The leading advocacy organization infusing 21st century skills into education.
I am very impressed with this site we were asked to review for my Walden' Technology class. This is a Partnership of people from company's such as Verizon, Brain Smart, and Apple to name a few that have joined Ken Kay's vision to bring momentum towards 21st century learning. The list is surprisingly long. These folks will provide resources that will assist schools. You can listen to Ken on a UTube video that is linked to this site. He discusses the Partnership's plan to prepare students for the work place. They researched real working people from various areas of employment, non profit organizations, and civic life to look at needed skills. There are states that have implemented already into their Standards combining core curriculum and content. Kansas and North Carolina are two states that have joined with the program. There is great urgency on the founder's part. He says, " We cannot let another day go bye..." I was surprised to see a link to recent article authors such as Andrew J. Rotherham who cautions us to be deliberate and fare to all students as this mission to 21st c learning is reached. He offers statistics that provide percentages of how lower income economic areas may miss out on the opportunities when they come. Perhaps moving slowly into this transition of learning along with technology is the right move.
This site offers updated readings from recent publications. In the Education sector, there is a recent report about Internet-based testing. It tells how cumbersome testing will be eliminated. We all know about those booklets and erasing over marked dots during testing time. This author supports the computer adaptive tests. Another surprising piece of educational info was about simulators that are created to provide virtual learning while assessing. You can see diagrams from the actual programs.
How do you all feel about this shift? From my readings in Partnership, I worry that my county, and even myself could fall short on what should take place inside our schools and outside. Reading about this vision says more businesses need to partner with my school's system. The implications could be as said found somewhere in this great site: over planning and under executed could be the results. There are successful programs such as KIP you can learn about by going to this site. http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/
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After looking at this website I was excited to see that not only were they focusing on the core subjects and weaving in the interdisciplinary themes but they also focused on the life and career skills. What do you think about that? Are enough schools addressing the social aspect of education as well as the cross-cultural skills?
ReplyDeleteDear Danika,
ReplyDeleteNo, I do not think schools are incorporating classes that could teach social skills along with opportunities in education. My middle school class just added a class called Study Skills. This is not a remedial class. As a matter of fact, students with good grades become flustered when they are placed into it. This is a class that not only teaches students learning strategies, but talks about age appropriate behavior. The kids say it is boring, which tells me they are doing some serious learning and discussing. The teacher is fantastic and we do need more of these classes. Don't you think more counselors should teach a class on this subject? Counselors could share in a highschool the responsibilities.
I to thought the site was awesome and well organized as well. What is it that you think your county or yourself might cause you to fall short? I liked how you mentioned the part about buisnesses partnering up with schools. I think this is a very important step to take when learning the new skills. Buisnesses know what their employees need to be trained in. If they start the traing before they even get the employees through education then we will be creating knowledge based employees that we know have the skills before they hired. This benefits both the students and the employer. There are so many good posibilities with this I wonder why we don't see this hapening to often?
ReplyDeleteVictoria,
ReplyDeleteOur local high school offers a class called "Life Skills," and the focus is supposed to be on character education and problem solving skills; however, it does tend to be a place for the students to hang out and get an easy "A" rather than address real life concerns. Until our nation places more emphasis on the need to teach our students how to be decent human beings who make positive contribuations to the human race, we will continue to see these classes being viewed as boring, irrelevant, or jokes.
I applaud the P21 movement in their efforts to bring these issues back into focus for our school system. In days of old, kids were held accountable for their actions at school and at home, and they were taught how to behave in public, show respect, and work hard. Now, we are too concerned about hurting their feelings or damaging their self-esteem. The truth is that most of today's students have too much self-esteem to the point that they believe the world revolves around them.
We are truly doing our kids a disservice by teaching them that the world is fair because life is NOT fair.