Posts Tagged ‘skills’
Friday, June 12th, 2009
P21 National Summit-When he is not playing computer games or tracking his portfolio, the guy sitting next to me here at the P21 meeting is promoting software that tests critical thinking skills. He describes it to anyone who will listen as “content independent” and utilizing multimedia and “computer emulation” skills among others. Not sure what he means by the latter. He explains that the assessment is meant to discover whether a student has
-set a goal
-collaborated
-documented his learning
-and presented the results
Hmmm. Those aren’t bad “goals.” But it occurs to us that there are so many important things that have and should continue to go on in classrooms that fall outside this neat rubric. How does “collaboration” help a student to learn the cadences of poetry? How does a student “present results” pertaining to their understanding of the Renaissance or FDR’s New Deal? And what do you “document” while you learn about Leonardo’s Last Supper? Or while you learn how to speak French or Chinese?
There’s simply a round peg-square hole problem when one tries to overlay 21st century skills with actual knowledge. Can this be remedied? Only if the advocates for 21st century skills acknowledge that it exists and make a massive effort to correct it.
Lynne Munson
Tags:21st century, computer games, P21, portfolio, skills
Posted in 21st Century Skills | No Comments »
Friday, June 12th, 2009
The second panel is wrapping up, 3 hours into the conference, and we are sad to report that there have been no additional mentions of specific content areas. Well, at least not ones that really count .. Ray Suarez wondered what’s the use of reading Plato or learning a foreign language….
Laura Bornfreund
Tags:21st century, core content, P21, skills, subjects
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Friday, June 12th, 2009
P21 National Summit-A questioner of panel #2 raised the issue of American students’ impoverished writing skills. He made the point that writing well is a key component of achieving in a wide range of skills. He didn’t point out that P21′s agenda doesn’t stress writing in any way, but we’ve certainly noticed it. Linda Darling-Hammond points out that students’ writing skills started going down after America embraced multiple choice tests in the 80s. In our recent report “Why We’re Behind,” we recently found–and Darling-Hammond pointed to this, too–that many high-performing nations that have national tests utilize writing and long essay questions extensively. Does any of the states’ tests under NCLB do the same? We think not.
Lynne Munson
Tags:21st century, core content, P21, skills, subjects, writing
Posted in 21st Century Skills | 1 Comment »
Friday, June 12th, 2009
P21 National Summit-Obama education advisor Roberto Rodriguez has just described the administration’s priority as being concerned with “college and career readiness.” He says that there are “different pathways” to that goal, including “innovative charter schools” (channeling Arne’s recent comments there) and that the ultimate goal is for students to obtain “a level of knowledge [and] skill” that prepares them for the world. Might he realize that kids can only acquire skills or learn anything if they have a base of knowledge to build on? He was also just channeling the Fordham Institute in mentioning that we need to “be honest with ourselves” about levels of rigor among the states so that what’s considered college and career ready is not “two grades” apart in different states.
Lynne Munson
Tags:21st century, core content, Obama, P21, skills, subjects
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Friday, June 12th, 2009
P21 National Summit-Okay, we’re 45 minutes into the second and final panel of the day and most of us are undoubtedly interested in hearing more from Obama administration representative Roberto Rodriguez. But he’s said nothing since his initial comment. Hmmm. He’s not striking us as eager to be here.
Lynne Munson
Tags:21st century, core content, Obama, P21, skills, subjects
Posted in 21st Century Skills | 1 Comment »
Friday, June 12th, 2009
P21 National Summit-Now here’s the All-Stars. P21′s second panel features Stanford prof and equity advocate Linda Darling-Hammond, NEA president Dennis Van Roekel, and Obama’s special assistant for education Roberto Rodriquez. Suarez still moderating. In Rodriguez’s initial comment he fell short of completely embracing the P21 agenda in this sense: He called on the national standards (currently under development by NGA/CSSO/ACT, etc) to be “high, rigorous, and deliver important content.” And when he mentioned a need for students to learn skills he avoided the typical P21 litany (critical thinking, problem solving, media literacy, etc.) and instead talked about the ability to analyze and synthesize information. He points out that President Obama has talked about the need for children to have a “complete and competitive education.” Wonder what he means by “complete” …
Lynne Munson
Tags:21st century, core content, Obama, P21, skills, subjects
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Friday, June 12th, 2009
P21 National Summit-We’re keeping a running count of the number of times each of the core subjects is mentioned at today’s cyber-summit. So far only Intel’s Paige Johnson (P21′s current chair and previously Paige Kuni) has mentioned any of these subjects, and it was in a list she marched through during her opening remarks. Here’s the running tally:
History 0
Social Studies 1
English 1
Literature 0
Art 0
Geography 0
Science 1
Math 1
Foreign Language 0
It continues to amaze us that an organization so concerned with boosting our competitiveness abroad has, by all appearances, absolutely no interest in the study of foreign languages. None.
Keep checking back and see if the count grows!?!
Lynne Munson
Tags:21st century, core content, P21, skills, subjects
Posted in 21st Century Skills | 1 Comment »
Friday, June 12th, 2009
P21 National Summit-Paine just mentioned that West Virginia has spent $300,000-$400,000 marketing “Global 21,” the state’s 21st century skills agenda. The reason, according to Paine, is because the skills “message is not resonating with kids, parents, the business community, and others.” Gee, it’s no surprise to us that citizens of a state that has performed near the bottom of NAEP would be concerned when the state decides to be among the first to embrace the latest education fad. Smart folks.
Lynne Munson
Tags:21st century, content, P21, skills, West Virginia
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Friday, June 12th, 2009
P21 National Summit–Tony Wagner makes the point that 1 in 3 Caucasian students graduate high school “college and citizenship ready.” The numbers are 1 in 5 for African-American students and 1 in 6 for Hispanic students. We’re not sure where Wagner is getting his numbers, or precisely what he means by “college and citizenship ready,” but we share his concern that it is minority and low-income students who are bearing the brunt of the poverties in our current system of education. We just disagree with Tony about the fix: The answer isn’t “assessing critical thinking skills,” it’s making sure kids are educated deeply in a wide range of subjects. Sorry, Tony.
Lynne Munson
Tags:21st century, P21, skills, Wagner
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Friday, June 12th, 2009
P21 National Summit–Steve Paine from the West Virginia Dept of Ed just explained that it has been challenging for that state to be on the leading edge of the 21st century skills movement. Why? In Paine’s words: “It is not easy to move away from content” and “traditional forms of assessment.” “We’ve been out there on a whim” trying to implement the P21 rainbow framework, Paine explains, “and there are content v. skills wars” going on. Glad to know that WV is getting push-back…
Tags:21st century, content, P21, skills, West Virginia
Posted in 21st Century Skills | 1 Comment »