My reaction to this website is a very postive one. I am amazed at the commitment that has been made to incorporate 21st century skills to some students in our country. I found out that the “business community, educational leaders and policymakers” are working together to see that the students of today come out of school with the “skills needed to be effective citizens, workers, and leaders in the 21st century”.
I am very impressed with the amount of members in this partnership. However, I am very surprised though that only 14 states are currently involved with this initiative. Knowing how important and how technology is growing and becoming more advance, you would think that more states would want to convert and start using these skills while teaching. My state, Georgia, is not one of them. Wouldn’t you think this should be a national partnership? Why are more states not involved with this? After all, these skills are going to be what our students are going to need in order to compete in the working world, as well as, with machines. I feel that more states should already be making the initiative to incorporate these skills.
It is refreshing to know that there is a place for educators and students to go to for guidance and support in order to teach and learn 21st century skills that are increasingly needed in order to close the gap between our students and those from other countries. I think it is to an educator’s advantage to take the time to study this site. There is a lot of useful information that will support the teacher in providing their students with the 21st century skills they will need. How hard would it be to nationalize something like this Partnership? I am not talking about the funding but the general ideas of the whole framework. I think starting off in the same direction would be a step forward instead of each state working as an individual. We all need to get in the same book, if not on the same page.
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The small number of states that are currently involved with the initiative also surprised me. My state was also not on the list. I agree that the site provides helpful resources and ideas. One of the resources they suggested was the MILE guide, which allows you to see where your school or district is on its journey to reaching its goal of successfully teaching 21st century skills using a rubric. I went and looked at the guide to see how my school was doing on its journey to teaching 21st century skills and found that we are in the early stages of development in all three categories. I hope that we will be moving forward soon, so we can better prepare our students for the future.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this initiative is pretty amazing in what it is trying to accomplish. As an educator, I found that it gave me a clearer picture of what I should be doing in order to help prepare my students for their future careers. Although the list of skills was a little overwhelming at first, once I began to read through it I realized that I already do many of their suggestions. I also began to envision ways I could incorporate some of the goals that I currently do not implement. My biggest concern of the entire initiative is the amount of money it would take to purchase the technological resources needed to implement the initiative effectively. So many schools, including my own, have so many equipment needs that our districts simply cannot afford. In the mean time I know we can implement at least some of the 21st century skills into what we are currently doing and with what we currently have.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that all not schools are created equal when it comes to available technology. I teach in a rurual community in North Carolina where the 21st century program is offered, but with the lack of technology, not all of the needed skills can be addressed. The bigger problem is that most states do not implement any of these needed skills and many students are suffering because of this lack of education. It's hard to believe that only 14 states implement this program considering the important skills it provides students for the future.
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