Partnership for 21st Century Skills.....my thoughts....

For my graduate program, this week’s assignment was to explore and review the website http://www.p21.org, which is the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills.  The mission for P21 is to provide tools and resources to help the education system in the Unites States to keep up with other industrialized countries around the world, by incorporating the four C’s (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation) with the three R’s  (which is no longer identified as Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic – identified by P21 as english, reading or language arts; mathematics; science; foreign languages; civics; government; economics; arts; history; and geography).  P21 advocates for local, state and federal policies that support this approach for every school (2011).

I loved this website because it emphasizes the importance of using the 4 c’s in the classroom, completely with every subject.  I found the statement “the Partnership views all the components as fully interconnected in the process of 21st century teaching and learning” to be profound because as an educator it is important to understand that these components should be used in the classroom each day, in all subject areas, to prepare our students for the future.  Teachers can use the resources and tools provided on the website to educate themselves on not only the importance of why these skills are needed for our students success, but also strategies we can use in the classroom with our lessons in each of the core subject areas implementing the four c’s with those core subjects.  I found the Route 21 tab @ http://www.p21.org/route21/index.php, extremely beneficial because it is “an online interactive tool that demonstrates the fusion of the three Rs and four Cs and how this can be supported through standards, professional development, assessments and curriculum and instruction.” (2010).  It is a place that I can actually look and see examples of how to incorporate the 4 c’s into my own instruction.

I enjoyed the exploration of this website and have bookmarked it, so I can refer to it often.  It’s vision is consistent with the learning resources we viewed this week in class, where Thornburg explains 21^st century skills, and how it is our responsibility as teachers to teach our students “not to survive but thrive” with these new skills because of our changing society (Laureate, 2010). The fact that “students are spending an average of 27 hours a week online at home and an average of 15 minutes a week at school” (Miners & Pascopella, 2007) was definitely an eye-opener for me as an educator.  I have to make changes in my classroom, and be determined to lead by example to make changes in my school.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2010). Program number 11: Skills for the 21^st century  [DVD]. Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Author.

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

 Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (n.d.). A framework for 21st century learning. Washington DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/