My Visit to the The Partnership for 21st Century Skills Website
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has emerged as the leading advocacy organization focused on infusing 21st-century skills into education. The organization brings together the business community, education leaders, and policy makers to define a powerful vision for 21st-century education to ensure every child’s success as citizens and workers in the 21st century. The Partnership encourages schools, districts and states to advocate for the infusion of 21st-century skills into education and provides tools and resources to help facilitate and drive change.
—Partnership for 21st Century Skills
(Course Home Page (2012), http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com)
Prior to visiting the Partnership for 21st Century Skills for a graduate course assignment I had never heard of the and I must say I am very excited about my new found resource.I found the website for The Partnership for 21st Century Skills to be highly impressive and informative. I am very surprised by such a wide array of large successful businesses that have partnered with education leaders to create a wonderful site filled with excellent resources trying educators incorporating 21st century skills. Who better to help facilitate and drive change in the types technologies used and ways it is used to ensure that the necessary 21st century skills needed to be successful in today’s workforce are incorporated into the classroom, than the business leaders of the companies that educators are seeking to prepare our students for. The mission of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is “To serve as a catalyst to position 21st century readiness at the center of US K12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders.” They believe that “Every child in the U.S. needs 21st century knowledge and skills to succeed as effective citizens, workers and leaders. This can be accomplished by fusing the 3Rs and 4Cs.” They also acknowledge that there is “There is a profound gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21st century communities and workplaces (http://www.p21.org/about-us/our-mission). In my opinion these statements could not be more accurate. As I surfed through the website it was visible that the members of this site were dedicated to the cause, which is preparing the future society of America with the skills needed for a successful future.
The website does an excellent job of reinforcing the necessity for the incorporation of the skills in the classroom in order for students to succeed and thrive in the workforce.I especially liked that the website offers things like professional development opportunities and specific resources and lessons organized by subject are that not only explain the best ways to incorporate 21st century skills but also provide examples and suggestions for educators. The Framework for 21st Century Learning is a very well written and easy to follow guide of knowledge and expertise that students must master in order to succeed and thrive in the workforce. The site also has a great blog which is updated weekly where an educator is chosen weekly to reply to comments. I also found the above and beyond section of the site to be very informative and intriguing. This section contains a video which was created to raise awareness of the 3R’s and the 4C’s of education. Although we may have heard of the 3R’s, according to the P21 website, “In an increasingly complex, demanding and competitive 21st century, students need to learn more than the 3R’s they are tested on in school. It’s time to help them go “above & beyond”, by embracing the 4Cs – communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity (http://www.p21.org/tools-and-resources/above-aamp-beyond-animation).” Lastly, I was impressed to see that world languages was included as one of the subject areas in the partnership’s description of the 3R’s or Core subjects. It is very rare to see this since as of late there has been very limited emphasis on world language education and the resources seem to be limited.
I found all the aspects of this site very useful and necessary in successfully teaching my students. This site was overloaded with so much useful information that it became a little overwhelming to take it all in, this can be seen as a pro or a con to the site depending on the viewer. I will definitely be revisiting this site regularly and using many of the resources provided as a guide when planning my lessons. I also look forward to sharing this site with my colleagues so that they can reap the benefits of it as well.
One major challenge in integrating technology in the classroom is the wide gap that exists not only between education and technology but there is also a gap in resources provided amongst the schools in our country. While it was very impressive to see so many states on board with the P21, the state of New Jersey being one of them, my first concern was if all of these successful companies are active members of this Partnership for 21st Century skills, then why aren’t more states involved as well? Another concern is although this site is wonderful and addresses many of the questions educators have about the successful integration of technology in the classroom, through its framework, subject area resources, blog, P21 FAQ, etc. what else is being put in place to possibly help provide more schools that are lacking the necessary tools and equipment to put these great ideas to use? Are these companies going to help fund a technology initiative for the schools that are lacking in technology. Hopefully, yes and hopefully they will help to provide my uniformity amongst the schools in our nation in terms of educational resources such as, technology. In order to, provide all students in the country an equal opportunity to obtain these 21st century skills and build their success and competitive edge for the future of our nations society.
Needless to say, the incorporation of 21st century skills in education is integral in providing our students with an opportunity to succeed and thrive in the future. In this global market our children are faced with greater challenges when competing for their careers in the future. Now, more and more companies in the United States are hiring people from various parts of the world as well as in America. This brings a new meaning to the term “competitive job market (laureate education, 2010).” Educators need to be motivated and committed to doing whatever it takes to make the necessary changes in their lessons and educate themselves with the skills needed to provide our students, the future of America, with the tools they need to be successful competitors. In this ever changing, 21st century, global economy we owe it to our students to provide them with the very best of ourselves and all that education has to offer!
I strongly encourage everyone to visit this site www.p21.org. Please stop by my blog after you do and let me know what you think!
References:
EDUC-6710I-2 Understanding the Impact of Technology on Education, Work, and Society Course Home Page (2012). Walden University. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com.
Laureate Education Inc. (Producer). (2010). The changing work environment, part 2. [DVD] Understanding the impact of technology on education, work, and society. Baltimore, MD: Chris Dede Ed.D. and David Thornburg Ed.D. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com.
Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Retrieved March 20, 2012, from http://www.p21.org/overview
