"As educators, we constantly strive to prepare our students for the ‘real world’ that exists around them. We teach them how to read, write, and calculate. Then, of course, there are the less tangible skills we teach; such as how to work in a team, think critically, and be curious about the things they encounter each day.
We want to prepare them to lead productive and successful lives once they leave us and enter into the realm of adulthood. But what lies ahead for our students in the future? Did educators of twenty years ago know that so much of our world would be based on computers and technology now? Could they have known what skills would be needed in the job market today?"
Beth Dichter's insight:
This post focuses on work published by Tony Wagner back in 2010 but the information is still relevant. Wagner interviewed CEOs of 100 major businesses and was able to come up with seven essential skills students should have for the 21st century (and yes, we are in this century). The skills are listed below and more information may be found in this post, which lists the skill and then discusses how to prepare students to meet this skill.
* Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
* Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence
As technology is becoming powerful and life changing how can we prepare students for the 21st century survival. The seven survival skills purposefully apply in a classroom. This links with Using Mathematical Higher order thinking - Critical Thinking and problem solving prepares students to see problems from different angles and formulate their own solutions. Collaboration encourages students to take on different roles. Agility and Adaptability – be willing to adapt to the changes around them.Initative and Entrepreneurship - always try. Effective Oral and written communication - how to speak confidently and clearly. Accessing and Analyzing Information-
learn the difference between factual information and factual-sounding opinions. Curiosity and Imagination - teach them how to apply them creatively and purposefully. Technology has become an essential and important tool for education, helping teachers with their work and most importantly supporting the students. This also links with brief design technology and the digital technologies strand of the National Technologies Curriculum as students are taught how to use the technologies available to them.
Today there are many buzz words in education. As you read literature some may be new and some you have heard before. This article takes a look at pedagogy, asking us to truly look at what is driving learning today. Med Kharbach has brought together a range of materials to help you explore the meaning of pedagogy in the 21st century. Videos, images, text, a concept map and links provide great resources on this topic.
You may have never tried project-based learning, or you may teach in a purely PBL environment. Whatever your background, you’ll find that PBL can be a powerful instructional approach.
Another ebook available...This one explore the three eras of education, 21st century skills for students, and 21st century skills for teachers. This ebook will provide many resources and ideas that you may use in your classroom.
"I tweeted yesterday an interesting news item in Erik Robelen’s blog in Education Week that a few states (Oklahoma, California, Massachusetts) are seriously looking into some sort of assessment of creative thinking as part of the whole 21st century skills/entrepreneurship movement. I think it is a great idea, with a lot of potential for leveraging change.
Now, of course, the naysayers are quick to say that you cannot measure creative thinking. This is silly: here is a rubric for doing so..."
This wheel consists of the revised Bloom's taxonomy for the 21st century and the associated digital activities for each cognitive process. It is interesting how one can use the same tool across the cognitive domains. This implies that thw way one uses the tool helps develop the student cognitive process in higher order of thinking (HOT) and lower order of thinking (LOT)....
A video that makes you think about schools and how they might change...if hip hop is defined as "creative resourcefulness in the face of limited resources or flipping something out of nothing" could one say the same for education. Could one take the idea of sampling and mixing music to sampling and mixing multiple teaching designs to find the ones that best serve our students?
Call it "The School of Hardknocks" education aligned with hip-hop is just as the title states, "Genius". To incorporate hip-hop in today's school system I believe is vital to students and there ways of learning. Teachers are always looking for new ideas on how to get students more involved with there education...might I suggest the classic movie "Sister Act" one and two. Plus the fact that the school systems today are becoming more involved with the digital era (Technology) teachers should adapt to this generations and even future generations ways of learning, simply because as it is overly cliched, They are our future.
Cathy Davidson's response to the NY Times article "Should We Really ABOLISH the Term Paper?" In this post she goes into much greater depth about why she has chosen not to use term papers and also provides additional research about "improved literacy levels of this generation."
This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business was recently published by Fast Company. It's intent is to introduce and describe some of the key movers and ...
A friend asked me to do a round-up of my top 10 blog posts as Cat in the Stack on the www.hastac.org website for 2011. Well, I looked over the list and it turns out I write a lot more than I thought! Rather than pick my top 10, I reviewed the Google analytics and then, below, compiled the links to the ones (about 20 or 30 actually) that saw the most traffic. Click on the link and it will take you to the original post.
This is part 6 in a 12 part series. The first five skills were Pattern Recognition, Environmental Scanning, Network Weaving, Foresight, and Conscious Awareness.
