21st Century Skills

As a graduate student at Walden University my classmates and I began a discussion about the following topic.

Our assignment was as follows,

Spend some time exploring the Web site of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Familiarize yourself with their mission, the members of the partnership, and the various resources available on their site.

• Your reaction to the Web site
• What information on the site surprised you?
• Did you disagree with anything on the site? Explain.
• What are the implications for your students, and for you as a contemporary educator?


www.21stcenturyskills.org



My reaction to this website was simply, YES! As a former member of the business world, where the most valuable of my employees were the ones with the best problem solving skills and communication, I completely agree with all the mission statement goals.

The only information I was surprised about was the number of states that don’t have plans in place to align themselves with the legislation. I would have thought that my state, New York, would be a front runner in these plans. I liked the fact that so many influential business leaders are involved.

The implications for my students as a contemporary educator are that I have a national organization that supports what I personally believe strongly, these goals are a must do in our educational system. We no longer compete with each other in the U.S., it is a global market place. I also believe that there is a ground swell starting in our educational system about the importance of 21st century skill, as evidence by programs like the current “Race to the Top” program started by the Obama administration. I see administrators in my district supporting the integration of 21st century skills in our school.

Critical Thinking

In science we are studying the solar system and space exploration.
We will take the knowledge we have and combine it with our
new knowledge to make some important inferences.

Currently, we are pondering the following questions,
which you can post a response to on this blog.

A spacesuit weighs more than most astronauts.
How can astronauts wear an outfit that is heavier than they are?

Students Share What They Learn

I think that one of the best uses for my blog would be for my student's to share what they have learned. This would be a extension of our learning groups in class. We could also make a video report of important points about things like story settings in ELA, how to round decimals in Math, and many other exciting new learning.

Learning From Each Other

I love hearing other teachers success stories from the classroom. We are all inspired by student success, in fact, it might be your story that give a fellow teacher the hope, or the knowledge to help a student they work with. Lets share our good days with each other.