21st Century Skills

This week I spent a lot of time on the website for the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills (www.p21.org).  What I found is a group deeply vested in the future of our education system.  It is an organization supported and founded by not only groups like the National Education Association and the U.S. Department of Education, but by corporations like Apple, Microsoft, Disney, and Verizon to name a few.  All of them share my own belief that: “There is a profound gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21^st century communities and workplaces” (http://www.p21.org/about-us/our-mission).  Together they have come up with a relatively simple “list” of skills and dispositions which students should leave the educational system with in order to succeed in the increasingly global world.  Beyond the skill identification, they have a slew of resources to help integrate these skills from the classroom all of the way up to national policy.

The Partnership for 21^st Century Skills, or P21, is not the first group to come up with such lists.  As we saw earlier this week, others such as David Thornburg (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011) have come up with very similar lists.  The beauty of P21 is not only their support and organization, but also the way in which they have wrapped the skills they deem so critical.  As opposed to an exhaustive list they have layered the main skills into four superseding categories for ease of application (see image at end of post).  The four categories are:

1) Life and Career Skills

2) Learning and Innovation Skills

3) Information, Media, and Technology Skills

4) Core Subjects – 3R’s and 21^st Century Themes

Each of these can be further divided, however these larger categories allow users a more practical beginning without being overwhelmed by another laundry list.  Though many of the smaller categories are not new, Creativity and Information Literacy for example, I appreciate the addition of values like Environmental and Health Literacy.  If P21 stopped here, with another list to add to the plates of educators, I would not give them much thought.  However, they have thought it through and realized in order to be effective in long-term application of these complex skills, a strong support system must be in place.  These include:

            1) Standards and Assessment

2) Curriculum and Instruction

3) Professional Development

4) Learning Environments

They realized that both students and staff are going to need support all of the way up the chain of command in order to integrate these skills successfully into our education system.  Along those lines, they provide an enormous amount of resources and links for support, ideas, and implementation guides for the classroom teacher up to the national policymaker.  I really like the series of self-assessments they offer educators and districts to see where they stand on implementation of 21^st century skills and guide them towards beginning implementation.     

One thing I did not agree with one hundred percent was P21’s push for virtual schools.  This may seem ironic coming from a student in an online graduate program, but hear me out.  As far as I can tell, P21 is pushing for virtual schools across all grade level and subjects.  I agree with them that virtual classes can be great for the right type of higher education program.  I also agree that they can be an incredible supplement for districts not able to offer a wide variety or advanced classes.  However, I cannot see virtual classes completely taking over as they are now.  There are still many advantages to being in a physical classroom with a teacher and fellow peers.  Even at higher levels, online education cannot replace all courses.  One reason I did not pursue a graduate program in biology online is that all of the programs currently offered online appeared to be a compromise in terms of equipment, research, and support.  I do see the value in offering some classes for upper grades, but do not see our society ready, socially or technologically, for a complete switch.

That point aside, the Partnership for 21^st Century Learning is spot on with what I believe I should be doing with my class.  I also believe they provide a ton of resources to help me get there.  The biggest challenge toward full integration is that to truly work, we need to apply 21^st century skills in everything and every way we teach.  This means that it cannot just go on in my science classroom, but must be system wide.  I am realizing that in order to succeed I cannot be a one-man army.  If we want these kids to really take on the skills they will need, we are going to have to push for change all of the way up.  This does not just mean my class, department, or even school.  We can plant the seeds there, but in order for our nation to be strong in the future, we are going to have to fight for nationwide implementation and support.  However, we have to start where we have the most effect, in our own classrooms.

Resources:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2011). Skills for the 21st Century [DVD]. Available from Walden University.

Partnership for 21^st Century Skills (P21). (2011).  Accessed at http://www.p21.org

Jigsaw Blogging

Recently, I have been looking into how to use blogs in my classroom. Through my master’s class at Walden University I have been introduced to several great resources to help get those creative juices flowing. At first, it sounds great to just jump into the computer lab and have students start blogging. However, Kathy Martin (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010), makes an excellent case for scaffolding the blogging process before jumping directly into the collaborative process. She discusses how students may seem familiar with “collaboration” through sites like Facebook, but how that is more of a journaling process. It takes practice to get students to realize the difference between “OMG ur post wz awesum,” and the formal language we expect in a classroom setting.

Taking this into consideration I believe blogging would be a great platform for a jigsaw activity. In my high school biology classroom, especially my honors group, I try to maintain relevance by using current articles and research related to the content we are covering. In a traditional jigsaw, students are placed in groups of usually four to six students. From here they break up into assigned groups to read and discuss a specific article, topic, or research project. After mastering understanding they return to their original group to summarize, respond, and teach what they have learned. Each student becomes a key piece of the puzzle. In theory jigsaw sounds great, however factors such as time, shyness, and lack of discussion are always an issue in getting the most out of the activity.

