Wednesday, September 29, 2010

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 21st century skills into your classroom? If so you need to visit The Partnership for 21st 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 21st century skills, 2004).

The Partnership for 21st 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 21st 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 21st 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 21st century innovation skills, and technology skills build upon the core subjects and need to integrated into our curriculum's.

The Video21 section located under the tools and resources category is a great place to see what 21st century classrooms actually look like.
When you click on the Video21 link it opens up with a video explaining what 21st 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 21st 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 21st 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 21st 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 21st century professional development standards.

  • 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.  

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Utilizing Blogs in the Classroom


The potential for my classroom’s blog is virtually endless. I teach seventh grade science at the largest middle school in our district. The seventh grade is divided up into three different teams with around one hundred students per team. One aspect of my blog will be related to content information. This is place to post extra material that re-enforces content, videos from classroom lectures or student presentations, and a place for students to comment on each other’s ideas. I would incorporate online journal prompts that connect to the current content we are studying. This way, students get to practice their writing skills in an online environment. They can then read and comment on fellow students entries and create a great discussion centered on the content they are studying. The blog would also help students who are out sick. They could access the blog from home and get caught up on the content and assignments they missed. 

My classroom blog is a great place to post student work. This way the student’s parents, relatives, and friends from other schools could see their work. By posting student work on the blog my hope is that it encourages parents to frequent the blog. The more parents visit the classroom blog the better. The blog will also keep them up to date with what is going on in the classroom. This blog would allow student’s to show off their accomplishments, that otherwise no one would see besides their fellow classmates. By posting student work it allows students to demonstrate the knowledge they are learning in science. Currently my students are finishing up our cells unit. Students have been studying all the organelles that make up plant and animal cells. My advanced students were assigned a cell project. Students chose between two options: create a 3D cell model or a cell analogy poster for either an animal or plant cell. Posted below are two examples of the 3D cell model option, which happened to be editable.




Students did such an excellent job but only the other member of the class got to see their projects. By posting the pictures on the blog, student’s work is seen by a much bigger audience. Other science teachers may come across my blog and give their comments or advice on how to improve the project. My blog could also be used to communicate with fellow science teachers. We could share ideas and critique each other’s ideas and lessons.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Welcome to My Blog!

I am brand new to the world of blogging. I am currently working on my Master’s Degree from Walden University specializing in integrating technology into the classroom. Technology is quickly becoming the future of education and I want to make sure that I am staying current on the latest technology trends and strategies. I have already learned so much from my master’s program and look forward to blogging about the all the new technologies I learn about through my latest class.

Today’s students have grown up in the digital era and have a vast technology background. I am always looking for new and creative ways to incorporate technology into my classroom. This is my third year teaching 7th grade life science. Science by nature is a very hands-on and engaging subject which most students love. I think by learning how to use and incorporate different types of technology into my science classroom students will truly master the content. I already incorporate technology in one form or another in my classroom everyday. I look forward to a successful school year and sharing it with the world.