Week 4_Partnership for 21st Century Skills Review

My first reaction to the site was a bit of confusion. At a glance the ideas seemed obvious and I was not quite sure why I was taking time to explore it. I appreciate tools that I can take and use in my classroom right away. So after skimming their ideas, I went to the resources. I got flustered quickly. It was not easily navigable and seemed to lead on and on, where I finally either had to purchase something or down load a pdf. I decided to walk away and try the next day.

I looked at the site with the thought, “how does this affect me?” As a core subject teacher (high school mathematics), P21 believes I should teach, “… in the context of themes like global awareness and civic literacy.”

We just had a curriculum review and switched publishers for mathematics two years ago. We looked at programs similar to this. There were many things I liked, mainly the outcomes of Life and Career Skills, Learning and Innovation Skills, and Information, Media, and Technology Skills.

This is good in theory, but not practical all the time. The programs that I explored had a lot of exploratory learning. I am reluctant of too much investigative education because eventually the teacher has to make sure the students figured out the correct concept. Students catch on to this. It is also my opinion that students need practice. Yes, you can take a break from the P21 lesson and do some drill and practice, but I did not see a program that had this material easily available. We had an integrated system that taught many of these skills with in it. The reason we went backwards to a traditional system was the lack of practice problems, teacher resources, and placement issues with transfer students. I believe a P21 system would have the same issues.

I suppose this is an issue in itself. The only real way a P21 school would really work if standardized testing changed. The material tested would have to be scaled back. Right now we tend to teach a mile wide versus a mile deep to “cover all the material.”

I would like to see a collaboration of P21 ideas and the traditional system we are use to.

Use of this Blog in my classroom

Include your grade level, content area, and your rationale as to why a blog is a good tool for the instructional context.
I am a high school math teacher. I am open to the idea of a classroom blog simply because I believe in offering students every opportunity to succeed. If a blog is what they will respond to, I am on board.

Post an idea for how you might use a blog in your classroom.
I am new to this, and especially since there are not enough hours in the day as it is, I would start simple. I already plan out my lessons and homework a chapter at a time, so I could easily paste this up on my blog. Eventually I would start posting the days notes, also easily done with my smart board.

What purpose would the blog serve? The blog would help absent students, parents, pre-planned absence preparation, tutors, special services, counselors, and struggling students. Having the notes, assignments, and objects posted in one place will help allow everyone to get on the same page

Is it a place for students to interact about content? Is it a showcase for their work? In the beginning, students would not interact. I could see after some time, it morphing into more. I suppose the students could take it wherever they wanted.

How does using a blog enhance the lesson? This blog enhances the lesson by allowing students one more option to review, stay caught up, and prepare for lessons.

Is technology good for us?

Disclaimer: I am a technology junky at work and home.

Since I am taking an online course about technology, I have been reading a lot of posts about how important it is and how teachers need to embrace it.

I wonder how much technology has helped us as teachers. Email communication is convenient, but has it gone too far? On any given day I get 25-50 emails a day. My principal said she gets around 100 a day, and in speaking with my superintendent he said he has been training his secretary to go through them, and after that he only answers those in the morning, because nothing would get done.

In my district we are playing catch up on getting technologies into classrooms. In a math department of nine, two of us got smart boards installed just last year. Two more got installed this year, and there are still five teachers with out. It is great we are getting these, but our tech department cannot keep up. Last year my projector went out and it took six weeks to get replaced. This year, it took over a month to get a program installed on my computer (we are blocked from installing our own programs).

At times technology has created as many headaches as positives. I am excited to see what the future brings, but at the same time I am nervous of the complications that will come with it.