While navigating through, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, I came across new information that would be hopeful in my teaching profession. For one, I did not know the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, also known as P21, existed as a national organization. The information on this site, such as various tools and resources for teachers, students, and parents, helped me begin to plan for more effective planning, teaching strategies, and assessment strategies. develop a new understanding of the issues surrounding 21st-century skills. I loved the "Workforce Needs", which shows the percentage of people who agree or strongly agree on whether communication skills, critical thinking, collaboration/team building, and creativity/innovation plays a part in their business. All of the percentages were over 65%, indicating that these 4Cs are important in the workforce. Moreoever, all of this percentages were over 55% strongly agreeing/agreeing that their business measures these skills and competencies during their annual performance review. The 21st Century Framework and already printed, copied, and taped to my desk, where my lesson plans are composed. There was a seperate chart on a different link (http://prezi.com/ckebasnbobcn/iste-2010-jump-start-your-21st-century-initiative/) that displayed statistics on "How important the 4Cs are in growing their organization", if they agree that "fusing the 3Rs with the 4Cs ensures 21st century readiness for students today", and "How well is the K-12 system preparing students in the 4Cs?" The responses were 94%, 80%, and 11% respectively. These data pieces make it concrete that the business world is changing and so are the expectations for its current and furture workforce. It is important and manditory that teacher prepare their students for the ever-changing, advancing world.
It was surprising to me to see the 3Rs and 4Cs (Critical thinking/problem solving, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity). It is reassuring to see some concepts I have been learning through my Master's Program on this website. Honestly, I thought this link was going to be a long article on 21st century skills, which we have all seen plenty of. Instead, every link I crossed led to a page of interesting resources, tools, videos, speeches, and other creditable sources. I caught myself repeatedly thinking "Wow! Really! That's cool! I need to share this with my colleagues". I highly recommend this site to everyone around the world: young, old, teacher, student, parents, man, woman, tall, short, employed, umemployed.
On a different note, I was excited, surprised, and impressed to see that P21 provides a "Jump Start" website, where you can see Create, Learn, and Explore! While navigating through this particular website, I discovered that New Jersey is part of P21 State Leadership Initiave!
I also was taken back by the idea of the 3Rs and 4Cs. It is nice to know that the skills that we have been using will help reinforce the new skills in technology that we will be implementing. These tools are building block to what is in store for our students.
ReplyDeleteI somehow missed the "Workforce Needs" when I was exploring the website. Those statistics paint a picture of why it is necessary for schools to change to incorporate more of these 21st Century Skills. You mentioned you were excited to discover New Jersey was involved in the state leadership for P21. Have you noticed an impact of this initiative in your state? Unfortunately, my state, Tennessee, is not involved in the initiative. However, I am beginning to hear more about emphasizing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the schools. I hope this is a step in the right direction for Tennessee.
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