21CLD and LEAP21: the learning-design framework
Six dimensions for describing what students actually do with knowledge and technology — and the instrument history behind them.
ITL Research is an independent project. It is not affiliated with Microsoft, SRI International, UNESCO, or the former Innovative Teaching and Learning Research programme.
The framework usually called 21st Century Learning Design (21CLD) grew out of the coding instruments used in the ITL Research programme. Its first form, LEAP21, was the rubric set used in the programme's early fieldwork to describe learning activities in the classrooms being observed. When the instruments were revised for wider use in teacher professional development, the framework and its rubrics were renamed 21CLD. The two names refer to the same line of work, which is why older citations refer to “LEAP21 rubrics” and newer ones to “21CLD”.
The six dimensions
Each dimension is described along a progression from basic practice to advanced practice. The rubrics are not a checklist of desirable activities; they describe what the student is doing.
- Collaboration
- Whether students work together on a shared outcome in a way that requires each of them to contribute and to negotiate. Working side by side on separate parts is a different, weaker signal than joint work that cannot be completed alone.
- Knowledge construction
- Whether students build understanding rather than reproduce it. A task produces knowledge construction when students generate ideas, interpret sources, and reach conclusions that are not simply restated from a text or a demonstration.
- Self-regulation
- Whether students plan, monitor and revise their own work against the requirements of the task, including over an extended period rather than within a single lesson.
- Real-world problem solving and innovation
- Whether the task is framed by a problem outside school, requires students to design or produce something, and expects them to implement their solution rather than describe it.
- Skilled communication
- Whether students communicate for a purpose and to an audience, with the form and evidence required by that communication rather than only in answer to a teacher's question.
- ICT for learning
- Whether technology is used by students to build knowledge and to design or produce their own work, not only to consume content or practise a routine skill. This dimension is where the framework diverges most sharply from ordinary technology-integration advice.
How the rubrics were used
The instruments were built for two audiences. Researchers used them to code observed lessons and collected artefacts consistently across countries — the coding work described in the 2011 findings depends on that consistency. Teachers and professional-development leaders used them as a shared vocabulary for looking at their own task designs, typically by auditing an existing unit and asking which dimensions were present and at what level.
The 2012 rubric sets came in two companion versions, and the distinction matters when reading old citations. The Learning Activity Rubrics describe planned activity design; the Student Work Rubrics describe what students produced. A citation to a rubric page may refer to either.
Reading a unit against the rubric
A practical way to start is to take one existing unit and ask the six questions in order. Does the activity require students to reach a conclusion that is not already present in the material they were given? Do they have to plan, monitor and revise their own work across more than a single lesson? Is the problem framed outside school, and are they expected to produce and implement something rather than describe it? Is there an audience for the work beyond the teacher, with the form and evidence that audience requires? Are students using technology to build knowledge and to make their own artefacts, not only to consume content or drill a routine skill? The dimensions turn out to be diagnostic of each other: a unit that scores low on knowledge construction usually scores low on the rest, because the task rather than the available tools sets the ceiling on what the rest can reach.
Where to read the original material
The 2012 Learning Activity Rubrics carry their own licence text: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. That licence permits redistribution with attribution, so this archive serves the file itself at the path older links used:
Attribution. 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics (2012). Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0). The file is served unmodified. This archive is not affiliated with the document's publisher and makes no claim to it; the licence grants redistribution rights only and does not grant any trademark or endorsement right.
The companion Student Work Rubrics and the LEAP21-era files have no verified archived copy, and no licence statement could be confirmed for them, so they are described here and not served. If you hold an authoritative copy and a licence that permits publication, corrections are welcome through the about page.