While looking around the website http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ I was impressed with the number of major companies and brands involved in this endeavour. The website was well laid out and easy to navigate. While reading the mission statement, I was shocked to see some of the points listed there such as Civic Literacy, Thinking and Problem Solving, and Interpersonal and self-direction skills are taught in schools today and was offended that they implied we don;t do these. The other three points seemed reasonable as something we could work on to further our students understanding to prepare them for the 21st century workplace.
I liked that they offered training centers online to help with these new 21st century skills, however non were currently available where I live in Michigan. They seemed to be a fairly new initiative that is trying to grow and define themselves so we will have to wait and see what can really come form all of this.
The resources online offered good description of skills needed but I found it hard to locate any information showing teachers exactly how to incorporate these new skills into our classroom so was disappointed. Over all It looks like allot of talk about things teachers need to prepare students for which sound good on paper, but they offer nothing to teachers to help so they also do not really have the answer of how to change schools to meet these new standards?
I know the implications for my students are real, they ned to be prepared to enter this tech savy work force with a strong understaning of how to interact in society especially in the work place so these skills neesd to be taught. But again my questions on how to do this better were not answered by this site but maybe I missed something?
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Eric -
ReplyDeleteWhat I found to be quite alarming about the site was that not all states are participating in this Partnership! One would think that all 50 would be participating, right?! Also, according to the site, only 19 states are giving their students Civic Skills tests.
However, I was in agreement with the list of skills that they deem as crucial for the 21st century workplace such as global awareness, civic engagement, financial/economic/business literacy, learning skills, and information and communication technology skills. I do believe that these skills are vital to have in order to become successful in the workplace today. However, I do not feel as is our students are exposed to them enough, and therefore cannot acquire them readily. At least not ALL our students.
Of course, it will depend upon which school system the students attend, and what their policies are regarding these 21st century skills. If not all states are participating in this Partnership to advocate for the implementation of these skills, then how can we expect to move toward ALL students being prepared? If only 19 out of 50 states (38%)are assessing Civic skills, how do we expect ALL of them to be prepared?
This Partnership has been around for a while, as the documents that I read on the site were dated 2003. Our country cannot afford to allow more and more jobs to go abroad because our students do not possess the skills today's employers are seeking. What are your thoughts?
Mr. P -
ReplyDeleteI agree that the "How-to" portion of this website appears to be missing for the educators, and as Heather pointed out they have been working on this for a long time. I can only hope that the training is where the next level of depth comes into the picture. The problem is that the training sites are limited and the "trickle" effect just doesn't seem to be happening. I think we have to look at this site as a starting point and hope that other companies, states, districts, and schools get actively involved in this initiative. In the next few months and years, it will be interesting to see if our government is able to turn the much needle need to point to "Education First"!!
I agree with your points of vague and seeming to be a start up iniative. You also mentioned the assumuption that we are not doing the "Literacy, Thinking and Problem Solving, and Interpersonal and self-direction skills," I am hoping they are mentioning these as starting points for widespread growth of these topics. I am also hoping they are describing these as things that they know are happening but that they are not governed or made as protocals for school districts to emphasize. These are my hopes but I am not exactly sure as to their thought process in assessing this instruments of instruction.
ReplyDeleteEric,
ReplyDeleteI agree that the website was indeed vague on ways in which teachers should be implementing the skills that were discuss by the organization. I think that having teacher testimonials posted or ways that teachers can bring these ideas into the classroom would make it much easier for educators to "buy into" the organization's mission. I was also shocked that there were so few states that were members of this organization. Perhaps since the organization has only been in existence since 2002 places an impact on membership. Hopefully teachers will be able to incorporate ideas and concepts from the website into their classroom and post ideas on a blog as to how their achieved success through this method.