21st Century Skills
This post will review a few videos and articles pertaining to 21st Century Skills that students need to be successful. Take the time to watch the two videos and read the articles before scrolling down to my opinion on these resources.
Preparing Students for Jobs That Don't Exist Yet
My takeaway from these five resources is this: the educational model in which we grew up in and were taught in our undergraduate education courses is outdated when it comes to preparing students for the 21st century. The central theme here is that schools need to be cultivating students so-called "soft skills", and technology can be a great tool at achieving this. I agree with this theme and I want to be doing more to incorporate technology and 21st century skill building into my curriculum.
One way I incorporate these skill is by making all of my graphing topics more exploratory in nature using online graphing technology such as Desmos. Students discover how to transform graphs rather than being taught the rules in note form. We've also learned how to use matrices to solve systems and I require all students to be able to solve matrices using technology. I teach them how to solve by hand and push my top students to do this, but each student is expected to be able to use a graphing calculator's matrix features to solve a system of linear equations. My overall goal is to teach students how technology can be used to solve almost every math problems posed and that computational skills are important, technology skills are just as important.
Incorporating technology is an easy one in my situation. My school is 1:1 Chromebooks and there are so many resources out there for me to use in my math instruction. A place where I struggle is to get students to see the problems we're trying to solve are actually problems. Not all students are able to apply the problems to their life and therefore struggle to find the motivation to work towards solving them. I think one of the reasons for this is that many students go through high school without a solid idea of what college or career path they will be going on. Luckily, this should be changing in my school as we incorporate IDP's (Individual Development Plans) where students start looking at possible college and career paths based off of their interests as far back as middle school. As students enter high school, they should start having a better idea what math they will need to be successful and therefore the problems they are faced with have more relevance to their lives.
I would love to stop being the "sage on stage" and be more of a coach/guide as students explore the concepts in their math class. There are so many resources that could make this happen, and I've tried them before, but I have faced two issues. One, not all students and parents are receptive to this type of classroom. I believe that this type of teaching style needs to begin at a lower grade so that students are more accustomed to guiding their own learning. Since many if not all parents would have been taught using direct instruction, the idea of the teacher not teaching is not a good thought. The second issue I've faced is that I know what awaits these students in their college math courses and I know that they need to be able to learn from direct instruction in order to be successful in those classes. I believe that a student-centered classroom is the best way to create the necessary skills for students to be successful in the 21st century, but until the colleges join this movement, the face of the matter is that students will need to be able to learn in a direct instruction environment to succeed. I hope to someday soon find the balance required to step down from my stage while also preparing them to be successful in a college math course where the professor will never leave the stage.
The good news is that the wheels are turning when it comes to accomplish these goals. Administrators at my school and others are talking about how we can increase student motivation, collaboration skills, problem solving, and communication so that they are successful in their 21st century career. The hurdle we must all overcome, however, is how to incorporate these while also preparing them to succeed in a college atmosphere that still follows the classic instruction techniques.
One way I incorporate these skill is by making all of my graphing topics more exploratory in nature using online graphing technology such as Desmos. Students discover how to transform graphs rather than being taught the rules in note form. We've also learned how to use matrices to solve systems and I require all students to be able to solve matrices using technology. I teach them how to solve by hand and push my top students to do this, but each student is expected to be able to use a graphing calculator's matrix features to solve a system of linear equations. My overall goal is to teach students how technology can be used to solve almost every math problems posed and that computational skills are important, technology skills are just as important.
Incorporating technology is an easy one in my situation. My school is 1:1 Chromebooks and there are so many resources out there for me to use in my math instruction. A place where I struggle is to get students to see the problems we're trying to solve are actually problems. Not all students are able to apply the problems to their life and therefore struggle to find the motivation to work towards solving them. I think one of the reasons for this is that many students go through high school without a solid idea of what college or career path they will be going on. Luckily, this should be changing in my school as we incorporate IDP's (Individual Development Plans) where students start looking at possible college and career paths based off of their interests as far back as middle school. As students enter high school, they should start having a better idea what math they will need to be successful and therefore the problems they are faced with have more relevance to their lives.
I would love to stop being the "sage on stage" and be more of a coach/guide as students explore the concepts in their math class. There are so many resources that could make this happen, and I've tried them before, but I have faced two issues. One, not all students and parents are receptive to this type of classroom. I believe that this type of teaching style needs to begin at a lower grade so that students are more accustomed to guiding their own learning. Since many if not all parents would have been taught using direct instruction, the idea of the teacher not teaching is not a good thought. The second issue I've faced is that I know what awaits these students in their college math courses and I know that they need to be able to learn from direct instruction in order to be successful in those classes. I believe that a student-centered classroom is the best way to create the necessary skills for students to be successful in the 21st century, but until the colleges join this movement, the face of the matter is that students will need to be able to learn in a direct instruction environment to succeed. I hope to someday soon find the balance required to step down from my stage while also preparing them to be successful in a college math course where the professor will never leave the stage.
The good news is that the wheels are turning when it comes to accomplish these goals. Administrators at my school and others are talking about how we can increase student motivation, collaboration skills, problem solving, and communication so that they are successful in their 21st century career. The hurdle we must all overcome, however, is how to incorporate these while also preparing them to succeed in a college atmosphere that still follows the classic instruction techniques.
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