I believe that using blogs would be a great way to overcome many of the issues associated with jigsaws and help take students to a higher level of learning. You could set up the activity in the same manner as before, except it would be easier to do since you can simply link the resources rather than print copies. A blog group could be set up specifically for this assignment, or student blogs previously set up could be used. If the latter is the case students would need the names and links of the individuals in the group. It would work best to require an initial post to establish understanding of the content we are learning, for example natural selection. From here students would decide who is going to take on each piece and work individually read and research accordingly. Their second post would include a summary of their research and how it applies to the content we are covering.

Already, students will have breached many of the problems associated with standard peer-to-peer interaction. As an example, Richardson (2010) discusses how: “A blog gives them the opportunity to share in writing the ideas they may be too shy to speak” (p. 27). Students will also be able to re-read a summary if clarification is needed. However, the real power of using a blog comes in with the responses to these initial posts. Students will be asked to respond to their group member’s posts, adding in their thoughts about how that fits (or does not) to what we are studying. They will also be asked to make connections between what they studied and what their group members studied. Blogging will not only help them get over certain social obstacles, but allow for deeper connections and understanding in a way that would be difficult to reproduce offline. Finally, there is the hope of outside input. Even though students are working in set groups, their thoughts and summaries are online for anyone else to read and respond to.

I look forward to further thoughts, ideas, and questions.

Resources:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Blogging in the classroom [DVD]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Computer or the Egg

As we look at technology and its effects on society throughout the ages we see a general trend. Generally, a need is met by some form of technology, whether by study or by accident. This new technology improves the productivity of a group and therefore becomes mainstay, however rudimentary its origins are. It appears to me that the larger the society the more technology they are able to use and produce, stemming from the fact that a larger society will allow for more “free time” (in terms of agriculture, etc.) to work on such devices.

As we draw nearer to the present, the speed at which technology arrives has increased. In a sense, we see technology beget technology. In the past, technologies were a matter of survival or toys for a wealthy minority; it has now become mainstream. As we have entered into what Alvin Toffler (Laureate Education, Inc., 2011) called the Information Age the pace of technology has actually overcome the needs of society. We have switched from a time where a need created a technology to a point where technology creates a need. A large part of this comes from the capitalistic society we have created. Advertising is key, with companies convincing us that we cannot live without certain pieces of technology. This hunger for the latest and greatest simply feeds the creative minds pushing it. Inventors rarely stumble across a new technology, rather they are racing to discover and create it, funded by the corporations work for.

Look at all of the technologies in our lives that really are not necessities, yet people would laugh at you without. Microwaves for example are just considered a mandatory piece of the house. The same goes for dishwashers and refrigerators. Televisions have entire rooms designed around them. Planning for power, phone, cable, and Ethernet ports is an essential part of building a new home. This past year I was amazed, while registering for a new baby, how much stuff we “have to have” to raise a child. But this “have to” is driven by want and not necessarily by need. Could a child be raised without a Diaper Genie and Baby Bjorn? Yes, but it is so much more convenient if it is available.

As educators we must realize this trend. Technologies we grew up with in the classroom are no longer “wow factors” in lesson plans. Students are weaving technologies more and more into the fabric of their lives. Things our parents could not have dreamed of are becoming every day necessities in the mind of the children we teach. We cannot keep technology out of our classroom in the same way that our grandparents could not keep rock and roll off of the radio. As technology now drags us forward and we are told daily that we “need” the latest and greatest, we must remember that students are that much more immersed in this culture. We need to integrate these technologies into our classrooms not just to keep them relevant, but because they are becoming part of everyday life. Education as we know it is like a shark, if it does not keep swimming, it may die.

Resources:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). The third wave [DVD]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Two Heads Are Better Than One

In my classroom, I often think I am high tech. I mean, I use a projector, show videos from YouTube, and even go into the computer lab once and a while for a virtual lab or website. The problem is that it is just usually me designing the lessons. Recently my eyes have been opened to the fact that most of what I think of as technology is simply becoming standard in the world of education, much like the blackboard, whiteboard, and vhs players of past generations. If I am really to teach with technology, and teach technology, that is relative to my students and improves learning, I am going to have to step out of my classroom (and school) ad into the digital world. This blog is an attempt to discover a larger community of educators who are fighting the same battle I am and who want to share, learn, and discover new ways of implementing technology along the way. It will begin with what I am doing and what ideas I have, and hopefully turn into a community of educators growing together. Climb aboard and buckle up!