Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The website for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills national organization serves as a huge resource that advocates 21st century readiness for students and educators. The website offers a wide variety of resources, including skills frameworks and outlines, professional publications, blogs, interactive tools, videos, lessons, and numerous other resources that have been developed to help educators bring their students into the 21st century educational and professional environment. The organization looks to serve as a link between the traditional three Rs of education and the more 21st century-minded four Cs (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation). Their mission of building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders looks to change modern education in a way that will bridge the gap between skills learned in school and those necessary to compete and exist in the 21st century community and workplace.

I was surprised by the amount of content found on the website. I knew the idea of developing the 21st century classroom was a prominent one, but it almost felt as though it was still a grassroots movement. To have an organization like this, that has developed so many resources intended to change the climate of modern education, was actually a little shocking. The seemingly already large acceptance of the ideas presented by the P21 was also a bit surprising. To see 14 states already involved with the initiative of the program, as well as the countless educators that have contributed to the organizations resources and ideas, is quite astounding. The movement towards more modern education in the 21st century is certainly on its way. I was also somewhat surprised by the negative feedback that existed in response to some of the content on the website. There is definitely a faction of "old-guard" educators that are reluctant to the changing environment of 21st century education, but I was surprised to see them use this format to voice their opinions.

It is hard to disagree with anything on the P21 website. They have clearly stated their mission and goals for changing education in the 21st century, and have done a good job of presenting information and providing resources that can be used to develop their program. I could possibly see issues arising between the business element of the initiative and the local governments involved with education. What type of draw and pull will businesses have with the initiative? How will the business world define what is happening in the classroom? I can see traditional education minds rejecting the business world's impact.

What are the implications and the impact of such an organization on my classroom and my students? Is it just another tool or resource to help advance my class into the 21st century? That is yet to be determined. I do think there are some powerful ideas and resources made available through this website that can certainly help advance my classroom along with the mission of P21. The goal of this organization and website fall directly in line with the types of material that we have previously encountered through our technology impact course. This is the type of organization through which you can place a solid foundation for a classroom initiative that can advance your students into a productive 21st century classroom. The tools made available through the P21 website can set your teachings in a direction that can form the necessary bridge between the modern classroom and the modern business world.

Taking the Blog Into The Classroom

I have spent a great deal of time trying to think of ways to incorporate this blog into regular use for my classes. I teach ninth grade World Geography, so after many discussions with other social studies teachers, I have found that they are currently using blogs in a variety of ways. My goal is to piece together several of these ideas in a manner that can provide something that my students will find useful and meaningful.

My first thought, and that of several of my colleagues, was to use the blog as an area to post assignments and lessons from the course. I decided against this course of action, as I already have a school-based website that I use to keep my students and their parents up-to-date with that kind of information. That site also contains a course calendar and options for gradebook access. I want to avoid that kind of "nuts and bolts" content for this blog. I want to use the blog to provide something for my students that will meaningfully supplement their course work and offer an opportunity for better engagement with the course material.

I believe I will start offering supplemental information (i.e. relevant news articles or videos) to our classroom material on the blog for students to read or view, and then have them use the blog to further our class discussion on the subject material. Students will be required to read or view the blog's material and then post a comment on how it relates to our classroom content and discussions.

I also like the idea of having students continue classroom discussions and debates on the blog. We will often run out of class time when discussing hot-button issues related to our course content, and are forced to leave them behind when moving on to new subjects. The blog will provide a new space to continue those debates with each student actually having their opinions heard and responded to.

This blog can also serve as an open forum for students to discuss the day-to-day activity of our class. Any questions students might have can be posted on the blog to be answered by myself or even another student. I really like the idea of the students having an area where they can have an open discussion without being ridiculed or worrying about other students controlling the direction of the class.

I know that I am being very short-sighted with these ideas but I am certainly willing to try anything to better engage my students. Let me know what you think about my ideas and let me hear some of your own.

Student Stress Not Just For Kids Anymore

I have never been one to let my work overwhelm me. At least I thought I wasn't. That has changed over the past few weeks, though. I can honestly say that this is the most I have been stressed out in a very long time. I am entering my fifth month working towards a master's degree in technology education and the workload of my own school work is starting to combine with my other responsibilities to make life extremely hectic. My job and student responsibilities are starting to overlap in a perfect storm of super-heavy workload.

With the end of the school year I find myself racing to make sure that my students have all the information they need to show mastery of course standards in preparation for final exams. Our staff seems to have a ton of pointless meetings that take away from planning periods, and our administrators are piling on new work seemingly daily.

Soccer season has just come to a close and wrapping up the season becomes more time consuming each year. Equipment collection is a daily hassle, and preparing for the team banquet is a lot of work. Spring practice for football also cranks up this week with practices both before and after school. Preparing for those practices can be more time-consuming than daily class lesson plans.

To add to all of that fun, I have just started a new course in my master's program. With these eight-week courses, I feel like we have to move on to a new course just as soon as I get the hang of the previous one. I enjoy the content and what I am learning, but the quick course times and schedules can be difficult to keep straight.

I know there are other educators out there that are having similar issues. What do you do to cope? How do you handle the "race to the finish" in May? What's the best way to balance your own schooling along with your regular work load? Let me know what you think. I'm open to any and all advice.