Evaluating 21st Century Skills

Educator do you know of a website that will inspire you to use technology in your classroom? Or to suggest ideas on how to incorporate those 21^st century skills into your classroom? If so you need to visit The Partnership for 21^st Century skills located at  http://www.p21.org/index.php.

“The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is a national organization that advocates for 21st century readiness for every student. As the United States continues to compete in a global economy that demands innovation, P21 and its members provide tools and resources to help the U.S. education system keep up by fusing the three Rs and four Cs (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation). While leading districts and schools are already doing this, P21 advocates for local, state and federal policies that support this approach for every school” (Partnership for 21^st century skills, 2004).

The Partnership for 21^st Century Skills website provides vast amounts of information for teachers on how to incorporate technology into their classrooms while connecting it to their state’s standards. My favorite thing about this website was the image that explains the 21^st century student outcomes and support systems. I am a visual learning, as our so many of our students, so by looking at this image I could easy see and understand how 21^st century skills connect to the things our schools are already doing. Student learning is still focused on mastering the core subjects, which include all of the state standards, developing and planning the curriculum, professional development, and creating positive learning environments. The image shows how life and career skills, the new 21^st century innovation skills, and technology skills build upon the core subjects and need to integrated into our curriculum's.

(http://www.p21.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=254&Itemid=119

The Video21 section located under the tools and resources category is a great place to see what 21^st century classrooms actually look like.

http://www.p21.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=66&Itemid=52

When you click on the Video21 link it opens up with a video explaining what 21^st century learning is and why it is so important. You can then browse through the many pages of videos and find videos to inspire you and give you ideas on how to incorporate the 21^st century skills into your classroom. 

I could not find anything on this website that I disagreed with. I was shocked that only 15 states in the United States have state initiatives pertaining to students mastering the 21^st century skills. Throughout this class we have been learning about how important technology is and that it will lead students to the best jobs. It made me wonder why the rest of the states do not have state initiatives, is technology not that important in those states? Or is it they are still developing their own state initiatives? 

I truly believe that technology is the future and that it is our job as educators to prepare our students for their futures. As an educator I found the section on 21^st century professional development very helpful. As a teacher we have a lot of responsibility to educator our students and sometimes we do not how to incorporate certain skills into our curriculum. Sometimes our school districts want use to implement certain skills or new technologies without offering us the training necessary to do so. Listed below are the 21^st century professional development standards.

21st Century Professional Development (http://www.p21.org/route21/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58&Itemid=17).

• Highlights ways teachers can seize opportunities for integrating 21st century skills, tools and teaching strategies into their classroom practice — and help them identify what activities they can replace/de-emphasize
• Balances direct instruction with project-oriented teaching methods
• Illustrates how a deeper understanding of subject matter can actually enhance problem-solving, critical thinking, and other 21st century skills
• Enables 21st century professional learning communities for teachers that model the kinds of classroom learning that best promotes 21st century skills for students
• Cultivates teachers’ ability to identify students’ particular learning styles, intelligences, strengths and weaknesses
• Helps teachers develop their abilities to use various strategies (such as formative assessments) to reach diverse students and create environments that support differentiated teaching and learning
• Supports the continuous evaluation of students’  21st century skills development
• Encourages knowledge sharing among communities of practitioners, using face-to-face, virtual and blended communications
• Uses a scaleable and sustainable model of professional development

If teachers are able to incorporate all of the above standards the outcomes are expediential for students. Teachers will be able to successfully integrate technology into their classrooms, and students will get the opportunity to use the vast amount of technology skills they’ve already mastered in their core classes.