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.