A Report and Mile Guide for 21st Century Skills

http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/images/stories/otherdocs/p21up_Report.pdf

A Report and Mile Guide for 21st Century Skills released by The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (a public-private organization with members and partners including Apple, Dell, Cisco, Microsoft, the National Education Association, and the United States Department of Education) presents the outline of a plan “to help schools fully address the educational needs of the twenty-first century” (p. 4). The organization hopes to raise public awareness of the changing needs of America’s future workforce, to provide researched information on changes in the twenty-first century workplace, and to recommend strategies to prepare students for an uncertain future.


The report proposes six key elements of twenty-first century learning: an emphasis on core subjects, an emphasis on learning skills, using twenty-first century tools to develop learning skills, teaching and learning in a twenty-first century context, teaching and learning twenty-first century content, and using twenty-first century assessments to measure twenty-first century skills (p. 4). This combines the strengths of traditional core curricula with a variety of new tools and skills of emerging importance in this century so that students are prepared to use core knowledge to develop tactical, strategic, and problem solving skills that will aid them in adapting to changing conditions in the world of work. The report suggests that by teaching students to build on prior knowledge, incorporate it into and modify existing conceptual frameworks, and conduct self-analysis to guide self-teaching, we can prepare them to prepare themselves for change. It describes information and communication technology (ICT) literacy as resulting from the synthesis of core learning skills (thinking and problem solving, information and communication skills, and interpersonal and self-direction skills) and twenty-first century tools designed to aid in the application of these skills. The site charges teachers with ensuring that their teaching is relevant in both content and delivery, and with incorporating into their curriculum teaching of global awareness, fiscal literacy, and civic literacy.

The findings and recommendations of this report seem sensible and are easy to corroborate (Bates & Phelan, 2002; Leavy & Murnane, 2006; Miners & Pascopella, 2007). I agree with most of what this report suggests, but I cannot say that I find its predictions comforting. Although my profession, teaching, falls into the still local-human dominated category of “complex communication”( Leavy & Murnane, 2006, p. 58), I fear that the administration of my school system will be more of an impediment than and aid in my efforts to ensure that the content I am communicating is relevant to my students’ current modes of learning and future educational needs. In short, I feel that my job specifications will render my work increasingly irrelevant, regardless of my ability. For this reason, I support this organization’s public awareness campaign.

I am not certain, of course, that I agree with every finding of the report. For example, it recommends “high quality standardized testing for accountability purposes and classroom assessments for improved teaching and learning in the classroom” (p. 7). I often get uncomfortable when the term “assessment” comes into the conversation, since it so often translates to massive multiple choice tests. I really feel that this sort of assessment consistently fails to adequately recognize and measure the learning skills that the report recommends emphasizing. Furthermore, I find the idea of standardizing of education as sensible as monoculture in farming; we may turn out a consistent product, but we miss out on variety and leave ourselves vulnerable to competition. If we only grow one kind of potato, a plague or consumer disinterest can wipe out the entire bland species. Standardized education may not promote the divergent thinking that will allow our future workforce, and our economy as a whole, to nimbly innovate in response to changes in the global market.

But I do agree with the importance of ongoing assessment to inform instruction and to measure its effectiveness. I just believe that this work should not be standardized. Rather, assessment of learning requires the sort of careful observation and nuanced expert thinking that only humans (not computers) can adequately accomplish.

The implications for my students and me will depend on how our society, governments, school administrations, and other stakeholders react (if at all) to these observations, predictions, and recommendations. American society and schools tend to be conservative in adopting new thinking, and I predict a certain amount of foot-dragging on the part of school leadership in providing tools, access, and curricular directives to facilitate adoption of these recommendations. I fear that schools may become less and less relevant to the true education of America’s future workforce. By implementing this report’s “Nine Steps to Build Momentum” (p. 8), we can help to spur the process, but there is a good chance that only students who already possess the resources and initiative, by virtue of their home environment, to take charge of their own education will have a fair chance to adapt.

