21st Century Skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills at http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ is a website whose mission is to “Serve as a catalyst to position 21st century skills at the center of US K-12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders”. This group of people are taking a proactive approach to ensuring students graduating from United States schools have the skill set to be competitive in a global market. The site offers video clips from schools who are successfully implementing 21st century skills into the classroom. I am surprised to see all the corporate sponsors on the site who have taken P21’s comprehensive 3-day training on their framework. They also offer a link to professional development assistance.

I do wonder if this is the “next” bandwagon schools will jump onto. I have not been teaching long, but I have realized that school districts jump from one “great” idea to another without much follow through. I agree that our students need to learn skills like those shown in the graphic found at http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/route21/index.php; however I do not know that this is going to be the best possible way to get there.

The idea is there, but I did not see where the funding was coming from. Maybe it is coming from all the corporate sponsors who have joined the site. There are currently eleven states who have committed to being part of the 21st century skills site and the only one near me is South Dakota. They have created a P21 Advisory Council, consisting of business leaders, legislators and state education leaders whose purpose, among others, is to develop plans for looking at holes in the content curriculum, deciding on professional development activities and redesigning assessments. I understand the need for business leaders and legislators, but I hope the education leaders are the ones most involved in what and how content and skills are taught in the classroom.

When Am I Ever Gonna Use This?

For many educators, web logs (blogs) are a new, misunderstood, and sometimes frightening prospect. However many of our students have been using blogging, in the form of social networking sites, for years. The idea of including a useful blog in the classroom can be a daunting task.

In a sophomore level Biology class, a blog can become an amazing tool for student engagement and learning. In my classroom, I plan to utilize blogging for a variety of tasks. The simplest use of my blog will be to update students and parents about what goes on in the classroom on a weekly basis, including examples of student work. This will give parents a window into what their child is studying, and it will give absent students at least a basic form of what content they missed. The more exciting aspects of my blog will include class discussions regarding some of the current issues surrounding life sciences. In the first semester we get to study the newly forming antibiotic resistance by bacteria. The students will have the opportunity to discuss what they know, what they have researched and what questions they still have about proper use or misuse of antibiotics. This will lead to a cooperative style learning and give every student the chance to be “heard” equally. I am also going to post links to websites that have online laboratory exercises, videos or review games that go along with the content we are studying. The Biology blog will allow the students to expand their learning outside of my classroom walls.