iTeacher

This week the International Society for Technology in Education released a promising update to its National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) framework.  The new standards reflect a new way of thinking about technology’s role in 21st century education.

The previous NETS-T standards maintained a focus on teacher-driven textual knowledge.  I am delighted to see that the updated NETS-T standards reflect a strong emphasis on the teacher as a co-learner and a knowledge facilitator.  Rather than merely delivering content knowledge to students, teachers are now expected to guide their students through a creative learning process that involves collaboration, innovation, problem solving and authentic learning experiences.  This is a significant step forward in re-defining the role of the teacher in 21st century society.  NETS-T 2008 is now on the right track.

NETS-T 2008 consists of five major performance indicators:

• Learning and creativity
• Assessment
• Digital Age skills
• Digital citizenship
• Professional development

For more information on NETS-T 2008, I invite you to read Dave Nagel’s article The Future of Instruction: Teacher as ‘Co-Learner’ in The Journal.

This month’s Education Week has published an interesting article entitled ‘Soft Skills’ in Big Demand by Catherine Gewertz, which discusses a new approach to learning being adopted by many schools to help incorporate the ’soft’ or ‘applied’ skills now in demand in the 21st century work force.  According to the article:

“In an increasingly global, technological economy, they [policy and business leaders] say, it isn’t enough to be academically strong. Young people must also be able to work comfortably with people from other cultures, solve problems creatively, write and speak well, think in a multidisciplinary way, and evaluate information critically.”

Schools are adopting applied learning outcomes, such as interpersonal skills and oral communication , to which students are assessed in all curricular areas, including mathematics and science.  The article discusses an algebra class at Sacramento New Technology High School, where instead of solving problems out of textbooks, students study and solve problems of real-world issues.  Students in this project-based class are evaluated on citizenship and ethics as well as their math skills.  Combining subjects, such as geography and English, have allowed students at this school to study multidisciplinary topics in greater depth.

It is refreshing to see pioneer schools taking a proactive role in preparing their students for life in the 21st century.  I believe ’soft skills’ are even more important than academic skills because they are the skills of life, and they are the skills we must use everyday.

I just read a fascinating article in The Journal entitled 21st Century Teaching and Learning: Assessing New Knowledge by Dr. Ruth Reynard. The article discusses the evolving role of teachers as they respond to new demands of the global, hi-tech, inter-connected world. Dr. Reynard states:

Much has been discussed about the new roles teachers and students play in learning environments created by using new technology and the types of skills required of students in this century. Those skills tend to be softer skills like team building, cooperative communication strategies, self-direction, and the academic skills of critical and applied thinking, new knowledge construction and collaborative learning techniques.

Dr. Reynard goes on to say:

… current educational trends based on standards and tests lean towards teacher-driven instruction, while the required 21st century skills of higher order thinking skills, application of technology, and adapting to change and workplace skills, among others, require new methods and new assessment measures.

To address the skill requirements of the 21st century, teachers should assess the process of learning rather than just the outcome. Evaluating the methods in which a student reaches an outcome should hold just as much importance as the outcome itself. As you can see, the content of instruction does not change, just the method of assessment. In this scenario, students still gain the content knowledge, but they also strengthen their own metacognitive skills. They learn how to think, not just recall information.

Recognizing and valuing the “how” and the “why” (ie, the thinking process) will help our students build the cognitive and problem-solving skills required to meet the ever-changing demands of the 21st century.

I just read a very interesting article in Edutopia entitled Reinventing the Big Test:  The Challenge of Authentic Assessment by Grace Rubenstein.  This article discusses the shortcomings of today’s high-stakes state proficiency tests.  According to the article, “The educational assessment tests states use today have two fundamental flaws: They encourage the sort of mind-numbing drill-and-kill teaching educators (and students) despise, and, just as important, they don’t tell us much about the quality of student learning.”

I couldn’t agree more.  Assuming the schools I currently work in are representative of the whole, teachers have lost control over how and what they teach.  The stakes are so high for children to pass the Ohio Achievement Test that the teachers are under immense pressure to focus their fast-paced lessons entirely on test preparation.  According to many teachers I talk to, this has significantly dumbed down their students.  Children are losing their ability to think critically about real issues (the ones that exist outside of textbooks) and to apply creative solutions to everyday problems.  As well-intentioned as the No Child Left Behind Act is, it is actually a major obstacle to the preparation of children for the demands of the 21st century workforce.

The article goes on to explore alternatives to standardized, multiple-choice, one-size-fits-all testing.  Some test makers are actively working on more authentic forms of assessment that measure a student’s resourcefulness and problem-solving skills.  These tests are more complex, more subjective and much more complicated to grade.  This, of course, makes them expensive to administer.

I suppose in today’s environment of hyper-accountability, we will never see the end to standardized testing.  We have gone too far.  The tests are here to stay.  The question is, how can we realistically improve or alter standardized assessment to reflect society’s need for accountability while also recognizing the need to prepare a generation of creative, problem-solving, critically thinking children?