustainable.

Implementing a 21st century skills professional development program in a school is a serious undertaking that requires ample planning and forethought to ensure that both teachers and administrators fully understand the importance of this endeavor and are willing to put in the time to create what is in effect a sea change in their current practice. With that in mind, it is important to start with the following actions:

1) Complete a self-assessment to determine what resources and training the staff needs.
2) Develop a professional development strategy that uses a phased approach and focuses on 21st century skills.
3) Organize a 21st century skills study group or leadership team at the school for interested teachers and staff members.

For the complete white paper and its list of resources for learning more about professional development for 21st century skills see the P21 Professional Development White Paper.

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