Evaluating 21st Century Skills

As I visited the site, Partnership for 2st Century Learning, http://www.p21.orghttp://www.p21.orgI knew I had been here before, as I am always reading watching the trends so I can stay up to date in my own teaching. I clicked on a few links and found myself looking at the Geography and 21st Century Skills page. Eighth grade objectives had students looking at web images of countries, and I immediately thought of using Google Earth. Students were to look at the different shapes of the countries and their specific geographic surroundings to evaluate how those countries’ shapes and exact location could affect the political nature of the country. This is clearly deeper thinking than most Social Studies classes require of their students at the 8th grade level.

As I contemplate some of these deep thinking activities, I realize that we have not prepared our students for this deep reflective questioning. Students come to my support periods to complete homework in Social Studies and to get the answers done. They rarely read, but instead scan the page to ‘find’ the answer, much like a mother who has left her older child in charge of her younger child and spins through the store to get exactly what she needs knowing she just has to get it done quickly. When we ‘give’ homework to students which does not really require thinking skills but rather search and find skills, they walk away empty handed and losing out on valuable learning potential. Most students think of the work they do in class and especially the homework, as busywork. Students have not been taught to read, and stop to think about the material. Then continue to read stopping to think, and finally respond. Perhaps that could be a good use of a Wiki or web page, requiring students to read and reflect, rather than rush to just answer the questions as posed at the end of the chapter. Instead for most students, it’s a hodgepodge of get it done. How sad that these same students are relatively successful, yielding good grades for accomplishing little in the way of analytical and reflective thinking.

Moving on to the English and Collaboration goal page, I liked the idea of researching a piece of historical fiction as a collaborative team and posting that research with web links, to a class or group Wiki. Here students have read a piece of historical fiction and worked in teams to delve deeper into the story behind the story. It’s through that deep exploration that these 8th graders will connect the realistic historical references from the book and more, to the story presented to them in historical documents. They also are defining and strengthening their collaboration skills doing these types of activities. Teachers could scaffold the project and have a student research housing and they could draw the types of houses from that period of time in history. Other students could research the clothes of the day, finding images or using ipad apps to make realistic recreations of a person dressed from that time period. This level of instruction, fact finding, collaboration, and authorship really will require a different classroom model. Long gone is the teacher as the leader and expert holder of information. Now, the teacher needs to teach information, skills, and then teach students how to search for information and build and develop their Wiki or their project based web page. In this new scenario, the teacher plays numerous more roles and will need to jockey between the roles to scaffold, as needed. Today’s teacher in this classroom will be: teacher, technology integrator, search guru, and a collaborative conductor.

I landed on a page,under Tools and Resources, that took me on a ride to “Route 21 Overview”. Once again, all the great things we can and should be doing, but there exists a major disconnect between what is possible and what is probable given our limited technology, digital tools and infrastructure in our individual buildings. It occurred to me as I was looking at this site, that perhaps we need to stop housing classrooms in separate and distinct school buildings and instead move into the very corporate buildings that will house these very students as workers in 8, 10, 15 years. If we pulled all of our teachers, principals and different levels of students and walked them down the street to the office buildings, setting up shop there, we would have the infrastructure and the digital tools, plus really nice corporate spaces to work in. The cafeteria would probably have better food than the school lunch program provides. It’s crazy to think that we might need to do just that to get the digital resources we need, so we can ‘actually’ do all the incredible ideas as espoused on the Partnership for 21st Century Learning site. Will it be almost the 22nd century when we finally are ‘tooled’ for the 21st Century, I wonder?

Under the Policy makers link, I traveled to ‘state initiatives’ and found my teaching state of NH isn’t even listed, hence part of the problem. Only 14 states out of 50 are listed. Should this be a concern to anyone who is screaming that American schools are not doing enough? Isn’t this a relevant piece of the puzzle? As stated on the About Us, area of the Partnership For 21st Century Skills, “21st Century Skills are no longer just for the top tier, or just for those students headed to college, but essential for all students.”(Partnership For 21st Century Skills, http://www.p21.org/about-us/our-history )

As discussed in the article, The New Literacies, the essential basic skill of reading has changed with these new digital technologies. As a reading teacher, I am not only teaching students decoding, breaking up of words, how to figure out unknown vocabulary in the content of sentences, but I am thankfully teaching students reading in my class using digital tools.