REFERENCES

Bates, R., & Phelan, K. (2002). Characteristics of a globally competitive workforce. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 4(2), 121.

Miners, Z., & Pascopella, A. (2007). The new literacies. District Administration, 43(10), 26–34.

Levy, F., & Murnane, R. (2006). Why the changing American economy calls for twenty-first century learning: Answers to educators' questions. New Directions for Youth Development, 2006(110), 53–62.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). A report and mile guide for 21st century skills. Washington DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/images/stories/otherdocs/p21up_Report.pdf

Scientists say...

http://www.zapatopi.net/

This is a great site for teaching your students the hazards of careless research, or just for a few laughs.  Assign a research report on the "Metric Time" movement, the "Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus," or the "Republic of Cascadia."  Give the page for this website as a starting point, but be sure to warn your students not to rely on a single source. 

Blogging in the English Classroom

The potential for using weblogs in the English classroom is well established, but not yet fully explored. I teach Senior English and Advanced Placement Language and Composition in a city high school. Weblogs are perfectly suited to helping teachers and students meet the standards set forth by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE, 2009). Although blogging can help us meet all of these standards in one way or another, the interactive nature of the technology is particularly appropriate for a few. In particular:

• “3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).”

Weblogs not only work as a resource for comprehending texts, through access to other readers’ literary analysis, but also offer a powerful opportunity to interact with other readers, not only within a class, but throughout the global community.

• “4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.”

Too often, students write only for their teachers or classmates. This hardly qualifies as a real “variety of audiences.” Blogging offers the opportunity to write with genuine purpose to a larger and more diverse readership.

• “5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

Blogging motivates students to use a writing process including careful revision to improve the quality of their work for the larger audience the Internet provides. Moreover, blogging can radically change the writing process students use by giving them more powerful research tools and a community of peers to help them refine their thinking and writing.

• “6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and non-print texts.”

This standard seems to have been written with blogging in mind. Not only are students more careful writers when they know they have an authentic audience, they are encouraged to actively participate in complex discussions of literature by posting in their own and others’ blogs. Needless to say, the “media techniques” standard is a natural fit.

• “7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and non-print texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.”

Blogging and RSS feeds have already changed the way many of us do research. Students can use these technologies to simplify and broaden their research, and can gain access to sources (perhaps the authors of the books they are reading in class) that may not have been available in the past.

• “8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.”

Little explanation is required to demonstrate the propriety of blogging for meeting this standard.

• “11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.”

This standard was very difficult to genuinely meet before the advent of the Read/Write Web. Blogging allows for easy access to “a variety of literacy communities.”

I have spoken with the Executive Director of my school system to discuss the problem of blogging in our system. As it stands, the Bess Internet filter blocks all access to personal pages and blogs in our school system. Fortunately, the forward thinking authors of our English IV curriculum included a class blog as a required assignment for Senior English. I hope to get Blogger.com and other blog sites unblocked so that my students can build their own class blogs where they can meet these NCTE standards.

In the future, I would also like to have each of my students use blogging to build online portfolios of their writing so that they may have a permanent archive of their own work. Here, they could revisit and revise their writing throughout their lives.

Another application I envision for blogging is inspired by the film Freedom Writers. My students have, in the past, put together class anthologies of students’ poetry, essays, and short stories. Blogging would allow us to generate these anthologies online and instantly publish them to an unlimited audience.

I also hope that blogging will one day allow my students to conduct research using RSS aggregators to gather information on their topics and deliver it to my students for review, selection, and synthesis (Richardson, 2006).

Just the class blog alone will give my students a place to showcase their work, interact with other writers, share critical analyses of literature, and find a genuine purpose in project-based social learning.

