A recent visit to Orlando to present at the FETC conference marked a milestone in my education career. Thirty years ago, I stood in front of an audience at the California League of Middle Schools Conference in San Diego, delivering a session on gamification in sixth-grade social studies. It was my first foray into public speaking. 

Since that event in San Diego, I have spoken publicly more than 250 times in 15 countries. The venue and topic have changed, the audiences have waxed and waned, the technology has become more interactive, but the thrill of exchanging ideas with teachers is undiminished.

As you could predict, the topic of my session in Orlando was AI, in this case hacks, strategies, and tips on how to use image generators to create curricular content for K-12 classrooms.

I walked through the heavily trafficked FETC expo looking for ideas to write about, mostly focused on AI, but also new songs for inclusion in my favorite playlists: Project-based learning or 21st Century Skills.

A familiar refrain reached my ears as I lingered by booth and pavilion, where I heard teachers and administrators say they deeply valued 21st Century Skills and a student-empowering pedagogy like PBL, but they simply didn’t have time for these “add-ons” because of the onerous demands of teaching and assessing math, science, history, and language arts.  

I fought against this “add-ons” perception when I led a campaign to advance PBL in my work as the Senior Director for the Buck Institute for Education (now PBLWorks). I challenged this mindset when I promoted durable skills as the CEO of the Partnership for 21st Century Learning. And again, I find myself fighting against this perception in my role as a consultant for numerous AI companies that are promoting their platforms’ ability to integrate Portrait of a Graduate competencies into curriculum design.

Can you sense my frustration? It’s not that I am unsympathetic to the time crunch that eats the clock in every classroom. I taught sixth-grade and high school from 1993-2004 and then taught sixth-grade again from 2018-2021. I know what it’s like to have your students’ performance data splashed across the pages of a newspaper and to face the wrath of a principal who demands higher test scores.

Yet, there is a fundamental flaw in this perception of how teaching time is allocated. That’s because PBL, 21st Century Skills, and  Portrait of a Graduate competencies are not “add-ons.” They are already inextricably embedded in the frameworks and requirements of Common Core State Standards, Next Gen Science Standards, and the National Council for the Social Studies. Here is how.

Going to the Source

Hearing that refrain again at FETC reminded me how deeply ingrained this misperception still is. Rather than rebut with opinion, I decided to interrogate the standards themselves using the very AI tools I was showcasing at the conference. 

I fed the Common Core E/LA and Math documents, the NGSS documents, and the NCSS documents into three different AIs and asked them to catalog the references to critical thinking, communication, creativity, and collaboration. Why these durable skills? Because they form the core of virtually every skills framework, ranging from the SCANS skills of the 1990s to P21 Framework of 2007 to the newly launched America Succeeds Durable Skills framework. These skills are also central to nearly all Portrait of a Graduate competency outcomes among the 20 states and hundreds of districts that encourage them.

For the sake of brevity, I will restrict my report on this research to the findings for the Common Core Standards, which divide the analysis between each of the 4Cs while pointing toward examples that are domain-specific (math or English/language arts). Here is what my research shows (take this link to read the research synthesis):

• Critical thinking: Extremely important. In ELA, it is framed as critical reading, reasoning, evaluation of claims, and evidence-based argument. In math, it is the heart of the Practices. 
• Communication: Core outcome. ELA treats communication as the integrated system of literacy. Math explicitly includes communication in its conception of proficiency and requires argumentation and critique. 
• Collaboration: Strong in ELA and structurally embedded (anchor standard plus grade-level requirements). Present but less explicit in math, mainly through argumentation norms. 
• Creativity: Present but not foregrounded as its own competency. In ELA, it is linked to “creative and purposeful expression.” In math, it is implied through flexible problem solving and modeling. 

In short, the so-called ‘add-ons’ are not tangents; they are embedded expectations. Educators aren’t being asked to bolt on collaboration or communication. They’re being asked to teach them through content,

I then fed the terms “projects,” “project-based learning,” and “extended inquiry” into the very same documents and asked the AIs to cite and summarize the references. And yes, I am aware there are numerous other forms of inquiry – I wrote a book on the topic.

Once again, for the sake of brevity, I will restrict my report on this research to the findings for the Next Gen Science Standards. Here is the summary of that analysis (you can take this link to read the research synthesis).

“While the NGSS do not repeatedly use the exact term “project-based learning,” they consistently promote the ethos behind it. Students are expected to engage in projects, investigations, and design challenges that mirror the work of scientists and engineers. The standards stress that science learning should be an active, inquiry-rich process where learners ask questions, explore phenomena, and carry out projects to apply their knowledge. By intertwining scientific inquiry practices with content, and by encouraging real-world problem-solving tasks, the NGSS elevate inquiry-based and project-based pedagogies as central to science education reform.”

Someone, please explain to me how these student outcomes and this teaching methodology are still viewed as “add-ons” and are not central to teaching and learning.

Reviewing the History

I could, but won’t, draw comfort from the fact that misperception among educators is a historic phenomenon, as evidenced by these recent examples.

1. Learning Styles 

One of the most enduring and tenacious beliefs among educators is the idea that students have fixed “learning styles” (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) that must be matched with instruction for learning to occur. This belief has been widely taught in teacher preparation programs and professional development for decades, and many teachers continue to endorse it even after it has been debunked. Research consistently shows there is no credible evidence that matching instruction to a preferred learning style improves learning outcomes, despite the belief’s intuitive appeal and how widely it has been embedded in educational thinking.  

