Educational Design Patterns for Student-Centered 21$$^{st}$$ Century Learning in Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments

Learners of the 21\(^{st}\) century face new challenges posed by the requirements of the digital era. However, education itself does not seem to have changed significantly. Thus, reports of a gap between graduates’ competences and the skills truly needed in professional life accumulate. This paper proposes three best practices to modern 21\(^{st}\) century education formalized as educational design patterns. Relevant literature is reviewed and the used pattern mining process is outlined. Furthermore, three educational software services fostering the application of the proposed patterns are introduced and evaluated within the scope of usability tests with 56 secondary-level students and a focus group of three teachers. The results show that the educational software services are well suited to reasonably support class and the educational design patterns provide educators with field-tested best practices for 21\(^{st}\) century education.