21 Century Skills

Over the last few years in my school district there has been lots of talk about 21st century skills and teaching them in the classroom.  On the website Partnership for 21st century learning you will find a great deal of information about what teaching 21st century skills is all about.  On the website you can find out what initiatives there are you in your state or surrounding states.  I was a bit disappointed that Tennessee was not listed as having made a commitment to integrating 21st century skills on a state level.  In our district this concept has been pushed for several years but in Tennessee it must be a district to district initiative.  In my district the term "common core" has been tossed around and I have heard that our district will be implementing common core standards next year, and I have to admit I really didn't know what this meant until I read more about it on this website.  One of the biggest things I see when it comes to 21st century skills, is that these ideas are big idea skills and relate to all content areas.  I've always been a big idea or big concept person so these concepts makes a lot of sense to me.  Over the last few years my teaching team or PLC has worked every year to develop and teach interdisciplinary units and it is a very difficult thing to do.  Especially when you have six content areas and six very different teachers, with all different teaching styles, it can be hard to get on one page and to successfully do a interdisciplinary unit.  For years we have been discouraged because it just seemed too difficult.  However, if you were to focus on using 21st century skills as our interdisciplinary unit, it might be much more successful.

Another thing that I found useful on the website was the resources section.  There are links to many different websites that I know will be very helpful once we start using common core next year.  They also have the resource rated to find the most helpful of resources.

I really believe that these concepts of implementing 21st century skills is the best for educating our students.  As we progress in teaching hopefully we will see more and more educators trying these techniques to engage learners.

Resources:

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2011).  Retrieved 05 23, 2012, from Partnership for 21st Century Skills: http://www.p21.org


Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2011) Route 21. Retrieved 05 23, 2012 from Partnership for 21st Century skills:http://route21.p21.org/index.php?option=com_jlibrary&view=browse&Itemid=179

Blogs, blogs, and more blogs.......

I have been considering how I could use blogging in the classroom.  There are really endless possibilities. One that I love is having a rotating job of blogging about each days assignments and lessons.  As to have for student work and as a collaborative portfolio at the end of the year.

But when I think of a specific lesson where I could use blogs and where blogging could enhance the learning experience, this lesson comes to mind.

Every year my team of ninth grade teachers do a interdisciplinary unit.  It revolves around my content but it incorporates elements of other content areas.  The unit is a "create your own country" unit.  I have been doing this project for years and every year we tweak and to make it better.  At the end of the school year the students in my World Geography class take all the major concepts that they have learned about countries, cultures, governments, and economics along with of course geography, and they apply this to making up a new country.

This project last around 6 weeks to complete.  One way that I think I could use blogging to enhance this project is they could create a blog about their country.  They would write about what life is like on their country.  The could talk about the history and historical events on their island.  They could make entries that would deal with the economic situation in their country, as if it were a news article.  They could write entries about the government and current laws or issues that may be arising in their country.  The students could incorporate all the elements of this project into one place, their blog.

I would be able to go to their blog and offer feedback.  This could be pushed further with interdisciplinary  but having students do various entries that would tie into what they have learned in English about writing in different styles, informative, persuasive and so on. 

In the past I have given the students an opportunity to create a website about their island which many students have done but this would enhance their learning much more by asking them to apply these concepts and actually think what life would be like in their made up country.

The only issue I see is that I would need daily access to computers and as of now we have 6 mobile computer labs for a school of 2400.  I'm not sure the librarians would allow me computers every day for a couple of weeks but who knows.  I might be able to come up with so way to work it out and if I was able to, I feel as though it would take this project to the next level of learning.

Standardized testing blues

Its been a tough week in public education.  In our high school we have had End-Of-Course or EOC testing.  In the middle and elementary schools in our district we have had TCAP assessments.  All the pressure and continuing pressure that these standardized test put on school is districts is just absurd.  My daughter who is 12 years old and in 6th grade can see that these test are absurd and in no way a reflections of what she has learned this year.  This year she had a really tough science teacher.  The teacher taught to the standards but also taught them so much more.  They did weekly experiments and really made science come alive for my daughter, so this week when I picked her up from school after the she had taken the science portion of the TCAP I asked her how she thought she did.  She told me that she felt like she did terrible.  The test was really hard and covered topics that weren't taught.  So I then asked her if she felt like she her teacher had taught her well and if she had learned a lot in science this year.  She told me she had learned so much and was disappointed that what she had learned wasn't on the test.  These test that our students are forced to take every year are just absurd.  My daughter, like many other students would like to show what they know instead of answering some random multiple choice question test. 

As an educator, we see research all the time that talks about how to keep students engaged in learning and it seems impossible to do what research suggests as best practices and also make sure you are teaching to the test.  In my opinion, and we are already beginning to see it, students will be less able to think and reason because they have been taught for some many years only how to memorize and regurgitate for a multiple choice test.  This is very frighting as an American.  We are dumbing down our curriculum because of standardized tests.  We don't allow students to construct their own knowledge and learn in a more individualized fashion, because we can't, these kids must pass a test or else.  So when does the educator have time to engage these learners?  When will we students be able to construct their own learning?  I believe the answer is when politics gets out of education and educators take back education.

I know this is probably a pipe dream, but I'm an optimist so maybe one day we will see then end of Standardized testing.

Welcome

Welcome everyone