Group items tagged

"If you've been following public discourse in education over the last couple of years, you have likely witnessed the emergence of a new, ubiquitous catch phrase: "21st century skills." After some time and considerable debate within and among organizations like ISTE/NETS, enGauge, and The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, a general consensus has emerged on definitions of the term. Many for-profit and not-for-profit organizations advertise their curricula to potential school and district clients, touting the alignment with 21st century skills with whatever they are pitching. The vast majority of these, from the traditional "drill and kill" to the more reformed, constructivist and project-based approaches, have adopted the rhetoric (if not the practice) of the new millennium. What is still lacking in the landscape of 21st century education, however, are examples of 21st century student work. While there is no shortage of discourse around the term or end to the lists qualifying the kind of work that students need to be engaged in as part of their 21st century education, there are precious few examples of actual 21st century work."

21st century skills as outlined by The Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

Future assessment for 21st century skills.

"TRAILS is a knowledge assessment with multiple-choice questions targeting a variety of information literacy skills based on sixth and ninth grade standards. This Web-based system was developed to provide an easily accessible and flexible tool for library media specialists and teachers to identify strengths and weaknesses in the information-seeking skills of their students."

Summarized 21st century skills as described in a book by Tony Wagner - The Global Achievement Gap.

When assessment drives instruction, students learn more and become more confident, self-directed learners. Assessing Projects helps teachers create assessments that address 21st century skills and provides strategies to make assessment an integral part of their teaching and help students understand content more deeply, think at higher levels, and become self-directed learners.

Another example of how a group defines 21st century skills. PDF white papers linked on the right.

New Media Literacies (NML), a research initiative based within USC's Annenberg School for Communication, explores how we might best equip young people with the social skills and cultural competencies required to become full participants in an emergent media landscape and raise public understanding about what it means to be literate in a globally interconnected, multicultural world.

"This article considers three essential challenges for education leaders who are grappling with the challenges of fostering 21st century skills: the assessment gap, the teaching gap, and the leadership gap."

This article considers three essential challenges for education leaders who are grappling with the challenges of fostering 21st century skills: the assessment gap, the teaching gap, and the leadership gap.

"America's increasing reliance on standardized testing as a yardstick for educational success is a flawed policy that threatens to undermine the nation's strengths of creativity and innovation, according to a provocative new book from a Michigan State University scholar."

"A novel public school in New York City has taken the video game as its model for how to teach. Students use video games and design them as part of their classes. As Quest to Learn is wrapping up its first year, those behind the program say game-based learning is integral to 21st century literacy. "

Kevin, you bring up a good point that NCLB has definitely caused us to be more aware of the students who are not achieving and I agree with you. Just as our book "The Art of Possibility" illustrates, there is a positive side to everything. I think you are right about the 100% being a worth while goal. The part that I disagree with is being individually held accountable for that goal when so many other factors such as parents, administration, and score spread critieria embedded in the test themselves, and other factors are working against the success of my students. I would love celebrations and media that honor schools for making high gains, for moving in the right direction, for getting closer to the 100%. I would love to see students honored for making such individual gains as well. Unfortunately I feel that the media message is that which is "failure". Maybe we could colaboratively write some publicity to demonstrate what are schools are doing well.

"Our research-based and standards-aligned free educational math games and language arts games will engage, motivate, and help teach students."