“Foundational or traditional literacy is about print on a page, or decoding and making sense of words, images and other content that a reader can string together and then begin to comprehend. They are the words and pictures students read and pore over that are contained in textbooks,in novels, on standardized tests, and even in comic books. The new literacies encompass much more. Their utility lies in online reading comprehension and learning skills, or 21st century skills, required by the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICTs), including content found on wikis, blogs, video sites, audio sites and in e-mail. They require the ability not just to “read” but also to navigate the World Wide Web, locate information, evaluate it critically, synthesize it and communicate it—all skills that are becoming vital to success in this century’s economy and workforce.”(Miners & Pascopella, 2007)

The implications are clear that if we are not using digital tools to teach today, we are shortchanging our student learners. We need to passionately demand these tools using resources like the Partnership for 21st Century Learning as a way to communicate to those school based policy makers, that spending money on digital resources is not shopping for a fine wine on a beer budget but rather, is as essential as clean drinking water for our student learners and for our society as a whole.

Works Cited:

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

Partnership for 21st Century Skills, retrieved November 21, 2012, from http://www.p21.org/

Six Scaffolding Strategies to Use with Your Students | Edutopia

Six Scaffolding Strategies to Use with Your Students | Edutopia

Board Member-Visits my classroom....

It was of course a Friday afternoon.That was when the board  member would arrive for period 6, right after lunch. I made the decision to tell my students the day before of our visitor. We talked about body language of laying your head on your arms on the table as we  work. We talked about how that physical stature is not  one that promotes engagement, aka-don't do it!

The board member is a very nice man and a realist.  He was supposed to come to my class  3 weeks ago, when quite suddenly we had a  power outage. Our power was out for an hour totally, and just before we sent the kids home the power came back on. Needless to say, they were annoyed! Now would be our new day for our visitor. This board member is assigned to our school. He will visit several times this year.  I found it interesting and still do that of all the classrooms and all the programs going on in the school that my class was spotlighted as one on his first visit list. Hmm, it does make me a little nervous. With Read 180 and System 44 down  in the 5/6th grade wings, my imagination wonders if they believe that Read 180 is also the answer for grades 7 and 8, my grades. This is just one reason why I am doing two things right now. Enrolling in the Technology Integrator program through Walden will demonstrate my newest passion of technology integration. Actually it's not a new passion, but for the first time last year, I am thinking of this as a new direction. Another way I am demonstrating my knowledge and growing expertise is through creating a spreadsheet and a google site showing examples of my technology knowledge,  integration,  and instruction to students and staff alike. This documentation is for an alternate route certificate as a New Hampshire Technology Integrator. The two paths cross to show that I am a serious contender when a position  opens up in my district. With my teaching background, my daily use of technology, my Walden program, and my Alternate Route process I think I will be a good candidate for any technology integration position.

Now, back to the board  member. He came during my lunch in my room. I  explained that the NIE periods, study hall type of 1/2 periods  that surround lunch periods, I was helping students, so this was my lunch. He said that is okay, and clearly didn't get the message I was trying to send him! It was fine. Soon  students  filtered in, and I asked them  to introduce themselves. They did a great job. We worked on a Google Document  using the projector and the Smart Board and Smart Pens. Students were doing all the work.  I wanted him to see the students in my smaller class actually use the technology. They love  using  the pen to highlight the key ideas from an article that I cut and paste into a Google Document to later practice  'putting it in their own  words' or paraphrase it!

I think he was impressed with the kids and what they were doing. I know that I was pretty proud of them....I think I owe them some chocolate on Tuesday!  

Reflections on how to best Integrate Blogs into my classroom

As I consider the ways in which I can use a blog in my classroom I think of the applications as they tie to the curriculum. Teaching in a middle school level reading and literacy classroom, for students who are not reading and writing at grade level, presents a great opportunity for them to connect with text in a more authentic manner. Certainly, I can have students create a novel blog for their novels. They could do a variety of posts as the character of their choosing. They could create a novel blog, highlighting key literary features of their book, character, character motives, tone, conflicts and resolution, and predictions.I could have them connect to unknown vocabulary by typing the sentence where the unknown word might be and then finding a dictionary definition in an online dictionary. Finally they revisit that same blog post and add new unknown words, building their own vocabublog posting of key vocabulary of their novels.

