Educating 21st century students

Partnership for 21st Century Skills or p21 is on a mission to ensure that all students are ready to succeed in the technology driven 21^st century. P21 is building collaborative partnership between education, business, community and government (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2014).

Through working collaboratively p21 hopes to instill the skills and knowledge necessary to thrive in our ever changing and technology driven future. P12 strives to align the classroom environment with the real world environment therefor-strengthening students' chances of success. 

The 3Rs + the 4Cs = successful and knowledgeable 21st century students

P21 proposes that the 3Rs are the building block for academic success and the 4Cs: critical thinking and problem solving; communication, collaboration; and creativity and innovation, provide additional skills necessary to compete in the global world.

During my exploration of the p21 site I found the contributing member list to be very interesting. Among the major contributors are many companies or organizations that one would associate with education and who may not necessarily jump to the forefront; National Education Association, Crayola, PBS and Ford Motor Company. With so many students leaving school, having graduated or not, unsure of what job if any they will be able to acquire it is good that major companies are investing time and money to help students become expert thinkers and complex communicators required in future jobs.

It is easy to see that the p21 website is jam packed with insightful information. As a busy educator, I find the information to be in a dense form. I have not come across quick tips to implement, but maybe that is part of the point? Changing the way in which we instruct to better meet the digital needs of our students and the work force is not a quick fix or easy add-on.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on p21.

Thanks for reading,

Ms. Kat 

References

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2014). Our mission. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/about-us/our-mission

Adventures on rewind

As some of you know I left the classroom after my first little one was born. I began working with an educational resource center that better fit my new life changes. Last year, due to changes in educational regulations in Alaska the program that I worked on lost funding. Although I was disappointed that I would no longer have the opportunity to work with educators and students throughout the state I was ecstatic to have the chance to stay at home and focus on my two little ones and their learning adventures.
I was recently contacted by my former employer to return part time in a similar capability. I am excited to have the chance to balance my joys of motherhood with the challenges and rewards of going to school full time and helping to run a couple educational programs in Alaska. It will be fun to see how many new and exciting skills, knowledge and techniques that I learn in school that I can apply to my work environment.
Watch out classrooms I'm back and loaded with exciting ideas!

Blogging under the midnight sun.

I sit here writing this post at 9:30 at night in broad daylight. The days are long and with that the pull to get outdoors becomes stronger as summer approaches. Many students throughout Alaska will have the opportunity to take part in summer learning adventures both in and out of the classroom. In order to keep young minds engaged and to help prevent the dreaded summer learning loss learning opportunities need to become even more captivating. What greater way to enthrall those young scholars than to create and utilize a classroom blog.

Last summer I had the opportunity to help teachers in two different cities in Alaska conduct summer learning opportunities. The students who took part in the southern summer school learned how to find local edible plants and create medicinal salves and those in the northern summer program learned about different art styles and mediums. Both schools also focused on strengthening their students' core academic abilities. Looking back these opportunities would have been enhanced had the classes utilized a blog where students could have shared with the world their adventures.

The summer learning programs lasted between three and four weeks and had students in a wide range of grades, kindergarten through middle school. All of the students participated in journaling activities to some extent or another every week and in come cases every day. Taking those paper and pencil activities and extending them into the read/write web could bring a whole new dimension and ownership into the activity. Perhaps setting up a kidblog.org classroom blogging community so that all students are interconnected and can therefor learn from each other would strengthen the summer school experience.

Have you ever tried a using a blog with a diverse age group of students or students in a summer program? I would love to hear suggestions, comments and success stories.

Ms. Kat

First of many

Hello All,
Please join me on my new blogging adventure dedicated my exploration of education. I welcome all helpful comments and tips that you might want to share.
Enjoy, Ms. Kat