REFERENCES

National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). (2009).  NCTE / IRA standards for the English language arts.  National Council of Teachers of English.  Retrieved September 16, 2009, from http://www.ncte.org/standards
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Environmental Change and Adaptation

Technological and social change have catalyzed one another throughout recorded history. It is unnecessary, if not wholly impossible, to determine which was the prime cause that began the cycle of innovation that defines the human experience. Just as sociological change drives technological development, so emergent technologies permit social innovation. The invention of moveable type and consequent inexpensive printing, for example, led to widespread literacy which, in turn, fostered democratization of learning and opportunity that inevitably resulted in the development of new technologies. Alvin Toffler’s book The Third Wave breaks the history of technological and societal innovation into three distinct stages catalyzed by technological revolutions: the agricultural age, the industrial age, and the information age (Laureate, 2009). Dr. David Thornburg suggests that a fourth wave, which he calls “the communication age,” has once again transformed our society (Laureate, 2009). Each of these technological-sociological revolutions catalyzes an adaptation of educational practice. Unfortunately, that adaptation is too often tardy.

The dawn of the agricultural age allowed for the accumulation of wealth that enabled specialization, social stratification, and leisure. Hunter-gatherers were stratified only according to their strength and skill, but they were not specialized. All were generalists. And their wealth, a fresh kill, perhaps, or a mound of fruit, was so transitory as to have little lasting social significance, particularly if one were injured, fell ill, or weakened with age. Knowledge of wild plants and animals was passed down by observation and, with the invention of language (an educational revolution), by word of mouth.

In an agrarian society, particularly one based on grains, wealth (the fruits of the harvest) can be stored and accumulated. This allowed some members of the society to specialize, producing goods and services to barter for the food surplus of others. A successful farmer, for example, could choose to concentrate on producing food, spending some portion of the produce to purchase other needs, like shoes from the village cobbler or protection from the village warlord. These new specialists radically transformed society, leading to social stratification. The barter system also necessitated new technologies in transportation, counting, measurement, and, eventually, currency. Large scale trade required complex record-keeping, which led to the invention of numerals and early writing systems. During the early agricultural period, most young people would learn their trades from their own parents, or be apprenticed to specialists in other fields. But new social specialties required new educational models. Religious, governmental, and military organizations began training privileged pupils in schools very much in the modern model, with specialists teaching large groups of students. Specialized education, particularly in mathematics and literacy, became an avenue to wealth. But it wasn’t until the industrial age that this model became the standard for the general population.

Educational advances and specialization enabled by the agricultural revolution led to an explosion of technological innovation. Eventually, new technologies made mechanized production possible, ushering in the industrial age. The formal schooling enjoyed by a few during the agricultural age, in which students were educated en masse by specialist teachers, was a perfect fit for the mass-production industrial model. Students could be schooled in basic skills (literacy, mathematics, civics, science) in an efficient “one size fits all” system. Thornburg points out that this system of “dividing the students up by age group and by content area” is “very much like an assembly line” (Laureate, 2009). From these schools, some would go on to higher education, as did the beneficiaries of professional training during the agricultural era, while others would receive on-the-job training once they joined the workforce. This model satisfied the needs of industry and the majority of the workforce throughout the industrial era, and has been the basic model of schooling until today.

The information age ushered in a time of independent education and creation as electronic technology facilitated speedy and inexpensive information retrieval, and the computer in particular facilitated new advances in personal creativity. Information resources that were once geographically isolated became universally available through broadcast media and the Internet. The implications for learning were profound, as scholars were able to retrieve data from vast and various sources around the globe almost instantaneously. While most formal schooling continued to follow the agrarian-industrial broadcast model, independent minded learners had the opportunity to easily investigate topics that interested them, no matter how esoteric or obscure, and synthesize their discoveries into original products. Dr. David Thornburg notes that this technology had the potential to facilitate a type of learning Piaget referred to as “cognitive constructivism” (Laureate, 2009). Now, as many traditional schools are slowly recognizing and beginning to explore the potential of information age technology, a new era Thornburg calls “the communication age” once again challenges educators to rethink teaching and learning.

What distinguishes Web 2.0 (Read/Write Web) technology from earlier technology is its potential to facilitate collaboration and instantaneous communication among a community of shared interest (Richardson, 2006). This is particularly important for educators because of the potential of this collaboration and information sharing to facilitate realization of Vygotsky's social constructivist vision of learning (Laureate, 2009). The ability to post and share ideas through weblogs, wikis, podcasts, video sharing, and social networking websites can be used to bring about the type of social learning educators have long dreamed about, if teachers, administrators, and society in general can recognize and exploit this potential (Richardson, 2006). Unfortunately, there are already indications that formal educational institutions will once again be slow to adapt.

