Evaluating 21st-Century Skills

Today’s education system deals with irrelevance if we do not link the break between how the students experience and they learn. Schools are wrestling to maintain tempo with the surprising pace in students’ live outside the school. Students will occupy their adults live in a multitasking, various, technology –driven, dynamic world – and they must show up supplied to do so.  Literacy in the 21^st- century means more than just reading, writing and computing skills. It means understanding on how to apply the learning and talents in a situation of modern life. To deal with the expectation of the21st century, students have to understand more than the core subjects. They have to know on how apply their learning and talents – by reasoning sharply, using learning to new circumstances, evaluating material, assimilating new ideas, corresponding, working together, solving problems, and making decisions.

Productive educators always have integrated learning skills into their instructional methods. Today, educators have the chance to assimilate learning skills, 21^st century tools, and core subjects to create a dynamic education for their students. When we integrate learning skills like thinking and problem solving skills with the 21^st century tools like problem solving tools (such as software, decisions support, design tools), it means we have the ICT literacy because we are using ICT to handle complexity, solve problems and analyse sharply, creatively and systematically.

The 21st century is here. Is our education system preparing our students with the skills that they will need to thrive in this century? With the increased focus on high-stakes testing and school accountability, whose job will it be to teach these critical skills that may not be specifically defined through the core content standards? How can teachers go beyond the content standards and incorporate the teaching of these skills and dispositions into their classrooms? How well do you currently address these skills, and what changes can you make to your teaching practices to further foster these skills in your students? When we explore a web site called Partnership for 21^st Century Skills, we may get answer of all those questions.  Their mission statement for partnership for 21st century skills are described on the web site, that is “to serve as a catalyst to position 21st century readiness at the center of US K-12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders” (http://www.p21.org/about-us/our-mission).  They presents a holistic view of 21st century teaching and learning that combines a discrete focus on 21st century student outcomes (a blending of specific skills, content knowledge, expertise and literacies) with innovative support systems to help students master the multi-dimensional abilities required of them in the 21st century and beyond. The key elements of 21st century learning are represented in the graphic and descriptions below. The graphic represents both 21st century student outcomes (as represented by the arches of the rainbow) and 21st century learning support systems (as represented by the pools at the bottom). 

This is quite interesting website. Since I am working at an International Baccalaureate (IB) school, we also implement the 21^st century skills. When I take a look at the skills mentioned at the web site Partnership for 21^st Century Skills, I found out that we have implemented similar skills. In IB schools, we have five transdisciplinary skills. They are social skills, communications skills, thinking skills, research skills and self-management skills (Primary Years Programme Making the PYP Happen: A curriculum framework for international primary education, 2007, 2009).  So, the skills mentioned on Partnership for 21^st Century Skills is not something new to me. Even though it is not something new, I still find it challenging to implement the skills onto my teaching and learning process. In addition to that, I think the IB transdisciplinary skills are clearer because have a better explanation or grouping for the skills. What surprised me was about the core subjects. In IB, we implement an integrated subjects. We do not individualize the subjects. All subjects are important. When we individualize the subjects, I think this will confuse us. What I meant is like this… when we individualize the subjects, we think that there are many subjects to cover. When we think that there are many subjects to cover, we will be confused because we have so limited time. That is why, I disagree with the core subjects. We should not individualize subjects into core subjects. But, this is my opinion as an elementary teacher. May be as a high school teacher, it is better to have core subjects instead of integrated subjects. As I have said that these skills are not new to me. I implement the skills onto the teaching and learning process when we have unit of inquiry subjects. The skills are taught inside the unit of inquiry. I think when we teach the skills inside the unit of inquiry, the students have a better chance to learn and directly apply the skills. So the skills are not being taught separately. When I design a summative task, I have to make sure that the students will show the transdisciplinary skills that we focus on.

Reference

Making the PYP Happen: A curriculum framework for international primary education. Cardiff, Wales GB CF23 8GL, United Kingdom. International Baccalaureate Organization. Retrieved from http://occ.ibo.org/ibis/documents/pyp/p_0_pypxx_mph_0912_2_e.pdf

Partnership for 21^st Century Skills. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/