Our current assignment is to spend some time exploring the website www.p21.org, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. We are to familiarize ourselves with their mission, the members of the partnership, and the various resources available on their site.
After spending a great deal of time perusing the site, my reaction is that it contains a great vision, but is weak on application. Their mission statement is, "To serve as a catalyst to position 21st century readiness at the center of US K12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders." (Partnership, 2011) This is a great goal, and the site lists many states that have joined the initiative. However, when it comes right down to usefulness, the site falls short.
The site did give me a greater understanding of the importance of business and community being involved in education. The work environment continues to change. This makes it important to have businesses involved in education. Students can then more easily keep pace with the changes. The website has an impressive list of strategic council members. Most of them are well-known businesses. It was not clear how they interacted with students or schools. It would be interesting to know the connection.
When I looked at the math resources page, I did not like the fact that the activities were not sorted by grade level. I spent a considerable amount of time weeding through the activities looking for appropriate level activities for my students. In addition, the activities were not very helpful. It reminded me of the distinction between doing things differently and doing different things that we discussed several weeks ago (Thornburg, 2008). If we are going to prepare our students for the future, we need to focus on doing different things.
The implications for my students are that the skills they need to survive are very different. This means that the role of the teacher must also change. "We have the capacity to use technology to transform educational practice in ways that were impossible twenty years ago." (Thornburg, 2004) So, as a teacher, I need to more clearly understand how to utilize websites such as the Partnership website to connect with businesses and the community around me to help my students thrive.
References:
http://www.p21.org/index.php
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2008). The Emergence of Educational Technology. Baltimore: Author.
Thornburg, D. (2004). Technology and education: Expectations, not options. (Executive Briefing No. 401). Retrieved from http://www.tcpdpodcast.org/briefings/expectations.pdf
Deb,
ReplyDeleteYou make a great point about how the Partnership website fails to connect the initiative to each school. I work in North Carolina and I was happy to find my state on the list of those who have plans to increase their 21st century skills teaching but, in the same sense, I had not heard anything about it through my school or county. It makes me wonder if information is getting passed down from the state level to the district level.
Do you mind if I ask you where you found the math resources page? I guess I am overlooking something because I did not even see it on the site. In fact, I even made a comment about the lack-there-of in my post about the site. It is a shame that there seemed to be more resources that simply did things differently rather than doing different things. It’s great that there are so many technology business leaders in the Partnership; however, I wish they would work together in order to formulate more project based assessments. I think teachers need more explicit examples of where and how 21st century skills can be implemented into lessons – especially the technology components.
After reading your post I have to agree that the plan lacks teeth. That is the result of a long-standing systemic problem in education. Too many cooks spoil the broth. The United States has long needed a unified approach to education. Letting fifty states with disparate ideas of varying quality set fifty different agendas is nonsense. There is really no unifying force and the Department of Education is very much a paper tiger for the same reasons. It recommends policy and that is about it. True reform starts at both ends of the spectrum and meets in the middle. The upper end is now in the process of presenting ideas to a distilling mill made up of fifty sections. The troops at the lower end (teachers) are supposed to respond to these ideas after they have been altered in numerous ways by not so well informed state and local boards. Bottom line – policy enforcers, the least informed in educational circles, have the most power. This is a conundrum indeed.
ReplyDeleteDennis Tierney
I had a response very much like yours to the site. Isn't it amazing that *how* we spread a message can often become more important than the message itself? Do you think you will use this website much in the future? I think I could get my community more engaged by sending out a few TED talks than by searching through this site.
ReplyDeleteAmanda, I went back and looked at the site again. What I saw before was the ICT literacy map for math. It was sorely lacking in practical use. It only included fourth, eighth and twelfth grade. I agree with you that we need more explicit examples.
ReplyDeleteDennis, it has long been a frustration for the "teachers in the trenches" that policy is often made by people who really have no idea. Even though some are former teachers,they have been out of the arena for so long that they lack connection to what really needs to be done. I agree, it is a conundrum.
Sarah, frequently "how" the message is delivered speaks volumes. It totally clouds the message itself. I am not very interested in using this website. I very much enjoy TED talks. We view one at the beginning of every professional development day. Those videos generate a huge resonse and an ongoing discussion into best practices. I can see how they would engage the community and business arena.
Thanks to all of you for your comments. I look forward to ongoing discussions in the weeks ahead!