The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) web site, http://www.21stcenturyskills.org, contains information about the need for change in education. According to the site, one of their goals is to "provide educational leaders with tools, examples, and a strategy for action, not more rhetoric." One of the tools available from P21 is a Skills Map (available for Science, Geography, English, and Social Studies) to aid educators in incorporating 21st century skills into the classroom.
The outcomes described in the Science Map do incorporate 21st century skills and science skills, but they do not seem to fit easily into the curriculum that is already required for my ninth grade Biology students in the state of Virginia. Outcomes are listed for three grade levels: 4th, 8th, and 12th. As my students are in ninth grade, I should be preparing them for the 12th grade outcome, but there are no examples listed for integration into ninth grade. While the Skills Maps are a step in the right direction for helping educators to adapt their teaching style to match 21st century skills, I think that outcomes should be listed for other grade levels, as well as strategies for meeting that outcome.
The P21 web site also contains a Tools & Resources section, but finding an actual strategy that can be applied to my classroom has been difficult. Most of the resources are just links to other web sites where you can... search for resources. It seemed like a never-ending search that produced no tangible results.
While I was unable to find the "tools, examples, and strategy for action" promised by P21, the site is an excellent resource for learning about what skills are necessary in the 21st century work place. Educators and students alike need to be aware that job skills are changing; education should therefore be changing, too.
Several states (my state of Virginia not included) are part of the P21 Partnership. These states are re-writing their standards and assessments to include 21st century skills. If education is truly going to change to include skills necessary to be competitive in a global job market, all states need to follow this lead. The Virginia Department of Education Office of Educational Technology does supply a list of technology standards for students in Virginia public schools. However, these standards are separate from the content standards that teachers must already cover. The Virginia Department of Education should consider making a single list of standards that incorporate both technology and content. In this world of high-stakes standardized testing, educators are doing all they can to prepare their students for success. Educational policy-makers need to ensure that the standards they provide will indeed prepare students for success after school.
Resources:
Levy, F., & Murnane, R. (2006, Summer2006). Why the changing American economy calls for twenty-first century learning: Answers to educators' questions. New Directions for Youth Development, 2006(110), 53-62. Retrieved July 22, 2009, from Academic Search Premier database.
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Corinne
ReplyDeleteThe inactive links were disappointing to me as I really would have liked to see examples of the lesson plans that incorporated 21st century skills in the classroom. It appeared that it had a lot of theoretical suggestions, and a very good showing of resources, but not much practical application.
Did you complete the MILE assessment guide? That was informative, but like you said a lot of the links do not work and then there are others that result in endless searching, but not producing anything tangible.
Navigating through Partnerships for 21st Century Skills website was very frustrating at times. Throughout much of my search I was hoping to find useful resources and links to incorporate the 21st century skills into my lessons, but was unsuccessful in that search. Unfortunately, I also experienced many links that did not work. It became a frustrating experience, but realized that the main focus of this site was to provide its readers with an immense amount of factual information to encourage and persuade a change in the methods educators use in the classroom. This change is requested as a result of the need to align our teaching methods with the workplace as the two realms seem to be worlds apart. As a result, our students will be unprepared for the working world that they soon will enter in the near future.
ReplyDeleteI also notated the lack of participation in the P21 Leadership States. Although I live and work in a state (New Jersey) that does participate in the efforts to "revise their standards, create assessments and implement 21st century skills professional development programs," I was astounded that this is not a unified effort among all states in the United States. If we want our students to succeed in the ever changing job market we need to prepare them with the 21st century skills that they will be faced with. Therefore, I believe that all states should be working towards the same goal to encourage success among our students and create less of a chance of computers taking over the jobs that we are preparing them for.
Although your state does not participate in the P21 Leadership States program, do you feel as though your school promotes much of the 21st century skills in addition to incorporating the technology that goes along with these ideas?
My school does promote some of the 21st century skills, but I do not feel as though all teachers are prepared to incorporate the skills to the extent that they should. Although the Virginia State Department of Education has published technology standards, I had never heard of them until I searched on the internet last week. The technology standards do not receive the attention that the content standards receive, most likely because they are not part of the state assessments. Adjusting the format and content of the state assessments is key to promoting the incorporation of technology and other 21st century skills.
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