21st Century Learning

Brainstorming session using google docs 

Below, brainstorm ways that you can apply these 21st Century Skills in your subject area.  This will become a collaborative document that we can share, save, or publish to the web. List your "class period" for the IA, and then pick the correct color to highlight your ideas!

• CTE(Career Tech) 
• English
• Math
• Science
• Social Studies
• LOTE(Foreign Language) 
• Fine Arts
• Athletics/Health/Dance/Extracurriculars
• General--ANY subject area
  
  

Rigor

• Critical Thinking/Problem Solving
  • Business scenarios:  discern, analyze & evaluate
  • Teaching students more than one way to tackle a problem.  For example, if the computers are down, they can't use Google as a research tool.  Do they know how to use a REAL dictionary, thesaurus, etc?
  • Help students be able to look at their research with a bit of healthy skepticism.  Young people tend to think Wikipedia is 100 percent accurate.  Students need to learn to cross reference sources.    (ALL DISCIPLINES)
  • Writing:  When students are writing, they must identify the problems they are having in communicating the ideas they wish to share and determine what methods would be the best for addressing those problems.
  • Reading:  When students are not understanding what they are reading, they need to determine what strategy would best help them improve their reading of a text.
  • Math-teaching them to read the problem carefully, then analyzing what is given to them--or the data--in the problem, what are they looking for the in the problem?
  • LOTE: Sentence Structure; organization. Not literal translations.
  • CTE - historical homes and relating architectural aspects to different historical eras (why homes are built this way)
  • Perform labs and analyze the data to draw conclusions 
  • CTE-stock market game -
  • SS--Students use bloom's taxonomy to generate questions over readings 
  • Students come up with their own questions; multi-level
  • Pseudo-science, dist. fact from fiction
  • Film review; dist. fact from fiction (Hollywood vs. fact) 
  • Math:  Have math class require kids create a conceptual application, using the web or in their own environment, and present it to the class to be solved.  Make it hard!

 Creativity and Innovation

• Written expressions, reflections, industrial design, innovation, invention, photos
• Multi-genre writing:  How can we use writing from multiple genres,including genres that are visual and interactive, to communicate various perspectives on a particular issue?
• Create modern interpretations of ancient, medieval, and classical literature 
• Video conferencing.  In house movie based on 'where the heck is my class?
• Consider having students submit all work via computer and teachers actually grade the work on the computer.   
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• Communication and Information
• Create intra-class communication using wikis with business-related purposes
• Forms and document creation
• Electronic media
• use of website for due dates and lesson plans.  Documents are online as well as study guides. 
  Students can upload their powerpoints to teacher web pages
• Students create power points providing information about Spanish culture, while using the internet for investigation and research.
  
• Students can interact with scientists on threads.
• SS - use Google earth
• Science - personal responsibility - make up work  available on website
• Exchange information/pictures/ideas with other students, mentors, and experts in other classrooms in other parts of the country and the world through the web
• Students can see weekly grades on computer as well as access grades from home. 

Relevance

Global Awareness

• KIVA .org - create small business loans for independent businesses world-wide who need loans and money to help their ideas and company grow...
  Business (world community) and global connectivity
  What are we reading in English classes that brings up issues of global importance?  How can we connect the works we teach to current and historical events?
  English--Include resources about current political situations in Africa to support our study of African literature. LOTE: Speakers from other countries come to share lifestyles and experiences LOTE: Celebrate holidays and festivals in class with dragon games and costumes and authentic food and music Students can talk to individuals who live in other countries and find out how global warming is affecting them. bring in current newspaper/magazine articles and provide a brief explanation of relevance

 

• Budgeting, ventures assuming accountability for inherent risks   
• Discuss bio-diversity
• Link history with current events

 

• Stock market game
• Show clips from CNN about what is going on in the world. 
• create a dialogue about society in Peru
• use newspapers in the classroom (which we can get free) to expose kids to the printed word and expose them to global current events.  In addition, you could have your kids subscribe to a current event of the day newletter - it's received daily. 
• Design art projects with prompts that deal with global awareness issues
• Art History has chapters that deal with other countries and they are studying their artforms and cultures.  The kids from other cultures help us pronounce the words properly. 
• Using recording technology, a teacher can remove a solo line from a pre-existing recording and test the student on their ability to improvise a jazz tune based on the accompaniment that is provided.
  Use the Colbert Report to engage student in current events in a satirical way.
  

• Economic, Business and Entrepeneurship Literacy
  • Money, budget relate to their real life; and the learning will be useful for buying a car, laying out a garden, buying a house, how volume is related to shape, teach basic skills and relate them to real-world problems

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  • In foreign language, use online shopping to learn vocabulary  relevant to real-life skill necessary to visit that country and function

• In English we are able to read from any area of study.  We read science research and historical documents and read about issues and ethics related to science.

 

•  Use professional sports contracts/negotiations to study supply/demand. Use ESPN.com, etc to help.

