Final Project

You can view my final project at:

http://sites.google.com/site/curr530blog4na/

21st Century Essay

As the world shifts from an industrial economy to a service economy driven by information, knowledge, and innovation, cultivating 21st century skills is vital to economic success (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Learning Environments). This is a dramatic departure from the factory model education of the past. It is the abandonment of text book driven, teacher centered, paper and pencil schooling. It is a different understanding of the concept of knowledge and a new definition of the educated person.

While the global economy has been changing, the U.S. has focused primarily on closing the domestic achievement gap and largely has ignored the growing necessity of graduating the kinds of students capable of filling emerging job sectors (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Report Identifies Inherent Links). There are those who make the case that NCLB legislation has focused federal attention and educational resources on students with remedial needs while ignoring the needs of the nation’s brightest young minds; that achieving equity while at the same time maintaining excellence is a complex subject that has not been addressed (Colangelo, 2005). We need to pay attention to the big public conversation the nation is NOT having about education, the one that will ultimately determine not merely whether some fraction of our children get “left behind”, but whether an entire generation of kids will be left behind in the global economy (Wallis, 2006).

Our challenge is to reinvent schools for the sake of our children and the world. When we think of school, we think of the way we always knew it, but we have to make a paradigm shift. Creating a 21st century education system that prepares students, workers and citizens to be successful in the global skills race is a challenge facing U.S. educators. For the United States to be globally competitive, there must be a fresh approach to education that recognizes the importance that 21st century skills play in the workplace (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Report Identifies Inherent Link ). Right now, kids have a more stimulating and enriched environment outside of school than they do inside. School has become just one of the many places that students learn (Willingham, 2009).

Schools in the 21st century must include a project based curriculum aimed at engaging students in addressing real world problems, issues important to humanity and questions that matter. Students will learn how to collaborate, think critically, communicate orally and in writing, use technology, take on global issues, learn about careers and conduct research. Students will learn to navigate the world of digital text which is different than traditional text, in that digital text is about linking people in a way they have never been connected before. Teachers will learn that technology is no longer a tool to be used in teaching certain subjects, but rather has emerged as it own new environment (Willingham, 2009). As individuals develop the power to author, shape, and disseminate information, they will begin to globalize themselves (Friedman, 2006). The U.S. will continue to look at European and Asian nations that have steeply improved student learning by focusing explicitly on creating curriculum guidance and assessments that focus on the ability to find and organize information, to solve problems, frame and conduct investigations, analyze and synthesize data , apply learning to new situations, self-monitor and improve one’s own learning and performance, communicate well in multiple forms, work in teams, and learn independently (Darling-Hammond & McCloskey, 2008).

Part of the debate over 21st century skills has been whether the Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21) is separating knowledge and skills, and how much core content knowledge needs to be taught. Ken Kay believes that 21st century skills and knowledge are not mutually exclusive. However, Daniel Willingham (2009) feels the 21st century movement in general is too focused on skills and ignores the fact that knowledge is critical to thought. E.D.Hirsch noted that critical thinking in one domain does not apply to another and says this is true because 1) knowledge is sometimes required to identify the root nature of the problems you’re dealing with and 2) you might understand the problem and know what you’re supposed to do, but still need background knowledge to use the critical skill you want to apply. Dan Willingham (2009) states that P21 should recognize they are “moving forward on the basis of a theory, not on a proven method, and that students are thus guinea pigs in an experiment”. In the article Rethinking Schools, Walter Feinberg (1999) disagrees with Hirsch’s message that content knowledge is more important than tools of inquiry. This writer needs more time and information to choose a side, but the debate will continue as to how much content knowledge must exist alongside 21st century skills.