It is important to notice that these transitions from one age to another are gradual and uncoordinated. This is especially significant in the realm of education, which is often slow to respond to technological and sociological change. Thornburg notes, for example, that industrial and communication age schools still retain the agricultural age accommodation of summer vacation, despite its current lack of pedagogical relevance (Laureate, 2009). Only now are many school systems abandoning this lopsided model for year-round schooling plans that substitute several smaller breaks between terms for this lengthy interruption. Similarly, many teachers and schools still insist on teaching only traditional print media research, failing to teach their students the skills they need to responsibly use the potential of Internet research to find information. Now, Internet applications make it possible for scholars to share and collaboratively construct knowledge as never before, yet many school systems not only fail to introduce their students to these applications, but actively prevent access.

Citing the real hazards of social networking and online publishing in general, many schools and systems attempt to shelter their students from exposure to the wild world of ideas where they will eventually live the rest of their lives. Rather than preparing our students to protect themselves and stake their claim in the untamed new territory of the communication age, many stakeholders in our students’ education seem to feel it is safer to lock them in towers of ignorance. But we do so at our children’s peril, because they will eventually enter that wilderness, whether we prepare them to survive or not. If we allow the world’s predators to adapt more nimbly than our students, we may doom those we would protect.

Laureate. (2009). EDUC 6710: The Third Wave. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=3642127&Survey=1&47=4979472&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Willy-Nilly

Reading Godfrey Gauld's post on the significance of tense reminds me of the scene from Act II, scene 2 of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, in which devious Decius Brutus is trying to convince him to go to the senate so that they can publicly perforate the puissant potential potentate.

CAESAR
Decius, go tell them Caesar will not come.
DECIUS BRUTUS
Most mighty Caesar, let me know some cause,Lest I be laugh'd at when I tell them so.
CAESAR
The cause is in my will: I will not come;That is enough to satisfy the senate.

I like to point this passage out to my students because it inevitably leads to one of those satisfying moments of revelation where they understand a word they have always used in a new way. They tend to think of the word “will” as expressing a certain future. But they also understand it in the sense of a “last will and testament” or of “free will.” The cool part is when they put these definitions together and realize the implied uncertainty about the future built into our language.

Our standard form for writing daily objectives for the classroom begins with the stem “Students will…” I often reflect that this is a pretty tall order with some of my assignments.

As I was pondering a good title for this posting, I thought of “will ye, nill ye.” Can you believe I never associated this phrase with the common “willy-nilly” until I looked it up to confirm the spelling of “nill”? (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/willy-nilly ) How silly of me.

I am interested in other etymological curiosities and atrocities. Post ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.

(Note of Contrition: Please forgive the gratuitous alliteration. I confess that I am in bondage to sin and cannot free myself.)

No Excuses!

Here's something I love. Students can use this free and easy to use online calendar to make sure they never lose an assignment. Teachers who don't already have an online calendar will find this easy to learn and manage. You can copy and paste right out of your class documents, meaning keeping everyone on schedule, wherever they may roam, takes only a few minutes a day. http://assignaday.4teachers.org/

This is a great video for those who want to learn about RSS feeds. Yay!

http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

Some thoughts on the significance of tense.

The following is letter to the editor from a philosopher who has greatly influenced my thinking.



Americans are not a people to whom things happen. We are a people who make things happen. We have a language, English, that is admirably suited to expressing and carrying out this attitude. English does not treat the future as events that are certain to happen. The future is dealt with as expectation of future events. Usually there is an indication of the reason for the expectation from which the reader or hearer can judge the likelihood of the event actually happening.

Some examples of how English deals with the future are, "I think it is going to rain," "I will marry you," "The contractor shall provide all labor and material," "The work must be completed by Friday," and "I hope you will go." These express present expectation, condition, or choice that may decide future events: not future events.

