21st century Learning

[shibli]

[shibli]

Framework for 21st Century Learning The Framework for 21st Century Learning consists of core subjects and themes that revolve around three core skills: life and career skills, learning and innovation skills, and information media, and technology skills. These are the skills that students need in order to be successful in the 21st century. The core subjects include: English, Reading, Language Arts, World Languages, Arts, Mathematics, Economics, Science, Geography, History, and Government and Civics.

[shibli]

[shibli]

In today’s classroom, the students have diverse backgrounds, a variety of achievement levels, and different learning styles which will all affect their ability to acquire knowledge. So, teachers need to move away from the traditional methods of teaching and bring into the classroom new and innovating approaches to teach the content and lifelong skills. The students are able to communicate the content among their peers and be able to use it in their everyday lives. Also, the students benefit from the integration of 21st century skills and content cognitively by using reasoning and problem-solving skills to promote higher level thinking. The use of higher order thinking will gain the students interest in the content when related to real life situations. This will enable them to think outside of the box and move up the latter in achieving higher levels of proficiency. Academically, most students’ will benefit from the integration of content and skills to survive in the world today. Students will gain a plethora of knowledge to understand and solve real-world situations using the 21st century skills.

Teachers may design a curriculum around a themed-based approach in order to incorporate 21st century skills into the content areas. This will allow students personal interest is brought into the classroom while focusing on higher order thinking skills. Themes that may be used for a unit are political issues within the community, pollution, recycling, or even broader topics. “The theme must be very interesting to students and must allow a wide variety of language skills to be practiced, always in the service of communicating about theme” (Oxford, 2001, p. 4). By relating the content to real life situations the students will be engaged and motivated to learn and take action in their road to success. “By posing open-ended questions and posing intriguing problems engage children’s imaginations and help motivate them to explore, discover, create, and learn” (Trilling & Fadel, 2009, p. 94). By “applying skills like critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity to the content knowledge-increases motivation and improves learning outcomes” (50). The students will have the opportunity to express their viewpoints and take action in their own learning. “It deeply engages students in their learning, goes beyond memorization to meaningful understanding, and results in large learning gains for students with a wide range of learning styles and backgrounds” (Trilling & Fadel, 2009, p. 104).

Teachers must utilize a variety of methods for the children to build their own understanding through real world applications interactions with their peers in many cooperative group activities. “Life is a multimedia event, and the meanings that we secure from life are not simply contained in text; they yield their content through a wide variety of forms” (Eisner, 2002, p. 154). The students need to have a deep understanding for the real world in order to become successful individuals and be more technologically enhanced.

Students need to become more globally literate because many jobs are now more focused on those issues. Students need to know more about the world, think outside of the box, develop better people skills, and become smarter about selecting news sources. To do this it is important for teachers to keep up with the times and create a modern curriculum. One of the best ways to achieve global literacy is through communication, collaborative learning, research, and problem solving. Technology helps tremendously in these areas, so it is a great tool to use in the classroom. Not only that, but it will help the students to find more relevance in school as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Century_Skills