Well, I have started to look through this website and, while it may be because its after a full day of work and the gym and cooking and cleaning, well, its a bit confusing. I understand their mission is to help students learn the skills they need for success in the real world. I never spent much time thinking about the fact that we are not fully preparing our students for whats to come. True, I have spent some time wondering why the students need to know the government of random countries in Africa, or why students need to memorize the Chinese Dynasties, but I never thought about the stuff that was missing. This site shows me what we are lacking. I do feel like we focus a lot on problem solving, as it is an idea that lends itself to any subject and any topic, but what about the others? Communication skills could greatly help our students. How many of them miss out on jobs because no one has ever taught them to interview? Interpersonal skills...amazing! Students need to be able to self direct and that is something I find that they are not able to do.
I love the idea of getting business to work with our students. People who work in the business world are much better suited to teach about these skills then we are. I cannot teach how to communicate with professionals outside the education world as well as others can. How amazing is it to have a place to go to find these resources.
This website has worked to build 21st century skills into our everyday core subjects. What a great way to teach all of our students need. I feel that unless we think more about this and dive deeper into the idea of 21st century skills that we will be giving our students a disadvantage.
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Arielle,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about how the website was confusing. But I did find some things that I found to be useful to use in the future. Were you able to find any resources that you could use? I understood what the website was trying to say but it seemed to me that it just kept repeating the message without information to expand our knowledge on the topic.
Arielle,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the businesses helping to educate the students. I strongly believe that if more companies made an effort to help educator the students in the primary and secondary schools then in the future they will help to strength the companies who compete with other in different countries. Maybe if we go out and spread this idea we can find a quicker way to get out of this recession. I mean every little bit helps!
Hello Arielle,
ReplyDeleteI think what was confusing for me was the amount of repeated information. It was very in-depth with my different links. I did like the way the site explained the skills framework and included the different bulleted sections.
Each year I have a junior achievement representative come in my classroom to teach my student. This representative is a volunteer from a local business in town. He comes in and teaches my students once week for 6 week. They learn about how a city works. He incorporates a number of the skills discusses on the Partnership for 21 Century site. Do you have this type of program where you live? Junior Achievement in Alaska has grade appropriate lessons for the elementary students. My students have fun during the lessons and don’t realize the many different skills they are learning.
Arielle,
ReplyDeleteTeaching in the same county as you, I also notice the disconnect between businesses and schools. I believe some companies are making an effort by attaching their names to this website, but I also believe they need to be more active in the classroom. In all the years I've have been in school or teaching, I have only had politicians come into a couple of my social studies classes. I wonder why businesses don't make a bigger effort?
I wonder if businesses are saying "Why aren't educational systems preparing students to be sucessful in the workforce?" Looking at the 21st Century Skills I believe the all the skills can be incorporated into every subject area by using best practices. This will require a shift in teaching styles but is can be accomplished.
ReplyDeleteJoy
We need to engage the students. AT a recenty WestEd inservice a learned that on average students are allowed to ask a question once every ten (school) hours. We need to allow students to put "mile on their tongues"
The human brain can hold only so much information, it needs to dump out the information(process) before it is ready for more. But in some classes the students are expected to sit and listen for 45-55 minutes. Incorpoarting 21st Skills will help engaging students!
Yes this maybe a challenge but as teachers we can do it!