Monday, September 28, 2009
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills
I found the website http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ to be a quality website with great resources. One of the things that surprised me was that the state in which I teach, Wisconsin, is one of 13 states currently involved in the initiative. The information presented on this site is consistent with that which we have learned in Walden University's "Integrating Technology in the Classroom" program. It shares many of the goals that we are trying to accomplish at the high school where I teach. I am excited that all of these things include emphasizing deep understanding rather than shallow knowledge and actively engaging students in solving meaningful problems. As a science teacher I am also excited that they support the STEM movement. The world that we live in is rapidly changing as technology advances and I think it is a bit overwhelming but also very exciting. I was surprised to see that the website promotes the government's plan of No Child Left Behind. While I agree that we should do everything possible so that every student receives a quality education, I think there are serious flaws with the plan. Simply mandating that students reach a certain level of proficiency on standardized tests does not improve education. Funding and modification of schools is what is needed. I agree with the ideas of NCLB and the push to add 21st century skills to schools and hope to see funding support these initiatives so that they can become reality. Students and our society will benefit from the goals of learning 21st century skills.
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ReplyDeleteFunding. It is sort of like a holy grail that I think we are all waiting for. I know that one of our biggest hurdles in my district is the fact that for some time spending was not overseen in the way it should have been. That led to skepticism by the local populace which has led to a tightening of the budget. That has led to a decrease in the potential inclusion of technology into our schools, and we are now at a point where the local population is asking to see what we can do before they give us more money and we can't do the things that they want to see without the money. Catch 22.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a flaw with NCLB as well. We need to continue to make gains and show certain levels of proficiency regardless of student growth and when we fall behind we receive less resources which makes it more difficult to keep up with the mandates.
These are the kinds of problems that I think 21st century learning is supposed to help us solve. We should be churning out students who think deeply about these kinds of issues and are ready to provide concrete solutions to them.
So what is the solution to these issues? How do we turn it around and work within the system and the resources we have in order to show the world what might be possible?
Sean and Mark,
ReplyDeleteI guess what we need to do as teacher is become good at writing grants and actively chasing funding from sources that are out there. Just last week I came across funding possibilities from Target, Toyota, and McDonalds. Even though time is difficult to come by, maybe a group of interested teachers could work towards applying for $. If successful, you can demonstrate what it means to wisely invest $ in technology for students to show real 21st Century Skill building. Then maybe your district will be more willing to identify programs that would be a wise investment.
As a teacher in state that has implemented 21st Century Skills, how do you think it is working? Is it something that you had to be trained on? Something you are familiar with and use on a day to day basis? I'm interested to see how successful it has been in the states that are using it.
ReplyDeleteHi Mark,
ReplyDeleteSomething that I found to be surprising on the website was the number of states that have taken the initiative with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Unfortunately, my state Georgia was not one of them. I thought it was a great site for teachers, schools, students and the community.