The most persistent norm that stands in the way of 21st century learning is isolated teaching in stand- alone classrooms (Fulton, Yoon & Lee, 2005 from DuFour, pg. 169). It is time to end the practice of solo teaching. “Today’s teachers must transform their personal knowledge in a collectively built, widely shared and cohesive professional knowledge base (DuFour, 2008, p.172). Professional Learning Communities and Professional Partnerships will play a huge role in reshaping what the teacher looks like as we move forward into the 21st century. The paper, 21st Century Learning Environments (2009), reports that the term “learning environment” has traditionally suggested a concrete place, but in today’s interconnected and technology-driven world, a learning environment can be virtual, online and remote. It must also be designed to suit the requirements that enable collaboration, interaction and information sharing. It is also important to consider aesthetics in public school design. A study at Georgetown University found that even if the students, teachers, and educational approach remained the same, improving a school’s physical environment could increase test scores by as much as 11% (Pink, 2006).
The 21st Century Learning Environment report also suggests that time allocated for learning needs to be flexible, and that the antiquated notion of “seat time” needs to be reconsidered. Although we need to experiment with extended day and year calendar schedules, it has been pointed out that U.S. students attend school about 1100 hours per year while students in other developed nations, most of whom outperform the U.S. on standardized tests, only go to school on an average 701 hours a year (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Learning Environment). What appears definite and needed is a seamless approach to integrating all that takes place in a student’s life during the day.

As we move into the 21st century, the challenges facing students, educators and the nation are enormous. Can our public schools, originally designed to educate workers for agrarian life and industrial age factories make the necessary shifts? According to The New Commission on the Skills of The American Workforce, only if we add new depth and rigor to our curriculum and standardized exams, redeploy the dollars we spend on education, reshape the teaching force, and reorganize who runs the schools.












Citations
Colangelo, N., (2005). Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 162:410-411. Retrieved April 7, 2009, from http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org.ezproxy.montclair.edu:2048/cgi/content
Darling-Hammond, L., & McCloskey, L., (2008). What Would It Mean to be Internationally Competitive?
DuFour, R., Dufour, R., Eaker, R., (2008). Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work: New Insights for Improving Schools. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.
Feinberg, W., (1999). The Influential E.D. Hirsch. Rethinking Schools Online, Vol.13(3). Retrieved February 5, 2009, from http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/13_03/hirsch.shtml
Friedman, T.L., (2006). The World Is Flat. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
McLeod, S. (2009). Iowa-21 st Century Curricula. Dangerously Irrelevant. Message posted to heep://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2009/03/21stcentury-curricula
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Report Identifies Inherent Link Between 21st Century Educational System and Economic Success (Sept. 10, 2008). Retrieved from http://adjix.com/h2fw
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Learning Environments Must Break Through the Silos that Separate Learning from the Real World (Jan. 23, 2009). Retrieved from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php?option=com_content
Pink, D.H., (2006). A Whole New Mind. New York, NY: Penguin Group.
Wallis, C. (2006). How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century. Time, Dec. 10, 2006. Retrieved April, 6, 2009, from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171, 1568480,00.html
Willingham, D. (2009, March 2). Flawed Assumptions Undergird the Program at the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Message posted to http://britannica.com/blogs/2009/03/flawed-assumptions

Graduation Speech

This is the day so many of you seniors have waited for. To be free from the demands and restrictions of high school and move on to the world of adulthood. Some of you will go off to live away at a university, some will continue to live home and pursue the world of higher education and others will go out into the work force excited about future opportunities. Many of you are frightened by what you have seen out there. YouTube videos like “Shift Happens” and lectures on being prepared for the 21st century have made you wonder how you will survive in the years to come. What if you won’t be prepared for a job that doesn’t exist yet? What if your education becomes obsolete before you’re out of school for five years? What will you do? How will you earn a living? The reality is that some things don’t change.

Thinking critically and setting goals have always been important. Behaving ethically and making good judgments have always been recommendations to those going out into the world. Live a just life and remember that the decisions you make have lasting effects on the people around you and those who will come in contact with you. Just as planning and problem solving were important in my time, so they continue to be important in yours. No generation has a monopoly on these important virtues. There are those who will try to tell you that thinking creatively is a new 21st century skill, but there have been many successful people who have gone before you who have been creative. Just look at all of the innovations of the 20th century.

Choose a job or area of study that you love, that you are passionate about, and put your heart into it. Know that hard work, risk taking, planning and lifelong learning are the keys to success. And remember that success is not always measured in money but in the difference that you make to the world.

So congratulations on all your accomplishments. Go out into the new century and make a difference. And most of all, don’t be afraid of what’s to come. It’s a beautiful world.

Schmoker Quotes

We have created a system in which generations of talented, hard-working teachers have engaged in inferior practices without receiving feedback that would alert them to this fact.

Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will read and write more than at any other time in human history. They will need advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs, run their households, act as citizens and conduct their personal lives. (pg. 51)

Writing, combined with close reading, is among the most valuable, but least understood element of schooling. (pg. 63)

Persuasive – argumentative – writing, which cultivates students’ critical reasoning capacities and prepares students for intellectual demands of college, civic life, and the workplace, is sorely neglected. (pg. 94)

Narrative and descriptive writing are often the cornerstone of a writing workshop. They allow students to write from their own experience in ways that matter to them. Students are encouraged to write with literary elements in mind, and create five paragraph essays that develop plot, characters, etc. Although this type of writing has a place in education, it takes on a less prominent role as we move into the 21st century. It is my contention that real world, expository writing has been neglected because of two factors; 1) Female teachers prefer and are more comfortable with fictional text and therefore understand fictional writing better and 2) Teachers themselves have never been taught how to write non-fiction, informational or analytical text.

On the elementary school level, book rooms are full of fictional leveled books. Teachers stress story writing from kindergarten on, but rarely teach students how to write expository text until the upper intermediate grades. As we move into the 21st century, the ability to read and write expository text will become critical as seen in changes to the NJASK which now ask students to become proficient in explanatory writing.

As Supervisor of Language Arts, I would write a curriculum that is genre based and includes real world genres such as emailing, texting and blogging. Perhaps we could call it Technological Literacy. Students would be required to produce a variety of real world writing pieces, including informational or expository pieces. Using reading strategies to navigate informational text would be one of the first requirements for early in the school year (as opposed to squeezing it in at the end), and students would be expected to respond to text by writing reflective pieces. Students would be proficient at persuasive or “argumentative” writing, and
the book room would have more non-fiction leveled books than fictional ones.

Citizens of the 21st century will need to know how to "gobalize" themselves more than they will need to know how to read "stories".

C

Article Review: What a difference a word makes

As the ability to gather information has become easier, the entire world is using numbers and data for future decision making. Advertising companies know exactly how successful their campaigns are by tracking dollars spent vs. purchases of the product, and insurance actuaries calculate death rates in relation to insurance premiums. Every aspect of society uses data to guide where to go next. Education is slowly getting on board as communities are voting down school budgets and taxpayers are demanding greater accountability. It is no longer acceptable to use subjective information where objective data is available. There is also a call for educators to use multiple measures. In my early days of teaching, a student would be added to the Basic Skills roster because a classroom teacher felt the child needed extra help. Today, that same teacher would be required to produce multiple forms of evidence including objective support. Using data for future planning is now making its way down into the classroom.
In my district, at least in Language Arts, the teachers are being asked to make a clear distinction between “evaluation” for the purpose of gathering grades for the report card, and “assessment” for the purpose of driving future instruction. The move is toward differentiated instruction and a child centered curriculum. Teachers are asked (forced) to gather, maintain and track various kinds of information on each student. Some of this data can be used for evaluation, but much of it is used to build a total picture of a student and their progress over time. It has been a long uphill battle to get teachers to see the value of assessment, and even when they do see it, they claim that using assessment to drive instruction is too much work. The writers of this piece hit the nail on the head in the last page of the article when they claim that “developing assessment expertise goes beyond creating tests and developing rubrics”. Many teachers still feel powerful when they whip out their red pen to mark up student errors on a first attempt at an essay, and are still more concerned with the product than the process.

Involving students in their own learning and holding them accountable is a critical piece to using assessment. As Stiggins and Chappuis have stated, “students must be taught the skills they need to be in control of their own ultimate academic success”. Most teachers have never allowed students to do this and hold those who would in contempt, particularly in the intermediate grades (i.e. the student who questions why she got a B+ instead of an A and asks for the criteria used). The use of assessment to drive instruction will only come to pass if teachers are held accountable by administrators to do so, while the benefits of doing so are being made clear to them through improved ongoing student evaluations. In addition, teachers must be provided with time, both alone and with colleagues, to analyze the data they gather.

Chappuis, J. & Stiggens, R. (2006). What a difference a word makes: Assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning helps students succeed. Journal for Staff Development, National Staff Development Council, Vol. 27, No. 1.

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