Gerrity_Animoto

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Gerrity_Reflection

The idea if 21st century learning is essential to the way that teachers implement learning activities in their classrooms. The examples used by the Trilling and Fadel allow the reader to see what different activities will look like when they are executed successfully with 21st century learners in mind. It is difficult to take the mindset of a teacher from what teaching has been and incorporate new tools to make teaching more appropriate for the 21st century student. However, Trilling and Fadel offer different techniques through graphic organizers that allow for anyone who is interested in taking up teaching 21st century skills the opportunity and the access to ideas and methods to do that. Part two where Trilling and Fadel discussed what the different types of 21st century skills are, break them down, and make them more understandable to someone who needs to access the minds of students is really helpful even as someone who has grown up with constant computer access in the current generation. I think that without explicit intention I have attempted to incorportate the different 21st century skills such as learning and innovation skills, digital literacy skills, and career and life skills into my classroom through project based learning and authentic assessment. Overall, I think this book was very helpful if incorporated and even though it was a little dry, there was a good deal of information and stories to make it more comprehendable to the reader.

21st Century Skills

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21st Century Skills

21st Century Skills

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Gerrity_Blabberize

Reflection Post

This book gave a thorough explanation of 21st century learning skills. It helped me to move from virtually no understanding of the topic to knowing the basic ideas which encompass it. It does lead me to reflect on my teaching strategies and evaluate them in light of this new knowledge. I am challenged to update lessons to incorporate more technology. I would have liked to have seen and read more applications of the 21st century learning skills for younger learners-modeling for elementary lessons which incorporate the skills. The book has given me a much broader perspective to evaluate resources and curriculum materials for my content areas as well. Figure 9.1 (Trilling & Fadel, 2009) really gets to the heart of why we teach and the purpose of 21st century learning skills. It all comes back to a quality of life. Teaching young people how to think critically, solve problems, collaborate and communicate will improve not only their quality of life but the lives of many others. It is a call to our profession to develop in our students a desire to be life-long learners who are passionate about making the world a better place for everyone.

I found the book difficult to get into. It was awfully dry and hard read for more than a couple of minutes at a time. It did have its good points though.

It is scary to think we are trying to teach the youth for jobs that may not even exist yet. There are many standards we are trying to teach the students everyday and 21st Century Skills have to be incorporated into these standards. Sometimes the standards lend themselves into the 21st Century Skills while other times it easier to teach a certain standard with traditional methods.

Students need to be involved with critical thinking questions and activities that promote critical thinking and problem solving to help them work toward the completion of assignments.
Teachers need to be aware of the way they are introducing the assignments so that it is promoting students to use critical thinking and problem solving and not just answering questions or completing a task. Assignments also need to help students work collaborate and communicate to complete the end product. Creativity and innovation are also a big part of 21st Century Skills.

Thinking about it just makes things seem so complicated with combining all of these skills into the standards we teach each day. Sometimes I feel instead of teachers spending so much time trying to integrate all the 21st Century Skills into lessons it might be just as important to create lessons that teach the standards to mastery for each and every students.