"Today's education system faces irrelevance unless we bridge the gap between how students live and how students learn." I think this quote says everything we as educators face in today's schools. We are trying to focus on teaching the standards so much in order to pass THE test, that we lose focus on how important it is to teach in a manner that reaches our students on many different levels. On the 21st Century website it gives several areas that need to be worked on in order to reach our students as 21st Century scholars. It said we still must teach the core subjects first and then move on to teaching the 21st century skills. We could also learn a lot about how to incoorperate the 21st Century skills into our core subject area curriculum. It would make it much easier to teach the subject areas in a meaningful way for students to retain the information they need.
Reference:http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/images/stories/otherdocs/p21up_Report.pdf
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Trisha,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your discussion. I felt that it is very true that we need to teach the cores first because without the basics, the students will not be able to do anything beyond that. If the students can take what they know, then they can apply it to their 21st century skills that are needed in order to survive in our technologically savvy country.
Anna
I enjoyed reading what you had to say! I couldn't agree more about the pressure we as teachers feel to pass "THE Test". There are so many assessments and standardized tests that seem to be what defines our effectiveness as teachers. I constantly feel overwhelmed about covering certain content in a certain amount of time. As much I agree with 21st Century Skills and how important they are, I feel like I cannot adapt to it, until my county does. I am afraid that I will implement these skills at the expense of what the county deems necessary for me to teach. I personally would like to find a way to incorporate it as a tool for teaching other content and hopefully can therefore meet both needs simultaneously.
ReplyDeleteSarah Horner
Trisha I feel very strongly about incorportating technology into our core classes. I had no idea how behind the school systems are until I started this program. I feel as if I have failed my students knowing that I have never integrated technology into the classroom. It's wonderful to know that there is a program that recognizes that there is a huge gap between schools and the lack of technology being used, and is putting so much emphasis on trying to fix it so our future children are not deprived of the use of technology. After exploring the website I was very energized and excited about the decision I made to obtain my masters in technology. I am looking forward to following 21st Century Skills.org to see the impact they will have in our schools.
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