I read Chapter 10 in Bellanca and Brandt (Preparing Students for Mastery of 21st Century Skills) and it summed up the common themes I read throughout the book about educating our students for the future. There are many important themes or characteristics that I feel will have to be addressed moving forward in order to better educate students and enable them to be productive/successful members of society. I am going to key in on three that I feel are extremely important and need to be considered when creating a list of ways to benefit our students:
1) Technology Needs to be Moved to the Forefront. It is time we embrace technology and stop shying away from using it in our schools and in our classrooms. Our students communicate, listen, network, search, share, and store all through some sort of technology tool. Whether they are using cell phones to text message, networking or communicating on Twitter, Facebook, listening to iTunes, streaming media, searching on Google, YouTube, or listening to Ipods/MP3 players, our students are growing up in a society that is based on technological advances. So why are we denying these advances/changes and not using this in our schools? Many classrooms now look exactly the same as they did in the early 1900s. We need to update our classrooms to include computers, smartboards, as well as incorporate cell phones into our lessons. In order to incorporate technology into the classroom it has to be readily available to both teachers and students. Also, our teachers must be educated and trained to use these pieces of technology in order to support students and guide student learning.
2) Lecturing Gone Bad, Collaborative Learning Succeeds. The days of teachers standing in front of the classroom lecturing students need to be abandoned if they haven't already been. Students learn more through interaction with peers, collaborative engagement, and student-centered work environments that feature hands-on projects. Teachers need to take a step back so to speak and allow "students at work." The teacher now needs to be there more for guidance and less for teacher-directed whole group instruction. When students engage with fellow classmates, they can solve complex problems, practice critical thinking skills, bounce ideas off one another and handle group/team responsibilities.
3) Life Lessons. Responsibility, Accountability, and Communication. These three attributes/characteristics are vital for students to acquire in our schools, because they will benefit them for life. Being responsible for work you have created, being held accountable for actions (good or bad), and developing good communication skills are all extremely important in order to be a successful student and a productive member of society. In my experience as a teacher so far, I feel many of my students lack responsibility and accountability for actions and work. In life, you will learn that there are consequences for poor decisions made, and many of my students are not responsible individuals yet. They need to understand that you will have due dates, deadlines, rules, requirements, etc. and you have to time manage in order to complete necessary work. Also, I feel as though students' communication skills have taken a hit through the years. Although cell phones have so many benefits, I think text messaging on cell phones has hurt our students' communication skills. They are use to using slang in text messages, and face-to-face (group speaking) has taken a dive.
Incorporating technology, collaborative student work, and learning important life skills are all things that I feel need to be discussed and considered when we talk about how and what we need to do as educators in order to improve our students' learning in the future. It obviously is not going to be an overnight change, but can be done overtime. All hands need to be on deck as we move into the future of education!
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