As an assignment this week, each member of the class had to review the website for Partnership for 21st Century Skills. When first logging on to the site, there is a statement telling a little bit about this organization and what they are striving to achieve. It states that "P21 its members provide tools and resources to help the U.S. education system keep up by fusing the three Rs and four Cs (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation)" (The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2010). Many districts today, many would think, would take the initiative to fuse these concepts and skills together on their own. My district encourages us to do just this, to place critical thinking within our reading, math, science and writing. My district trains us and expects us to use collaboration amongst our students as part of our lessons, and also to collaborate amongst teachers within and outside of the district. Even though many districts are trying to combine these items in their schools, maybe more help is needed in figure out how to to this. Therefore, this site would be able to greatly help by giving ideas and techniques to those districts and teachers struggling to combine all of these skills within the classroom.
When looking at the core subjects with 21st century themes, they seem to match the subjects many school districts require within their curriculum. Then when viewing the aspect of the 21st century themes, they are issues and views that should be important to all teachers and students, as they are topics they will face when they go out into the world after school. This is all distinguished in the framework which is in the shape of a rainbow. As I entered each section of the framework, the website supported their view with what the concept meant, ideas for implementing the concept, and additional resources for this concept. This would be very helpful to any teacher that is implementing the idea of place the 4c's within their curriculum.
Upon further investigation of the site, I did become a little disappointed. I found that my state of Pennsylvania was not part of the states that supported and were a part of this program. I would be interested in knowing why my state is not part of the program as well as being interested in knowing if some day we will become a part of the program. Something else that I was confused by, is if it has to be by state, or if individual schools could apply. The site stated that anyone could be a member or join P21, yet on another page it stated that the state had to write initiatives and how they were going to combine the three R's with the four C's. I think that my school would enjoy and jump at the chance to be a part of this, as many of the goals and statements on the website coincide and match those that we have at my school.
"There is a profound gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21st century communities and workplaces." (The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2010) As many teachers and community members talk about, this gap that is still occurring between knowledge and skills, what can be done to close it? It seems that when my districts takes steps forward to correct and close this gap, technology increases and becomes better, so therefore, we still end up with the gap. How can a school district successfully close the gap and not spend all of their budget money on the new, expensive technology and training for the technology?
Overall, I found the website to be very helpful. It contained great ideas about how to combine the concepts and teach the four c's while teaching the three r's. Many of the ideas are supported with reasons and resources for helping any teacher. This website would be helpful to anyone that wants to make sure their students are ready for the 21st century.
Reference:
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). Retrieved September 28, 2010 from http://www.p21.org/
Levy and Murnane (2006), explain that two skills are necessary to master to be successful in the workplace: expert thinking and complex communication (p. 57). It is our job as teachers to incorporate those two skills into our everyday teaching. The Partnership for 21st Century Learning provides resources, tools, and videos on how to incorporate technology into your teaching and classroom. The more teachers incorporate technology into their teaching the easier it becomes and the more students get to practice their 21st century skills. If every teacher focuses on incorporating those two skills into their teaching and curriculum the students will have no problem finding a job when they enter the workforce.
ReplyDeleteReferences
Levy,F. and Murnane, R. (2006). Why the changing American economy calls for twenty-first century learning: Answers to educators’ questions. New Directions for Youth Development, 2006, (110), 53-62.
Hi Melissa
ReplyDeleteYou made a profound point about the continuity of the gap between how students learn in schools and the knowledge and skills they need for the 21st century. It is obvious that there is a great demand on schools to keep up with trying to bridge a gap that continues to open up as technology advances and many persons may be forced to ask if it is worth the effort trying to bridge a gap that continues to expand. Response to this question will be dependent on one’s vision for the education sector. As I carefully assess the situation I feel that the effort is worthwhile, what is needed is an adjustment to the kind of bridge we wish to utilize each time the gap occurs.
Bridging the gap that exist cannot be a simple school district effort as no single district on its own will be able to address the changes as they occur by the minute. The first attempt to addressing this issue is through collaboration from a national standpoint. Schools could be given the opportunity to form partnership with software developers and manufacturers of many of the gadgets we use so that they can pilot many of their projects and also receive additional tools at subsidized cost. The partnership for 21st century skills is an avenue through which this can occur and this is why I feel that all states should by now be included in the initiative. Through this partnership, the government can play a more active and decisive role in this process. In countries such as Finland and Ireland, the government is investing much to ensure that students are keeping up with the technological changes so they can compete globally. “They have a priority for an information technology economy” (Miners and Pascopella, 2007). This kind of vision will force the leadership of any country to use the education sector as the medium through which they can achieve their goal. When the responsibility to bridge the gap becomes a national initiative then school districts have less to worry about as the responsibility to acquire needed tools will be a national effort. Friedman (2005) asserts that globalization has allowed the world to become flat and meeting the challenges of flatism requires as comprehensive, energetic and focused a response where the president of a country can summon the nation to work harder, get smarter, attract more young women and men to science and engineering and build the broadband infrastructure.
School districts can also collaborate to initiate other projects that can be geared towards their technological advancement. In countries such as Japan and China various agencies arrange projects that allow students to not only use technologies but become developers of these tools. School districts could spearhead these kinds of projects and this will attract businesses and other groups as sponsors. This could create an avenue through which students can both learn the skills needed for the 21st century and acquire resources for their schools.
References
Friedman, T. (2005, April 3). It’s a flat world, after all. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
Miners, Z., & Pascopella, A. (2007). The new literacies. District Administration, 43(10), 26-34.