21st Century Skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) web-site is interesting.  As I went through the various pieces of the site, much of what I found seemed straight-forward and left me asking myself why it is so difficult to get everyone on the same page about what teachers need to accomplish with the blending of 21 century skills and core content or the three R's.


The piece of the Partnership's site that stood out to me most is probably the diagram that is used to show the 21st century student outcomes and skills.  Take a look.

What this diagram represents is very simple.  At the root of all classroom learning is teacher preparedness.  I see it breaking down with these four questions:
                            

• Has the teacher created a positive environment to cultivate learning? 
• Is the teacher continually adding to expertise through professional development? 
• Is curriculum and instruction both rigorous and engaging?                    
• Does this instruction hit the targeted standards in a way that can be assessed to monitor student growth?

This foundation supports the main arch on which 21st century learning needs rest.  In order to develop the needed 21st century skills, students must have solid guidance in core subjects (language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, etc).  This taught in addition to 21st century themes paves the way to guide students in the areas of 21st century life and career skills, critical and creative thinking, and media and technology skills. 

I suppose my only real issue with what P21 has to say involves standardized testing.  I recognize the need for quality assessment, but I do not see how standardized testing is providing the data that we in education claim we want.  Let me explain my position.  Through my education and my career, the pieces of education that have stood out to me have been the following:

• Students have different styles of learning.
• Students have different abilities.
• Students have interests.

This seems very simplistic.  But it leaves me asking one simple question.  If all students have different abilities, needs, and interests, why do we try to get them all to achieve on the same test?  To be fair, P21 does have many more assessment pieces.  And I certainly do not have the answer to my own question.

I enjoyed looking through the P21 site.  What it shows me is that I have been on the right track in my short career.  The first step is having prepared teachers in the classroom.  I could go off on a tangent about how to make sure that we have high quality teachers in the classroom, but that is for another conversation.  Once we have effective teachers in the classroom, the most important thing is to make sure students are learning the core material, and through that they will be able to learn the much needed skills to be successful in the 21st century.  It is comforting to see an organization recognize that education is about more than just the teachers in the classroom.  It must be a collective effort of teachers, administrators, policy-makers, and parents.  I am looking forward to Indiana joining the P21 list of state leadership initiatives.

For more information on P21, visit http://www.p21.org/

Blogging in the Classroom

Currently I teacher both 7th and 8th grade language arts.  I have been fortunate that two of my sections are honors level.  It has allowed me to push my students harder than ever before as they are up to the challenge.  We are always discussing the world outside of the classroom, and there are many topics that we want to cover that we just have not been able to bring to the table.  Enter blogging.

Many of the indicators that we must cover in class revolve around using logic and supporting ideas with sound reasoning.  In the heat of a discussion, my students are prone to slipping back into an emotional argument and veering terribly off topic.  With blogging, we have been introduced to a medium that allows for us to step back and consider our ideas AND provides others with the opportunity to add to or challenge our ideas. 

While Internet posting has its share of emotionally driven responses, I feel that blogging in the classroom can be used to manage two very important things.  1) Students need to be able to express their opinions and beliefs in a safe environment.  2)  Students need their ideas to be challenged in a way that is different than the usual "Nuh uh, you're wrong, I'm right" argument. 

Recently, I had a very interesting conversation with one of my students.  She has very strong religious beliefs, and often her arguments derive from her faith.  What we discussed was something that she picked up on very easily but had just never considered.  Faith often comes from a place that is not always made of clearcut facts that can be presented to people with differing beliefs.  If she wanted to get others to at least consider her perspective, she needed to present her perspective in a way that provided others with a tangible idea they could grasp without retreating into aggravation or anger because someone was telling them that their belief was wrong.  While I know there is a very fine line when discussing religion in a public school setting, this led me to thinking about how this conversation could apply to other issues and interests.  I believe that blogging can be a terrific way to showcase student work, and what better way to do this than to allow them to develop their arguments in a safe, monitored situation where they can learn the needed skills to use logic to develop arguments, receive feedback from peers, and perhaps even have their thoughts and ideas challenged by others.