http://www.p21.org/
The link above will take you to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills website.
This website is easy to maneuver and simple in its design and you will find it easy to access their mission, views, resources, news, and initiatives. My biggest surprise was the fact that Michigan was not on the list of state initiatives. I probably should not have been surprised, however, knowing the state of Michigan’s educational system and the governments’ anti-education actions.
I found it hard to disagree with their mission, education does need to support student knowledge of technology to better serve the society and workplace of the future. I especially like the framework for 21st century learning. It is important to note that life skills and learning skills are a major portion of the classroom learning environment, not just the teaching of core instructional skills. Another important aspect is the continued professional development of the educators, even when this might only be with the guidance of peers in accessing an online gradebook or understanding email.
The implication is that a teacher must find a way to incorporate the new. A teacher should always seek ways to improve his/her lessons and to be innovative with their approach to instruction. Teachers who strive to be effective teachers will strive to promote students who are critical consumers of knowledge.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
LaVanway,
ReplyDeleteAs you do I agree with the overall idea of teaching life skills along with just core information in the classroom. But in my opinion I think some of the life skills that they mention are a bit vague and dependent upon interpretation. Some of these life skills, I think, need to be taught at home not only in the classroom. It would be difficult to bring all students to the same level of these life skills when some of them have never been exposed to this type of thinking before. I think that this organization is pushing too much to fast. The overall ideas are good but I think it might be to much to swallow at once for alto of people. Especially those that are skeptical to begin with.
Lance,
ReplyDeleteI posted a comment to this post several weeks ago but I'm not sure what happened to it. Something's a fishy with my Week 4 App so I'm going to try again. My original post a was a response to your comments regarding the fact that Michigan was not one of the partners for this project. I told you that I wouldn't be surprised that that would change in the near future because Michigan, especially Detroit, seems to be starting a major educational reform movement. Unfortunately government can complicate things, but people in Detroit offfials have been looking at the New Orleans school district as a guide to rebuild their schools. New Orleans had other problems that got them into a state of disrepair, but the solutions may be similar.