Partnership for 21st Century Skills
I have had an idea rolling around in my head for a few years
now that the education system in the United States needed a huge overhaul. After reading about the Partnership of 21st
Century Skills maybe this is just what the doctor ordered. I think it is going to be a long process,
seeing as only 16 of the 50 states are onboard so far. I do like the fact that state leaders in
those states are involved.
Educators have talked about moving beyond the basic
competency in core subjects for quite awhile now and it looks like this is a
plan to finally do it. The
interdisciplinary themes are necessary of the future of the human race
especially the global awareness, health literacy and environmental literacy
themes. The only thing I am wondering is
who all is going to go along with this.
Maryland was not on the list of states that are onboard with this
yet. I would love to start working with
other teachers on the interdisciplinary themes but I have a feeling other
teachers in my school would see it as more work and would not want to work with
me. Especially since our state is not
involved yet. I liked reading the blog
on the website. The last post was just
about this issue; “How can we expand the dialogue about 21st Century
Skills among those not yet engaged?”
The life and career skills that are mentioned like; adapt to
varied roles, be flexible, manage goals and time, interact effectively with
others, and guide and lead others seem like they are something the students I
teach won’t be able to master for a very long time. Maybe because I teach middle school aged
students and they seem very immature to me.
Would we the teachers need to go to professional development or other
classes to learn to teach these skills to the students or would they hire
teachers already trained to teach these skills?
With the current state of the economy and with all of the budget cuts
going on in the education system I’m not sure if they will be able to afford
teachers to teach these skills.
Another question I have about these 21st century
skills is are they going to test students on them in order to graduate? Would they do away with standardized testing
and replace it with some sort of assessment on the Core Subjects and 21st
Century Themes, Learning & Innovation Skills, Information, Media &
Technology Skills and Life & Career Skills?
How will we know when a student masters these skills?
I think this framework is necessary in order for the United
States to keep up in this global economy.
I just think that it is going to take awhile for it to be implemented
throughout the entire United States.
Shelby,
ReplyDeleteYou brought up some great questions in your post about the implications of these 21st Century Skills for us as teachers. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills seems to be a growing movement, one that I learned nothing about 3 years ago when I was still in college. I also have not heard very much about it outside of this course at Walden University. With all the different educational movements that seem to come and go every year it is important for us as educators to ask the questions you asked. We need to know if this administrators will be backing the teaching of these skills, if they will be looking for this in future teachers, or if these skills will be tested. I think the beauty of these skills though is that they are timeless and will benefit students no matter what kind of changes occur in the educational landscape. By mastering these skills they will have the ability to tackle any problem that presents itself to them both in and out of school.
Patrick Hall
Shelby,
ReplyDeleteI teach in Iowa, one of the states that is on board with this initiative, through the “Iowa Core.” I do know Iowa has looked at a lot of those same questions you have. We have received a lot of training and work through our professional development to help us better incorporate and teach these 21st century skills in our everyday lessons. We have not looked to hire any other staff for this specific purpose. Also, I know our math department is in the process of looking at new text books for next year and we have found a lot of material and texts that are now aligned specifically to the Iowa Core that also include numerous resources that help expand what we are doing with technology in the classroom. Starting this year, they changed the standardized testing we were using in Iowa to try to better align it with the Iowa Core, as well.
I agree with you, I think the ideas behind the 21st century skills initiative are wonderful, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions on the best way to do this. And even in a state that has adopted this, there are still a lot of battles and teachers to win over, but I do think it is worth it in the end. Great thoughts!
Mark Fisher
Shelby,
ReplyDeleteYou raise some good concerns about not being in a P21 participating state. However, what is preventing all teachers from adapting the core beliefs and mission of P21 right now? I think the last thing education needs right now is more regulation at the state or federal level. Instead, I think educators should take the initiative and integrate these ideas into their own classroom. The majority of the skill sets P21 suggests are already taught(or should be) by most educators in their everyday lessons. The biggest challenge for any school in implementing P21's ideas is the technology infrastructure of the school (i.e. can they afford to keep up with new technologies?). In that case, a state adoption of new regulations is going to place even more financial burden on low-income school districts than they already have.