What are 21st century skills? According to The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, an advocacy group formed in 2002 through a joint effort by the United States Department of Education and technology business companies like Apple, Dell, and Microsoft, 21st century skills are the tools and knowledge that students need to be adept in, in order to be successful the 21st century. Specifically, the group feels that students need to be creative, innovative problem solvers with the ability to access and utilize information effectively through the use of technology and media. The group bases its framework around core academic subjects and believes that the enhancement of current curriculum with the skills and strategies of the 21st century will produce more capable and successful students, who will be better prepared to meet the challenges of a global society.When I was first introduced to this site, about six months ago, I spent only a short period of time looking at the information contained on the website. My initial understanding of the partnership was that it was primarily supporting the use of technology in the classroom to aid in raising achievement levels. While this does hold true in the most general of senses, I have learned so much more about their true mission. As I began to look at the site, I was quite impressed. The partnership feels very strongly about the need to integrate technology into the classroom environment of all students. They believe that the experience of utilizing the available technologies of today will better prepare students for the global business communication world they will one day enter. I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the group's commitment to maintaining core subjects in education. Their vision seems to be that students will continue learning to become academic readers, writers, mathematicians, scientists, and historians, and will incorporate the present and emerging technologies to enhance that learning. The augmenting of that core curriculum with 21st century themes, like information, media and technology communication skills is a welcome and refreshing idea.
With so many exciting ideas and proposals to ready our students for the future of business and life, I was saddened, but not surprised, to see that so few states have begun implementing technology initiatives in public schools. With federally mandated testing creating such high-stakes situations for schools across the nation, the shift that the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is suggesting would be a radical transformation for many states and districts. It would require a great deal of investment from states and local school districts to effectively implement and integrate these standards and skills into the current curricula being used in public schools across the nation. This investment may, to some states, seem like to great a risk in the face of being labeled a failing school or district.
The implications for myself and my students are tremendous. As an educator, it will require me to invest my time learning about these new technologies, in order to be able to guide my students through their use. I will also, because of the technology availability challenges that I will face when implementing these skills, need to deepen my own problem solving skills to utilize technology effectively; using what I have available to me, and creating other lessons that instill the collaborative and communicative nature of the 21st century themes. Doing so will allow students to access the many technology skills they already posses to enhance their learning. It will empower students to think more creatively and more critically, a skill that is taught in few classes, and never tested or assessed. Infusing 21st century skills into core content areas gives students a greater opportunity and reason to utilize the knowledge they are gaining in those areas, and to deepen their understanding of not only its importance to them, but also of the content itself. Teaching these skills will help students become the creative and innovative problem solvers and communicators that the world of today (and tomorrow) requires.
While implementing the partnership's ideals is not an easy task, it is certainly one that we owe it to our students to pursue. They are, after all, the very people who will drive the innovation and advancement of the world we will live in tomorrow.
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Hi Julie, Why is the message not getting out to the people? Are people afraid to endorse a curriculum partially funded by large Technology corporations?
ReplyDeleteI think the curriculum is excellent and we do not absolutely need all the high tec resources to implement it. We can do it right now with what we have. What do you think?
Julie,
ReplyDeleteI think it is so sad that instead of making the changes to educate our students in the best way possible, the districts are shaking that they may not make AYP because of a standardized test!
I believe that the fear of technology keeps many teachers from exposing their students to even basic skills. Just like you said...it will require you to spend time learning about the new technology so that you can effectively teach your students how to use it. There are a lot of teachers out there who don't want to change the way they teach.
You said it best, " While implementing the partnership's ideals is not an easy task, it is certainly one that we owe it to our students to pursue."
We have to educate the next generation in a way that will allow them to succeed.
James,
ReplyDeleteI am not sure why more people don't know about this. I think many people do not want to see this. Perhaps they are afraid that implementing this would change education in a way that they would not understand. If that happened, how would they know if "we" were doing well enough with our students?
I agree with you, in part, that we can and should be implementing this framework now. The problem lies in the fact that "what we have" is different in every school. While it is imperative to teach students how to read critically, think deeply, and communicate complexly, the technology factors, that make this framework different from simple best practices, are simply not available to every child in every school, at the same level. The inequity of funding and accessibility of technology in some schools, like my own, is staggering. Some schools in my district have a 3:1 student to computer ratio in their schools - along with LCD projectors for every classroom. In my school, the student to computer ratio is approximately 20:1. My students are economically disadvantaged, and few of them have home access to computer technology. The other school I speak of is comprised of middle to upper middle class families, where most, if not all, of the students have computer access at home. As Donald Leu points out, most of the less fortunate students in poorer districts and schools are not being given the opportunities to use technology because of pressure to meet AYP and raise reading test scores (Miners & Pascopella, 2007). This is further crippling students like those that I teach every day, because their peers will have had years of meaningful technology experience and instruction before my students learn to utilize many of the technologies on even a novice level.
So, while we should implement what we can with what we have, trying to do so without proper equipment can feel like an almost overwhelming prospect. I don't personally like doing anything halfway. I have to beg, borrow, and steal computer use from my colleagues, and I feel that I simply do not have the ability to teach technology infused lessons effectively. I have to rush through lessons and practice, and I am simply not able to give my students daily access to the equipment. Is that type of technology infusion the best use of the time I have with them? I would like to say yes, but it is not always easy to do so.
There has to be a better answer. There has to be some way that this can be done for our kids. It's too important to just accept the inequity.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteWhat is so incredibly sad is that the infusion of technology and the framework's skills would actually, for most students, over time, improve skills and the application of those skills. Students would read better, write better... they would think better. There would not be a need to worry about meeting AYP. The gaps would shrink or close, and students would perform, if only because they feel connected to and excited about what they are doing.
Julie,
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that we have all assumed that states are not working towards making their schools more technologically integrated based on the fact that they have not "joined" this particular group. I would agree that this Partnership has well thoughtout and organized information but they cannot be the only people who are aware of this deficiency in the schools.
Thoughts?
Dawn,
ReplyDeleteExcellent point. We shouldn't assume that just because a state is not part of this partnership, it does not recognize the need for its students to be technologically adept. However, I believe that states who truly feel that technology integration is important and instrumental to the success of its students, would want to become part of a partnership like this. At the very least, they would designate state standards focused on technology. In my own personal situation, this assumption is easy to make, because I don't believe that my particular state values the integration and teaching of technology and 21st century skills. Colorado not only is not a part of this partnership, but does not have model content standards for technology. It does, however, have model content standards for students K-12 in DANCE. While I am a strong supporter of the arts, I find it a bit troubling that my state has developed standards in dance, but does not have technology standards. Yet, I know that by far, Colorado is not the only state which has not developed technology standards.
A fundamental change in thinking and practice, such as implementing 21st century skills and technology, will require a well thought out and organized structure to entice states and districts to buy into the impact it can have on its students. Without a structure like the Partnership for 21st Century Skills offers, states and districts are more likely to relegate technology to an equipment and hardware issue - which becomes filed as a monetary problem, not a curriculum and instructional deficit.
Julie, I think that the best use of the 21st century framework would be to find a way to infuse them with our state standards and make a cohesive set of standards that can be implemented. I am personally under the impression that all states need to adhere to same standards. There should be a national set of learning standards that are created, approved, and implemented by all of the states. I think that this is the key piece that we are missing in order to be competitive or in the same 'mix' as Japanese, Scandinavians, and others.
ReplyDeleteMelissa,
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you said that! I have been saying that for years. If there were a national set of standards, then every child in every part of the country would be learning and meeting the same goals. That piece alone would make the implementation of 21st century skills ten times easier!