I see a collision of topics-
1. What tools are needed in the 21st century (and which are headed for
the museum)
2. How/what should we be teaching to prepare students with the right
skills for the 21st century
3. How does my school get from where we are to where we need to go
(wherever that is)
The thread seems to be (passionately) weaving pieces of all three.
In honor of this national American holiday, let me offer 2 use cases.
Teacher 1: Assigns her class to submit an 8 page essay on "Lincoln and
the Emancipation Proclamation".
In the strand, it has been argued that simply blogging or creating a
wiki entry on such a topic is not the same as crafting a well formed
essay using a word processor. Then there has been discussion about
open source word processor or Pages or MSWord is best. To my mind,
this misses the point.
Teacher 2: Assign her class:
a. Use whatever tools at your disposal to learn about:
- Abraham Lincoln, the man and the president and the conditions that
led him to write "The Emancipation Proclamation"
- The civil rights movement of the 50/60's
- The election of Barack Obama
b. Present in a form that you choose, a synthesis of how the struggle
for freedom by one people, is a model and symbol of struggle for your
particular race, nationality, or religion.
Teacher 2 can allow her students to use Mac, Ubuntu or Windows
computers to search the internet for articles, video clips, essays,
blogs, podcasts, scholarly material, songs, poems or whatever.
Teacher 2 can allow her students to create podcasts of interviews with
their own relatives, blog with/about interesting members of their
faith, nationality or race, write a formal essay on a word processor,
create a music video, assemble a photo montage, or anything else...
The important goal for the students in Teacher 2's class in order to
receive a high grade:
1. Demonstrate that you actually know facts - dates, people,
quotations, issues, events
2. Demonstrate that you have come to some conclusion about these
events - a synthesis or important factors
3. Demonstrate how your conclusion is illustrated in the struggle of
your own "people" to be treated with equality
--------------------------------------
In the case of Teacher 1, I would hope that every student would go to
the internet and forward to the teacher 15-20 "term papers" of varying
grades on the topic. Every student should know how to do that. That is
a 21st century skill.
Teacher 1 can "save" herself, however, by taking this to the next
step. She should not report the students to the Dean for plagiarism.
Students could each read 5-10 of these term papers and compare and
critique them. Why is one an "A" and the next a "C". Which one makes a
compelling argument and defends it? Which one is just wandering drivel
presented in a haphazard fashion? Scramble them up and let the
student guess the grade. Have students "fix" the bad ones. ( I
actually used to do this in my classes.)
The right 21st century tools are those used with different educational
practices. The hard question for school leaders are #2 & 3 above - how
do I move my institution from Teacher 1 to Teacher 2?
My 2 cents
Kevin
Kevin J. McAllister | President, CEO
inRESONANCE ... Solutions that resonate
kevin@inresonance.com | 413.587.0236 | www.inresonance.com
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