The Challenge
According to Jane Barrer, a New York City Media Specialist working in the public school system, “children are in danger of being “standardized-tested” out of all creative and critical thought processes.” She contends that, “a population who has not been taught to ask (and effectively respond to) questions is a population in trouble.” Without the proper implementation of 21st Century learning and thinking skills across the curriculum, today’s students (or better yet, our future leaders) will not be prepared to adequately function in an ever-changing and technologically fast-paced society. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the nation’s leading advocacy agency for integrating these skills into education, identified and organized the skills needed for effective 21st Century Learning. Even with this information, the main challenge for educators was a lack of knowledge on how to successfully integrate and assess such skills and a strong need for instruction and information on how to implement 21st Century Skills in the classroom.
The Solution
The EdVenture Group, a non-profit organization specializing in professional development opportunities that help teachers develop the skills needed to be effective 21st Century educators, developed a 45 hour graduate level asynchronous online course that would educate teachers on the 21st Century Learning Skills and Objectives and their incorporation into the current curriculum. A multi-method approach for designing, developing, and disseminating the online course revolved mainly around collecting data using both subjective and objective approaches. At length interviews and carefully constructed surveys and questionnaires allowed The EdVenture Group to collect useful information from practicing teachers that guided the content and structure of the course.
All compiled research and data from teachers indicated an uncertainty on exactly what 21st Skills are, how they are different from the skills presently taught in the classroom, and how they are evaluated. Some teachers also indicated difficulty in the creation of questions that extract critically considered student responses that go beyond the evident conclusions expressed in text books and classroom lectures. Critical Think focused on helping teachers create lessons and thematic units that required students to expand inquiry and critical thinking skills using activities that require students to classify, demonstrate, evaluate, interpret, predict, and translate information.
The goal of Critical Think was to help teachers identify and understand the six key elements of 21st Century Learning, understand and apply Bloom's theory of developing higher levels of thought processes to everyday classroom teaching, create a “classroom ready” thematic unit including all of Bloom’s higher level skills and all core subject areas, and develop an authentic 21st Century assessment tool to appraise students’ understanding of particular concepts.
The Outcome
In its pilot run, Critical Think influenced 14 educators, including Jane Barrer who revealed how her classroom teaching strategies have changed since completing the course. The course discussions allowed participants to share ideas for using the strategies learned in the course in their teaching, thus creating a repository of ideas and resources that participants could take back to their classrooms and schools. Ms. Barrer stated that, “teaching children how to access information efficiently and how to evaluate information critically” should be done “within the context of the classroom curriculum, thus giving it relevance.” Since completing Critical Think, Ms. Barrer says every lesson in her Library Media Center has integrated various 21st Century Skills that involve some degree of critical thinking. Some concrete examples include:
- Asking students to interview one another, question, and comment about family backgrounds or other experiences they bring to the class.
- Having students interpret literature, current events, history, art and music encountered on a regular basis.
- Requiring students to make connections or identify similarities and differences to other items of interest, or subjects of study.
Critical Think participants were also introduced to various 21st Century assessment tools, such as rubrics, blogs/forums, and collaborative exercises. As a result, teachers were able to create thematic units that promote critical thinking and include a 21st Century assessment tool. Based on post data from evaluation surveys and course reflections, it was shown that Critical Think helps combat the issues many teachers believe to be inhibiting when attempting to integrate the 21st Century Skills branded vital to the success of today’s students.
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The Challenge
Mrs. Brown has taught in the middle school mathematics classroom for more than 20 years. She recurrently teaches several life skills in her classes, most notably prioritizing, organizing, time management and effective note taking strategies, but wanted to learn more regarding how 21st Century Skills and Life Skills intertwine. With intense reflection into her teaching practices, Mrs. Brown attempted to determine how she could best integrate 21st Century Life Skills into her mathematics classroom in order to influence student achievement. One student in particular came into Mrs. Brown’s mind—a young female student who declared having never earned over a grade of “D” in a mathematics class. The student exhibited remarkable potential, but was audacious to other students and spent much of the first nine-weeks suspended for fighting. As a result, at the end of the first nine weeks she had completed very few assignments and was yet again receiving a “D” in mathematics. Mrs. Brown was mindful that with the correct approach, she may be able to help this student succeed in the mathematics classroom, and determined a course focusing on the integration of 21st Century Life Skills would be most beneficial for her and her students.
