Monday, January 23, 2012
Partnership for 21st Century Skills website
After looking around the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website (www.p21.org), I found a lot of great tools for educators to use to help them integrate these skills into their curriculum. I can see where some of these skills may be challenging for core or elective teachers to integrate into their curriculum, but the website offers a great mapping tool for various subject areas. I think the layout of the website was very user friendly. Under the educators tools and resources section, there are maps for various subject areas and they offer different ideas for different grade levels of ways to incorporate the skills into a lesson. I can definitely see where some teachers may see this as just another task on their long to-do list, but these are essential skills that the students need to be competitive when they enter college and the workforce. Overall, I think the implications for our students and for educators is that we all need to be more open to change and develop a new way of thinking to integrate technology into our methods to help us teach students the various skills they need. If we use technology and collaborate with other teachers to think of new, innovative ways to teach the students, then the students will be more excited and on-task to learn.
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Innovative is exactly how I put it! Many districts like the idea of technology, but due to funding or whatever other reasons it is not being supported in the buildings. Educators need to think creatively like we expect our students to. We all have time constraints, policies and procedures to follow, but we also have kids to educate. In order to prepare them for their futures, I agree we need to create lessons incorporating technology that students are excited about.
ReplyDeleteI think many of the lesson suggestions were useful too. Teachers could easily use some of the mentioned activities and apply them immediately in their own classrooms. In these changing times, it is becoming more and more important for teachers to be open minded when it comes to using new strategies and technology in teaching. At my school, many teachers have been teaching for 20+ years and feel their older methods of teaching are tried and true. They are hesitant to make changes and are unsure of the implementation of technology. Realizing that using their previous teaching methods in connection with 21st Century skills is not only important, but imparative.
ReplyDeleteI found this site to be helpful. Most of my lessons are hands-on but lack the "umph" technology can add to make them pop. As I dig deeper, I am feeling more confidant about how to integrate technology into the classroom while continuing to help build 21st Century skills. The balance between the two is important. Over the last several years, technology has really taken over and replaced these essential skills. We all have to be open to life long learning as we learn new skills and revisit those we may have forgotten to address.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised at the lessons mentioned on the site. As you may read, I spent the day with my school's curriculum director and she never mentioned this site. I thought it was very helpful in numerous ways. The lessons were very easy to follow or tweek, the lay out was easy to navigate, and the mapping out of the curriculum made it very easy for you to see why it is essential.
ReplyDeleteI found this site to be very redundant of what I already know. As a math teacher, I would agree with your comment in regards to the core subjects. I feel as if teaching these skills are common sense, and represent one of the major reasons that we need an education. 21st centruy skills...duh! We aren't teaching 19th century skills. Isn't the point of education to prepare our students to become productive citizens in our society?
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