When sifting through the information on The Partnership for 21st Century Learning Skills http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php, I was immediately overwhelmed by all of the information that has been compiled onto their website. I then began to narrow my search and begin at the beginning. It was surprising how much information that had been placed on this website. The overview of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is designed around maintaining basic core curriculum (math, science, language arts, history…) with the infusion of:
· Global Awareness
· Financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy
· Civic literacy
· Health literacy
I think that this is fabulous! I think that at some times it may be hard for teachers to incorporate everything that may be going on in the world while maintaining the core curriculum. However, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills curriculum is designed around these interdisciplinary skills that should be taught in schools. The Partnership has many household member names such as Dell, Apple, Scholastic, and McGraw-Hill among many others.
There was not any one thing that I really disagreed with on the website that I found. I do wonder how the curriculum would be implemented into each states curriculum. However I found this site to be very informative and it is one way for us as educators to stay abreast of up and coming advances in the educational world.
I agree that the amount of information provided on the website is pretty overwhelming. However, I think it is better for a professional organization like that to have too much content, rather than too little. While the core curriculum content is stressed, I would have liked to see more of the Business Education aspect, as that is what I teach.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the volume of information on the site is a little overwhelming. I did the same thing as you...dove in, and then had to come up for air and start over again! Once I started again, I was able to find great resources and I could see how having the support of so many members of a community would be very helpful in integrating a variety of skills into the classroom. I am concerned, though, about gaining the support of the parents of a lot of my students. I fully agree that we need to do all we can to provide support to our students in learning these 21st century skills, but we also need to support of parents to make it happen. If my students do not have access to necessary technology, will their parents allow them to stay after school to use the school's technology or will they be able to take them to the library to access technology there? For many of my students, there are younger siblings to care for at home after school. Further, many of their parents work multiple jobs, and therefore cannot take them to the library. I think I would like more information on how the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is funded and implemented in each content area.
ReplyDelete