2. Multiple Intelligences 

Related to learning styles is the belief that Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory provides a scientific basis for tailoring instruction to different “intelligences.” In practice, this often looks very similar to learning styles: Assigning instruction or assessment based on perceived intelligence profiles. However, the empirical evidence supporting multiple intelligences as a basis for classroom differentiation is weak, and Gardner himself has noted how his work has been widely misunderstood or misapplied in education.  

3. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs 

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — often depicted as a rigid pyramid — became a staple of teacher training and professional development. Many educators have assumed a fixed order where physiological needs must be fully met before addressing social or cognitive goals. However, research and modern interpretations of motivation suggest that human needs and learning motivations are far more dynamic and context-dependent than the simple pyramid model suggests. Teachers have held onto simplified interpretations of Maslow’s work long after psychologists and educational researchers clarified that the “pyramid” depiction is not scientifically grounded.  

4. Standardized Tests 

Another longstanding belief is that standardized test scores are accurate and comprehensive measures of student learning and school quality. For decades, both teachers and policymakers have treated high-stakes test results as the clearest measure of instructional success. More recent research, however, has demonstrated the limitations of standardized tests — including how they can reflect socioeconomic factors, test anxiety, and coaching rather than deep learning — and how overreliance on them can narrow instruction.  

5. Skills in Isolation 

A persistent theme in professional discourse has been the idea that you can teach skills (critical thinking, collaboration, communication, “21st-century skills”) in isolation from deep content knowledge. Some educators have treated skills as modular “add-on” activities rather than as intertwined with core disciplinary content. This reflects both a misunderstanding of how complex cognitive skills develop and a misapplication of reform language. Research strongly supports that skills are most effectively developed through engagement with rich content and cognitive challenge, not in isolation. While not a single named myth like “learning styles,” this misconception has shaped instructional design belief systems in K–12 for years.

This final myth is closest to my heart and central to this blog’s thesis. It also formed much of the advocacy work my staff and I did while the Partnership for 21st Century Learning led the durable skills movement for the first 15 years of this century. 

Changing Perceptions 

There are several common factors that help explain why these beliefs endure despite evidence to the contrary, among them: 

• Ideas like learning styles and multiple intelligences feel logical and humane, making them resistant to disconfirmation even when research is clear.
• Teacher preparation programs and professional development often inadvertently propagate simplified or outdated concepts.
• Teachers, like all humans, are susceptible to biases such as the curse of knowledge, where expertise blinds us to novice difficulties, and confirmation biases that reinforce our beliefs. 
• Educational research often deals in probabilistic and contextual findings that don’t lend themselves to simple prescriptions, so myths.

Now let’s turn to the strategies and processes that can help overturn misperceptions and mitigate biases:

1. Evidence-Infused Professional Learning. Embed up-to-date cognitive science and pedagogical research into ongoing PD, not just pre-service training. Focus on myth-busting sessions (e.g., “What the Research Really Says About Learning Styles”) with practical classroom applications. Organizational Example: Deans for Impact

2. Model Practice, Don’t Just Preach It. Use real classroom examples to demonstrate how misunderstood strategies (like PBL or critical thinking) are already embedded in standards and frameworks. Seeing is believing — and unlearning. Organizational Example: High Tech High Graduate School of Education

3. Align Misconceptions with Standards. Show how widely perceived “extras” (e.g., 21st-century skills) are explicitly required by frameworks like CCSS, NGSS, or C3. Reframe them as essential, not optional, as I did in an earlier section of this blog. Organizational Example: PBLWorks 

4. Use Trusted Peer Messengers. Teachers trust other teachers. Enlist respected classroom practitioners to share how they changed their thinking through evidence or experience — a powerful lever for shifting perception. Organizational Example: National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

5. Create “Unlearning” Space. Acknowledge how emotional or identity-based some myths can be. Safe, structured opportunities to reflect on what we used to believe — without shame — help people adopt new perspectives. Program Example: Unlearning Myths About Learning Series — The Learning Scientists

No one, including the folks who lead these organizations and programs, would argue that the process of changing widely held misperceptions is easy. But as the website of Alcoholics Anonymous states, “Nothing changes if nothing changes.”

Final Thoughts

Thirty years after I stood in San Diego speaking about gamification, I’m still making the case that deeper learning isn’t an extra. The tools have changed — today, we have generative AI platforms that can operationalize our ideals — but the fight remains the same. Maybe it’s time to stop trying to win the argument. Maybe it’s time to design it out of existence.

Those of us who have spent the majority of our careers promoting transformative pedagogies that generate outcomes that positively impact career, college, and community have done a wonderful job explaining why our programs and philosophies matter. 

We have done far less work in understanding and accounting for human nature in our push to adoption and implementation. I suggest to all my fellow travelers in the world of durable skills and student-centered pedagogy that we make use of the tools modern technology has presented us to accomplish this task. 

The curriculum design platforms powered by generative AI can make the inclusion of durable skills and inquiry-based instructional practices into our daily teaching as simple as clicking a button. Pulldown menus that allow users to select outcomes from NGSS, CCSS, and NCSS content standards sit side by side on these platforms with pull-down menus that offer an array of competencies from SEL, PoG, and 21st century skills frameworks. Here’s a thought: Choose outcomes from both pulldowns and let the AI perform the integration. 

These platforms also allow teachers to choose inquiry-based pedagogy (in the style of project- and problem-based learning, expeditions, or challenges) as easily as they can choose stand-alone lessons in a traditional vein. 

Trying to convince educators that inquiry and durable skills are not “add-ons” is a losing strategy, but it does keep folks busy at conferences. Curriculum design platforms powered by AI can bypass the drama and simply make the discussion moot.