"More than 150 years ago, Massachusetts became the first state to provide all of its citizens access to a free public education. Over the next 66 years, every other state made the same guarantee. The result was a publicly-funded system where, in every American classroom, groups of about 28 students of roughly the same age are taught by one teacher, usually in an 800 square-foot room. This model has been the dominant archetype ever since."
So what needs to be done to change this model, to move from the 19th century to the 21st century? This article explores what may be "the future of the classroom?"
Schools have always been charged with the task of producing good citizens. But how has our definition of a "good citizen" changed over the ages?
What skills should we be teaching? What knowledge do our students need to participate in the world as it is today, a world that has been transformed by technoloyg?
"One of the challenges and important priorities for K-12 today has to be broadening our understanding of what it means to be a digital citizen, so that we're talking about young people as producers and managers of information and perspectives, and not simply as people we need to keep safe and civil..."
Our world is changing at an unprecedented pace. To prepare our students, lessons must go beyond the "3 R's" and foster 21st century skills. Skills like criti...
This is an updated version of the "Did You Know/Shift Happens" videos. Links to sources are available on the YouTube website.
"It will take classroom teachers, who understand that '21st Century Learning' cannot be equaled to 'using computers, iPads, web 2.0 tools or other technology gadgets and tools' at a set time during their schedule, to make the shift how we think about learning."
It makes perfect sense when you think about it. Creativity is an invaluable tool in problem solving. In a digital age where innovation is highly valued, teaching creative problem solving is essential...
Creativity and problem solving are two concepts that do not often appear in the same sentence. Our ability to practice and intertwine the two is what will place new innovators at an advantageous stage in the future. I chose to scoop this because it’s a surprising and different way of looking at innovation.
Gamestar Mechanic is a game and online community that teaches kids how to design their own games!
Designing games builds:
Systems Thinking, 21st Century Skills, Creative Problem Solving, Art and Aesthetics, Writing and Storytelling, and creates a motivation for STEM learning.
There is a free version and a professional version with additional materials available. Geared to grades 4 - 9.
These speakers from TED assess the prevailing model of education reform by answering the critical question: How do we create educational environments that maximize how students harness their creative and problem-solving potential? Relevant areas of interest, study and coursework include: Education Policy, Curriculum Development, Assessment, Pedagogy, Career and Technical Education, Project-Based Learning, Whole Child Education, 21st Century Skills, and Multiple Intelligences.
I love TED and the highly relevant, thoroughly researched topics I can share with my students and my colleagues. This is a great resource for next year's PBTE goal 4.1!
Sign up to be a part of the Academy online at http://www.innovatoracademy.com and then will receive a weekly email that gives the first clue to a learning web scavenger hunt.
The Buck Institute for Education commissioned the cutting-edge advertising agency, Common Craft, to create a short animated video that explains in clear lang...
Educational transformation is coming not because of the increasing ineffectiveness of schools in meeting society’s needs – though that is certainly a good reason – but due to their growing unaffordability...This is not a temporary financial dislocation due to an economic downturn, but a permanent sea-change that has already happened in every other service sector of our economy.
Given the work that I do, I'm a sucker for skill lists. As our work worlds grow ever more complex and challenging, it seems that the skills themselves become more complex too. Increasingly, though, I've begun to believe that these...
Did you know that Santa believes in Project Based Learning? It’s true… in fact I have worked quite hard at finding evidence that supports this conclusion. Recently I was reviewing an outstandin...
This is a great outline of the important elements and goals of PBL. This will be useful when I'm thinking about ideas for classroom projects. Does it do all of these things?
Interesting article with a cute graphic about how Santa believes in PBL. Each element of PBL is included with some notes from Santa. I got a smile out of this one!
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As technology is becoming powerful and life changing how can we prepare students for the 21st century survival. The seven survival skills purposefully apply in a classroom. This links with Using Mathematical Higher order thinking - Critical Thinking and problem solving prepares students to see problems from different angles and formulate their own solutions. Collaboration encourages students to take on different roles. Agility and Adaptability – be willing to adapt to the changes around them.Initative and Entrepreneurship - always try. Effective Oral and written communication - how to speak confidently and clearly. Accessing and Analyzing Information-
learn the difference between factual information and factual-sounding opinions. Curiosity and Imagination - teach them how to apply them creatively and purposefully. Technology has become an essential and important tool for education, helping teachers with their work and most importantly supporting the students. This also links with brief design technology and the digital technologies strand of the National Technologies Curriculum as students are taught how to use the technologies available to them.