As an educator I feel it my responsibility to prepare my students to be successful in life. That is one of the main reasons I became a teacher- I want to impact the future by preparing today's children for it. As a life long learner myself, I have been learning a lot lately about the skills that our children are going to need in order to be successful in such a technological society. Unfortunately, there seems to be a huge gap between the advancements of technology in society and in the classroom.
To help close this gap and prepare our students for the 21st century, there is an organization called the Partnership for 21st century skills. The program currently runs in 14 states. This week I spent some time investigating their website and found it to be informative. The partnership helps to fund the development of such skills as creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration to name a few. They have a framework of all the 21st century skills they stress posted on their website.
I was very surprised at the amount of corporate sponsors backing this project. The volume and nature of the sponsors show that businesses are aware of the need for our students to become capable in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and math (Laureate,2008). We are currently not producing enough capable people in the work force in these areas, leading to the outsourcing of these jobs to countries with a ready work force.
If partnerships like this one work its way into my state, our daily classroom lives will change pretty dramatically. The focus of teaching will not just be reading, writing and math, but also a strong focus on technology, life and career skills. We'll start to see more project based work, emphasizing the use of collaborating and a much more wide spread use of technologies such as web 2.o. Teaching will become more group focused and inquiry based. I wonder which will come first: Changes in what and how we teach leading to changes in our standards and state tests or changes in our standards and state tests leading us to change what and how we teach. If my past experience has taught me anything, it is that nothing moves slower than getting classroom policy to change.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Skills for the 21st century. [Motion picture]. Baltimore: Author.
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I was also very impressed with the amount of "big name" sponsors that supported the inclusion of 21st century skills. Their participation in education shows how important Web 2.0 skills are to the future work place. Employers are looking for new employees to bring new technology to their businesses, but our students need to learn how to use the technology before they can introduce it to others.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your thought of what changes will come first, I believe that changes in our standards will change the ways we teach. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills focuses on adding to the current curriculum to reinforce the core subjects that are already being taught. We need standards in place before we can know what to teach and how to teach it. Just as I believe that technology has influenced changes in society, a change in our standards will lead to a change in the strategies we use for teaching. Hopefully more states will begin to join the efforts in teaching 21st century skills for the benefit of our students and our future society.
Do you think that individual states should determine how to incorporate the 21st century skills into our classrooms, or do you think it would be better to come from Washington so all states would be required to have the same standards? I was surprised that so few state initiatives were posted on the site. If our goal is to get all students to meet specific technological skills by the time they graduate from high school, maybe it would be better to lobby Washington. Either way, this seems like it will be a long process.
ReplyDeleteAmber, in your entry you wrote "The focus of teaching will not just be reading, writing and math, but also a strong focus on technology, life and career skills."
ReplyDeleteI think the focus on teaching should not be on technology. Technology is just a tool to be used in delivering and gathering knowledge with the collaboration of 21st century skills.
On the other hand I totally agree with your idea of seeing more project based and inquiry based work. Right now I am working in an environment like that and it aligns very well with technological trends and new progress in the field. Using technology as a tool gives students to produce more creative work in quality time.
Amber,
ReplyDeleteI tend to think that changes in our standards and state tests leading us to change what and how we teach will happen first, if it happens. From my experience, unless the standards say it in writing that this is what we should be teaching, then everything else is pretty much pushed as an afterthought. It is unfortunate, but I think this is just the way it is. Since technology is not yet a standard for what will be on "the test", school systems aren't receiving the proper funding the same way they would in a subject like math and language arts. If I have learned anything about this subject, it would be that we, as teachers, have to take the initiative ourselves to integrate technology into our classroom and hope that our system soon catches on about the importance of technology for the success of our students.
It seems the consensus among everyone is that changes such as the ones listed in the framework of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills will not happen in our classrooms until the standards change. I agree with this point. The simple truth is that in this educational climate we do not teach something unless it is a standard. Kristen, you made an interesting point. I think if technology standards came from Washington it would push all states into teaching in the 21st century. I too was surprised at how few states are a part of this initiative. Abby, I also agree with you in that unless teaching technology becomes standard based we will not receive proper funding for it. Aleaf- we might have to agree to disagree. Using technology as a tool to deliver and gather information requires the teaching of the skills on how to use those technologies. Those same skills will be required of our students once they enter the workforce.
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