The Solution
Mrs. Brown enrolled in a 21st Century Professional Development Course offered by The EdVenture Group entitled Skills for Life. This online course challenged participants to discover innovative techniques and strategies for preparing students for life both in and out of school by centering attention on decision making, goal setting, personal responsibility, personal productivity and self direction. An assignment in Skills for Life required participants to develop a life lesson that parallels regular curriculum while teaching students an important skill for success in everyday work and life. Immediately, Mrs. Brown remembered the young female student who was struggling to achieve a grade higher than a “D” in mathematics. Using the information and interactive discussions provided in the online course, Mrs. Brown decided the most effective implementation of 21st Century Life Skills into her current instruction would be to focus on student responsibility.
Knowing that quiz and exam grades often reflect the amount of time and effort students expend on the completion of homework assignments, Mrs. Brown realized that if she devised a method to help this student complete assignments, her overall grade in the course may improve. However, the Skills for Life course reminded Mrs. Brown that in order to effectively increase a student’s success in mathematics, other classes, and ultimately life, she would need to help the student identify and implement strategies to increase personal responsibility and accountability on their own.
Mrs. Brown was aware of the numerous studies that indicate students' lack of responsibility for their own learning results primarily from lack of higher-order thinking skills, self-motivation and evaluation, and the inability to transfer, track, and establish goals for learning. To attend to these problems, Mrs. Brown implemented four key areas of intervention: (1) helping the student identify her specific goals for learning and completing assignments; (2) using various instructional approaches to help the student develop problem-solving skills and strategies; (3) determining organization methods to help the student track performance and relationships between completion of assignments and test scores on an ongoing basis; and (4) implementing self-evaluation strategies to award ownership of the learning process to the student.
Mrs. Brown consulted the student, asking her to identify goals for learning and chart each assignment date missed with the grades received on tests. Using the knowledge obtained in the Skills for Life course, Mrs. Brown decided it was appropriate to work with the student to devise a plan so the student could clearly see the direct relationship between the number of assignments completed and time out of class due to suspensions with the grade received on tests. Working with the student independently, Mrs. Brown helped the student determine answers to such questions as: (1) what goals do I need to establish for myself in order to become a successful student in the mathematics classroom; (2) do particular learning environments affect my concentration; (3) what strategies will help keep me on task and help me comprehend and remember best; (4) what motivates me to learn and be successful in my mathematics studies? After answering the aforesaid questions and evaluating the results, Mrs. Brown explained that it was up to the student to use the answers to the questions as a guide to develop effective study habits and classroom practices.
The Outcome
The student indicated her goals for learning and being successful in the mathematics classroom would center on increasing personal responsibility in order to complete assignments in a timely manner. To accomplish this goal, the student began keeping a detailed agenda in the back of her notebook with homework due dates, performance on past assignments, quizzes, and tests, and constant reflection and evaluation of her performance in order to track her own progress and recognize trends in her studies.
Post-intervention data obtained by the student and Mrs. Brown during learning activities indicated an increase in taking responsibility for learning and an improvement in the student’s higher-order and critical thinking skills, problem-solving strategies, and self-evaluation. In fact, the student went from a “D” to a “C” to a “B+” and finally a strong “A” by the end of the fourth nine weeks.
The student assured Mrs. Brown she would continue to use what she had learned about personal responsibility to develop positive and productive study habits and prioritize her coursework to achieve success in other areas of school and life. Mrs. Brown concluded that since most students who do not complete assignments are the same students with below average grades, instruction on goal setting and personal responsibility for the entire class was needed to increase student accountability and achievement. Mrs. Brown also witnessed how students take more pride in their performance and work harder to achieve their goal(s) when they establish them on their own. Mrs. Brown says she will continue to ask students to track completion of assignments and compare test grades based upon their efforts, and feels confident the approach will not only result in increased student achievement, but will also prepare students for a successful life in the 21st Century and beyond.
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These courses may be taken for a variety of educational offerings including graduate credit, CEUs and staff development.
Contact The EdVenture Group for complete details and a customized proposal to meet your school or district needs.
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