Partnership for 21st Century Skills

      My reaction to The Partnership for 21st Century Skills organization is that it encourages one to evaluate the skills taught in his or her own classroom and helps determine necessary skills that need to be implemented. With district mandated objectives, it is easy to pass over necessary skills because of lack of time. This organization's website explains the critical skills that need to be integrated in the core curriculum to promote higher level thinking. This organization understands the value of the core curriculum, however feels as though it needs to be altered to integrate additional skills necessary to prepare students for their roles in society. These skills include:

• life and career skills
• learning and innovation skills
• information, media, and technology skills

The organization's website provides snapshots of classrooms that are effectively applying specific 21^st century skills to their objectives. This site provides publications, webinars, and books that can be used as a reference to gain ideas and to understand the importance of 21^st century skills. Levy and Murnane (2006) said “complex communication and expert thinking are important for contributing to life in a pluralistic democracy.” This site helps you prepare your students by developing communication and critical thinking skills they will need for their future lives and professions.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills organization provides an integrative framework of the 21^st century tools. This diagram helped me understand the categories in which each of the skills fit. It also showed the steps one must take in incorporating these skills in the classroom: learning environments, professional development, curriculum and instruction, and standards and assessments. I was surprised that professional development was a step above learning environments. In order for a teacher to understand what necessary elements are needed in a 21^st century classroom, the teachers need to participate in professional development. They need to be introduced to the skills, tools, and schedules that are most effective in a 21^st century classroom to integrate these skills into core subjects.

When looking at the snapshots of each of the 21^st century skills, several of the skills were specific to different grade levels. An example being communication/global awareness was represented for grade levels 9-12. Since these skills promote higher level thinking, it is necessary to encourage teachers of all grade levels to implement these skills whenever possible. I would suggest providing lessons for each grade level that incorporate these skills. There are sample lessons available, but they are not organized by grade level and they are a little difficult to sort through. 

     The implication for my students as I integrate these skills is closing the “gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge they need in a typical 21^st century communities and workplace” (Partnership for 21^st Century Skills, 2010). Students should be exposed to learning each of the 21^st century skills to establish themselves in the workplace and in their lives. This site does not expect teachers to take additional time out of their day, but to incorporate 21^st century methods and tools into their current curriculum to benefit the students for the future.

References

Levy, F., & 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. 

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). A report and mile guide for 21st century skills. Washington DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/downloads/P21_Report.pdf

Showing Growth Through Blogs

Every year in our third grade plant unit, the students observe the stages of a Wisconsin Fast Plant. During our inquiry based lesson, students design a planter from the following materials: wick, plant food, soil, seeds, styrofoam planter. They decide where they want to place the plant in the room. Some choose to place the planter near the window while others feel the florescent light is the best environment. Some students place their plant on a direct water source, while others decide to control the amount of water their plant receives by watering it themselves.

In the past, students have journaled about their observations by including a written description and a diagram each day. This year I could have the students record their observations directly onto our classroom blog. After receiving permission from each child's guardian, I would create a blog page for each student to record his or her observations. Students would not be required to blog each day on their plant growth. They would have designated days in which to record their observations and designated days to comment on other students observations. Since students are using the classroom website, I will have them "save their posts as drafts" (Richardson, 2010, p. 51) until they have been proofread and ready to publish.

I would start by providing examples of other classrooms that blogged about their plant growth observations ( example 1, example 2).  We will use these examples to discuss the safety tips in creating and commenting on a blog. When starting their own blog, students will take a digital picture of their plant and post it with their written description. Since the planter and environment of the plant is experimental, students can comment on their peers' observations and provide recommendations to improve the growth rate of the plant. This is an effective tool because the students may notice patterns from their peers' plants which encourages critical thinking and discussion. They will also explore the various elements that contribute to the growth of the fast plant through each other's experiments. By incorporating this blog, students will be able to share and discuss their observations at home through each stage of the experiment.

I would invite a botanist to look over our plant observations and recommend suggestions by commenting on the students' blogs. He or she could come into the classroom or Skype with the students once the lesson has ended to answer questions and share professional knowledge. I would also attempt at locating another classroom that is also growing fast plants. Our classrooms would benefit from observing each other's plant growth and formulating discussions through our blogs.

The blog would benefit my students by allowing them to share their work with others while collaborating with professionals, peers, guardians, and teachers using a 21st century tool. This unit would demonstrate the power and effectiveness of communicating with others through the Internet in order to discover knowledge and achieve similar goals.


References


Bud. (2005, March 28). Bud's Blogging Parent Letter. Retrieved September 13, 2010 from http://www.budtheteacher.com/wiki/index.php?title=Bud%27s_Blogging_Parent_Letter

Hill, S.  (2008, December 12). Plant Growth and Development. Mrs. Hill's Class Blog!! Lincoln Elementary School 3rd Grade. Retrieved September 13, 2010 from http://sites.epals.com/hill3rd/node/137

Jenkins, S.  (2010, April 26). Observing plant growth while integrating math and science. The perfect connection! I teach inquiry network. Retrieved September 13, 2010 from http://iteachinquiryblog.com/?p=366

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. 


Internet safety tips for kids. Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. Retrieved September 13, 2010 from http://ww2.wisconsin.gov/san/agency/upload/doa/consumer/inetkd255.pdf

Goal

The goal of my blog is to share ways of integrating technology into the classroom. As Stewart Brand suggested in the quote above, in order to stay current in the classroom one must implement technology. As new technology is introduced, an effective teacher must stay current with the trends in order to best meet the needs of the students.

My school has a surplus of technology that can be integrated into the curriculum. We have interactive whiteboards in each classroom, a movable laptop cart and iPod cart, three different response systems, digital cameras, flip cameras, document cameras, and videoconferencing equipment. This sounds like a lot of technology readily available, however one must know and understand how to use this equipment in the classroom. My purpose of this blog is to share methods and strategies for implementation of these tools into the classroom. Together, we can prevent dust from every settling on these wonderful tools we have at our fingertips.