 

• Use examples of text messages and IM and have the students correct the grammar.
• CTE - stock market game - trading international stocks and mutual funds
• SS - use Monopoly for teaching socioeconomic status
• SPed-budgeting, tax prep classes
• While studying chemical reactions, research corn prices over the  past decade and compare to usage for fuels, as opposed to food.  Correspond with corn farmers to get real-time feedback on crop usage.

• Civic Literacy
  • Tracking of Election polls
  • What writing are we doing that asks students to consider their roles in the world around them?
  • SS - voting
  • SS-govt classes analyze political campaign commercials and speeches
  • Science - nuclear power plants
  • Application of state laws to student's lives
  • Critically analyze statistical data (from speeches, news reports, etc) to make informed decisions 
  • Pledging to the flag.

• Health and Wellness Awareness
• using aol, webcams to learn about different culture's attitudes towards fitness, food 
• Food Pyramid in Spanish
   Financial return of health and wellness
   Business documents associated with health field
  Math skill; teach students the formula of how to calculate their BMI.
  Fitness testing, proper nutritional, and hydration
  Look at life expectancy, diet, based on history examples (based on that particular period of time)  SS - std awareness students participate in an experiment where they are measuring their blood sugar levels after eating different types of snacks so that they can see how it affects their enery level

Relationship

• Leadership
• How are we using group dynamics to help each of our students learn some skills in leadership? 
• Group work faciliatates leadership because someone must function as a leader
• Study leaders and identify leadership characteristics
• Develop a mentorship program where seniors mentor freshmen and teach them social and academic skills in an advisory period.
  

• Ethics
  • discuss ethics in current events
  • discuss importance of WHS honor code
  • Teach medical ethics in conjunction with Frankenstein
  • Teach concepts of intellectual property and plagiarism
  • Employment ethics taught by role play
  • discuss importance of plagiarism
  • discussion with students on how they feel about test grades in any given course improving over the course of the day as students share what was on the test - how it is affecting overall student rank
  • discuss cyber theft with personal responsibility

• Accountability
  • In what ways are students held accountable to the whole class for the completion of their work?  (Having everyone prepared for class allows for the whole class to move forward in a way different from when only some people are prepared.)
  • Students must be able to justify and defend their arguments in class discussions and in writing. 
  • don't accept late work
  • Use a mixed grading policy for group projects, both an individual and group grade.
  • Students should take their own notes and make their own study resoures for tests and quizzes these may be done on the  computer.  

• Adaptability
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• Collaboration
  • Learn the appropriate use of language in order to communicate with people from other cultures.
  • In English classes, student will share book review information online and other students who have read that book can add comments, encouraging interaction.  Basically an open-ended book discussion.
  • Small group and  project work with group dynamics changed frequently      
  • CTE - stock market game

• Personal Productivity
• How are we helping students learn to set personal academic goals that look beyond the grades they make?

• Personal Responsibility
• Accept accountablility for actions
• Manage time to read assigned texts, not spark notes
• Avoid cramming for tests; attend test reviews when offered 
• In all contents, we must force students to clean up after themselves and break out of their arrogant self-regard.  We can use the media (fiction and nonfiction) to call attention to this problem. 
• SS-provide opportunity for 18+ males to register for the draft online
• SS-provide opportunity for 18+ students to register to vote
• SS-late work not accepted (PreAPWGeo)
• Math-provide tutoring opportunities
• Relate personal responsibility to the Nueremburg trials after WW2 with relation to being responsible for their personal actions.

• People Skills
  • Preparing for the workplace (business conversations, interviewing skills, professional climate)
  • Must be accountable and responsible
  • Use internet, text messaging, emailing, etc. to interview people from colleges for a college search project (any discipline) 
  • It's not all about Google.  We need to maintain personal contact with people.  Face to face is important.
  • Should we allowing people to "check out" into their own worlds run by their ipods and cell phones?  We think not. There should be balance.   (but a counterpoint--if we incorporate them into our classrooms, aren't we modeling using them in a more interactive, people oriented way?)
  • Videotaping a group project and presenting it to the class.
  • Collaboration on many levels with many different topics - small and large groups - specific roles with rotating levels of responsibility 
  • Using discussion to emphasize importance of listening skills
  • Using character analysis to improve our own people skills
  • LOTE--teach sensitivity to other cultures
  • CTE- Create class Wiki to share notes, syllabus, ect.
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  • Students are randomly assigned to groups for collaborative work.  This allows them the opportunity to work with a variety of different people with different skill levels.

• Self-direction
• Goal setting and self-evaluation
• Allow students to differentiate your subject's curriculum by creating independent studies or projects.  It creates accountability for their own learning.
  

• Social Responsibility
  • English:  Through literature, we can help our students understand the impact of dominant cultures on other cultures.
  • English:  We emphasize respect for differences of other people, respect for the environment - can be done through research or literature.
  • SS - opportunities to register for voting
  • SS - register for the draft
  • respect for others
  • Require community service hours as a component for graduation.
  • Use realtime internet to talk about ethics and privacy and appropriate use of the internet.