Initially, I was quite overwhelmed when I reached the website “Partnership for 21^st Century Skills” (http://www.p21.org/index.php ). This reaction was due in part to the vast amount of information available within the website. In a short amount of time, however, I realized it was quite easy to navigate around the site and find what I was looking for. Being an educator who is fond of free resources, I naturally gravitated to the “Resources for Educators” links. I was happy to find more detailed definitions of some of the rather ambiguous 21^st century skills descriptors I read about this week in my technology course at Walden. The documents I found most helpful were the literacy and 21^st century skills maps for my content area (math).  Within these documents, the literacy/21^st century outcomes (or standards) are stated along with a grade level appropriate example of how the outcomes could be reached via a project or activity. Overall, these resources are solid and clear up some of the gray area surrounding 21^st century skills.

I would not say that there is too much I disagree with on the site and I have no argument that students need these skills in order to be competitive. However, there is a statement or two that irk me. The first statement, taken from the P21 mission page is the following, “There is a profound gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21st century communities and workplaces” (“Our Mission”, n.d., para 3). While I agree that the said gap exists, I am not convinced of its profundity. Many of us teachers have built curriculum around these skills and have been for years. The gap will closing naturally, without a massive curricular overhaul. Furthermore, new teachers, many of whom already possess many of these skills, are entering the educational field with a strong handle on various technologies and are using them with their students regularly.

The second statement that troubles me the suggestion that in order “to successfully face rigorous higher education coursework, career challenges and a globally competitive workforce, U.S. schools must align classroom environments with real world environments by fusing the 3Rs and 4Cs” (“Our Mission”, n.d., para 4). This sounds very much like a sales pitch and I am certainly not convinced that this is the solution to the intellectual stagnation that is the legitimate cause of all academic “skills gaps” in our country. What about motivation, determination, ambition, and the desire to learn for the sake of learning? I’m fairly certain these are the skills that have made myself and many others successful in life and any other necessary skills were acquired using the aforementioned traits. It takes more than educators on board to address these cultural problems and I hoping there is a time in the near future when the importance of education and learning is addressed by more than those in the educational field.

Again, I do not want to give the reader the impression that I do not value these skills or think it is important that our students learn them; indeed I do. For my own part, I plan to continue to address these skills within my classroom as well as share and utilize the astounding new technologies with my students. However, I plan to continue to gradually add more activities, projects, and technologies that foster 21^st century skills to my curriculum.

Reference

Our Mission. (n. d.)  Retrived from: http://www.p21.org/about-us/our-mission

 

 

 

 

Welcome fellow bloggers! This week I will be explaining how to I intend to use blogs in my classroom initially. The word initially is important here because I do believe weblogs show lots of promise, even within a mathematics classroom.

Before I articulate my intentions, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Thomas Baumgart and I teach one section of AP Calculus BC along with an assortment of geometry classes.  My geometry students next year will all be in 10^th grade or higher changing the dynamics of a class immensely. Gone are the 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th graders on the calculus track. My geometry classes will now consist of students who are older and will likely need much more support. My blog site will hopefully be a mechanism from which these students can acquire the aforementioned support.

Heeding the advice of Richardson (2010), my plan will be to start small and use my Weblog “as a place to post homework assignments and relevant class links” (p. 45). I my blog will be a fine place to post my syllabus, course objectives, student notes, and the previously noted homework assignments. This alone will prove useful for my oft-absent students who need the previous day’s materials.  This may be as far as I go with geometry next year as calculus is the class in which I intend on experimenting with blogging to a higher degree.

For my AP Calculus class, I will provide the same materials as with Geometry. However, I would also like students to also use the space to collaborate on problems and share resources.

I figure this is starting small enough to serve as a confidence builder for myself and should also enhance my students’ learning experiences to some degree. Please feel free to leave any suggestions or advice! Farewell!

Resource

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

This will be the blog site for Thomas Baumgart during EDUC-6710. Thanks for visiting! The older posts were done during a previous class.