While I was navigating around on the web site for Partnership for 21st Century Skills http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ I was overwhelmed with all the information. P21 has several well renowned businesses in partnership. I noticed they had wonderful videos and great ideas. They had a video on how they built a car using all the core subjects. No where, did I find anything about how to implement those wonderful ideas into the curriculum.
P21 believes every student, every district, every school, and every classroom is unique. They have set up guidelines using technology in the classroom. It is up to educators and school districts of how to use technology in core subjects. The only guidelines I seen was for Social Studies and English, and then it was only for 4th, 8th, and 12th grade. P21 explained that the learner needs to be a master at their core subject in order to do well with technology. It was unclear of what makes a master. Is it mastering the concept at 70%, 80%, 90% or 100%? What is a master?
I need to teach my students to be critical thinkers, problem solvers and to collaborate according to P21. P21 vision is not based on how students think; instead it is all about skill. Nothing about knowledge.
P21 has wonderful ideas, but in reality I do not see any support on how to train the students to be masters and how to train students to be critical thinkers.
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ReplyDeleteI had the exact same reaction to this site. I thought there was a lot of information but nothing I could use like lessons, examples, links, etc. I found the entire web site to be frustrating first because of the layout and design. It almost hurt my eyes trying to read it down the columns and then having to scroll up again to read the right hand side.
Basically I felt like the whole site told me what I should do but didn't tell me how.
I had the exact same reaction to the site. The whole time I was reading it, I kept wondering why there were no links, examples, lesson ideas, something I could use to immediately start implementing something. I found it frustrating to read as well. It almost hurt my eyes reading down one side and then having to scroll back up to read the other. I have to question the design reasoning behind that one. Why didn't they just set up each section in horizontal paragraphs?
ReplyDeleteMy reaction to this website is don't tell me what I need to do, tell or show me how.
Thanks for your blog post!
Maria
Thank you for your great insights into the P21 website. It is obvious you really spent some time "rooting" around in it.
ReplyDeleteI believe the "standards" are targets, not the actual assessments in themselves. I found the frameworks and content maps to be quite specific and ironically matched my state and district's frameworks, standards, and content map in 8th grade ELA. I will say that the focus on business and real life was far more extensive that the state standards reflect, but we/I are constantly being prodded to make our instruction and assessments relevant to real life. In terms of mastery, again, I believe that depends on the respective state, school, even teacher. In my state, Georgia, we do not have a "barely passing--D" grade, you either pass as average and above, or fail. Mastery for some students is passing at the average bar. For other students, their mastery exceeds what others can only hope for. I agree with you that it is somewhat "Pie in the Sky", but I also think we need the stretch to continue to grow and match global challenges. I keep thinking back to the space race of the late 50's early 60's. We had to catch up and superceed or we, as a nation, would lose our positioning, which is no small consideration. Thank you for your wonderful insight and comments and for allowing me to participate.
Huh...I posted a comment, but can't figure out where it went. If you find it, please let me know. It is apparent you really spent quite a bit of time on the website. I had written you some information regarding standards and mastery. I will keep looking for my posting to avoid being redundant. However, I think the main point is that mastery is determined by the stakeholders (i.e. state, institution, etc.). I found the frameworks and standards to be very much in line with my own content state standards, just far more extensive in terms of where I should be taking my students to meet the needs of workforce and business interests. I think we need to reach for a high bar when it comes to globalization and technology. I keep thinking of the the space race and our stretch to catch up and superceed. We cannot afford to lose our positioning in the world as a global presence.
ReplyDeleteMarsha,
ReplyDeleteWhen you post a comment it goes into hiding to where only I can see it. Then I have to choose to post it or not. I am learning about this blog page. I truly forgot about me viewing the comments first, in order for them to show on the page.
I like your comparision of the space race. We, being the United States, are in the technology race with other countries.
I too, feel everyone has their own level of mastery in their persuit of knowledge. We have a standard scale we are to use to asset students. That is why it is important to meet all learners needs. That way everyone has a chance to at least shine once.
Maria,
ReplyDeleteReading the pages on the site was easy for me. What was difficult for me was navigating around on the site. I could not locate a starting point, only great ideas.