Language is the most useful tool mankind has. Mankind's understanding and control over his surroundings is almost entirely through language. It is the tool we use to think. A language can have a profound effect on attitudes. If a language deals with the future as fact the culture is likely to tend toward fatalism. Properly used, English encourages the notion of free will and the importance of the choices we make. Fatalists have no use for democracy.

Like any powerful tool the most effective use of a language must be learned by careful study or taught by competent teachers. The way English deals with the future is not taught and, in fact, seems to have been forgotten by most educational institutions. It seems that they endorse the idea that sticking the word "will" in a phrase creates a future tense without realizing that the word "will" has for hundreds of years been, and still is, extensively used to mean choice or decision. Apparently educators are content to have one word mean two very different things as in "He will go but not willingly."




Godfrey R. Gauld

Dear Students

Dear Students,
Welcome. Thanks for visiting my blog. I just wanted to give a few words of explanation. Much of what I am posting here is for other teachers and the general public, so it may not relate directly to your class. The video bar to the left is populated with videos from YouTube and Google that are automatically selected by search terms, like "Ovid" or "Rhetoric" or "Daphne and Apollo." They are not hand picked by me and I cannot vouch for their quality or propriety. Likewise, this blog is intended to be an open forum, and I cannot guarantee the quality and propriety of posts. I am new at this, and hope that I--with your help, contributions, and suggestions--can eventually make this into a valuable learning tool for everyone who visits.

Are we really protecting our students with Internet filters at school?

Reading "Do you have a library supervisor?" at Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk blog (http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2009/9/2/do-you-have-a-library-supervisor.html) , I was heartened to find that not every school system shares the attitude of the BCPSS.
Oh how I envy Guusje Moore!
I work in a Baltimore City public school. My students' innocence, and ignorance, are fiercely protected by the Bess Internet filter at its highest setting, meaning that neither teachers nor students can access Google Image search, free pages, blogs, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube or most commercial sites. I recognize the difficult situation school library supervisors are in, and applaud the bravery of those who choose to encourage guided exploration of the wide world of the World Wide Web rather than keeping them on intellectual lockdown during school hours. What they don't learn in school about the dangers of social networking and the Internet in general they must learn at great cost from unsupervised experimentation.

Positive Controversy

Too often classroom management techniques are focused on avoiding conflict altogether.  But academic controversy can be a powerful learning tool. According to Dr. David Johnson, “Conflict is normal,” and can be an enjoyable impetus for research (Laureate, 2008). Academic controversy has the value of authenticity because people are competitive and curious by nature, and when they disagree on an issue, they naturally want to prove their point.

For example, when my wife’s parents returned from a trip to China, they told me that they had learned that some Chinese companies were making soy sauce from human hair. I thought this story implausible and hoped to prove my point with research. Upon investigation, though, I learned that the story is fairly well corroborated.

I may not have won the argument, but I gained interesting and potentially useful knowledge. Giving students the training and opportunity to engage in authentic academic controversy can help them not only to learn and apply research, writing, and rhetorical skills, but to improve their ability to effectively resolve all sorts of conflicts in their daily lives.

Academic controversy is a natural part of the secondary English curriculum, and weblogs are a perfect environment for cultivating positive controversy.  Unfortunately, many in the public school system are so afraid of controversy, they prefer to blind and silence their students by preventing access to most Web 2.0 (Read/Write Web) applications. 
REFERENCES
Atwan, R. (2007). America now: Short readings from recent periodicals. New York: Bedford/Saint Martins.

Johnson, D. W. (1995). Reducing school violence through conflict resolution. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). Classroom Management to Promote Student Learning . Baltimore: Author.

Maryland State Department of Education (2008). School improvement in Maryland. Baltimore: Author. Retrieved March 27, 2009, from http://mdk12.org/instruction/curriculum/reading/clg_toolkit.html

Welcome to 3sty (read "Thirsty") Minds.

This is my first foray into the forbidding blogosphere. Be gentle.