They could be a reporter following the story line of the novel as if it is actually happening. I could have them write newspaper reports of the happenings and teach them the process for identifying and building a news story around : Who, What, Where, When, How and Why. They could also do a weather report of one plot event or setting in the story.

There are so many applications to text that they can explore in a blog, offering their ideas, feeling, thoughts, and beliefs to the world regarding the novel and how that novel has elements of the real world. Connecting to text and making real world connections, making recipes that their character might enjoy eating, taking trips their character might go on, and going out to lunch where their character might go. 

An ongoing novel blog that they can create, modify and manage, and work on throughout the year as an ongoing conversation in the study of their novels under study is a great way to add a reality base to their reading. The opportunity to share their blog can even raise the level of importance and validity as they might welcome the authentic audience for their writing.

A New Direction.....

One of my students doing a scan quiz-using a QR code scan linked to a google form-quiz I set up. These are a quick and easy way to assess students in a fun way.
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My career seems to be taking a turn and I am just going to travel in that new direction for now and see where it takes me. I know in my heart, that integrating technology into my reading and literacy middle school classroom has been life changing for my students. They might not say it, but I can see it. No, they are not always on board. Yes, they have days where they still say, "I don't want to read for an hour". They are middle school aged students,  after all. However, my students engagement has grown exponentially. Technology is the 'key' to open that elusive  door to learning with passion. It not only makes  perfect sense to me, but technology integration has been recognized by those who  are 'in the know',  so to speak. 

"Concurrent with this range of literacy needs, many schools are not engaging students. In addition,
students are less motivated to read in later grades.While these problems may coexist with any of the difficulties cited above, a lack of incentive and engagement also explains why even skilled readers and writers often do not progress in reading and academic achievement in middle and high schools.The proportion of students who are not engaged or motivated by their school experiences grows at every grade level and reaches epidemic proportions in high school." (Reading Next—A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy: A Report to Carnegie Corporation of New York)

The  plain truth is, I have seen a more present and receptive  group  sitting before me. They are able to work on laptops. They read on ipads using the kindle books application. They go up to my smart board and highlight the main ideas of an informational article I have copied and pasted, for size and content for enhanced understanding, into a Google document. They read and note take and use apps on the ipad like Popplet where they can design their notes  into a pattern, unique to them. This one element helps them  to engage at a higher level.  For me, to see them move from writing one or two words in each Popplet bubble to advancing  and  note taking  with lots of bubbles; a  layout which is almost scientific in it's specific structure and the addition of pictures and  color coded bubbles; and a quest to let  others see their work is mind boggling.

The Journey Begins

As I evaluate the technology rich environment I am creating in my classroom, I try not to be myopic. There is a big picture and as educators, we may flit around from new technology opportunities to the next new technology opportunity without a focus. I understand that as I present each new site to my students, I also need to be cognizant of the end in mind. Backward design tells us that we begin instruction with the end in mind. Like taking a road trip, and knowing where you will arrive, rather than setting out without a real destination. Both are interesting and both ideas can take you to interesting places. However, you could lose your way if you aren't guided by where you want your students to arrive at the end of the line. Perhaps some of them will go further, and others might not make the destination, but will find value in places along the way that you never even contemplated. We have to think about where they each need to build skills as we introduce them to the technology rich environments that we continually explore. Perhaps allowing them the exploration also, can help them feel empowered. For example, as a way to demonstrate their learning, I exposed my students to Powerpoint, Sliderocket, and Prezi. Then, I offer them a choice in what they would like to use for another presentation. Having used each of them for other projects, they have a choice to determine their own path in the next project. When we expose our students to the latest and greatest out there in technology, we share with them the possibilities for their own singular expression. Each path can be a little varied and such it is with differentiated learning. Having a variety of tools, and knowing how to use them to make each learning experience valuable for each learner, well that is the key to everything, isn't it?

Summer Summer Summer

My summer has begun, but I am still engaged in working. On the computer from sun up to sun down, creating a technology rich classroom is a great deal of work. No sitting on the beach for this 21st Century teacher. I am working on redesigning my Haiku site, for my larger classroom with more students and more student needs. I am wrapping up my grant, which I am not spending enough time on-how do you spell-avoidance? I am developing my study guide for my virtual 2.0 book club...and loads more....Summer!