21st Century Skills
The learning goal, '21st century skills,' focuses on conditioning students for the world today through exercise and reflection in communication, collarboration, technology and problem solving (Larmer & Mergendoller, 2008).
Teaching strategies that facilitate 21st century skills include:
Concept maps help to serve the development of a student’s 21st century skills by encouraging them to think analytically. They also are a useful tool to discover, evaluate, and integrate connections between concepts. Concept maps also require students to tap into a creative and innovative mindset. The construction of concept maps may also deepen a student’s capacity to communicate and collaborate with others.
|
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) incorporates 21st Century Skills because it encourages collaborative learning and communication amongst students with different cultural backgrounds (Brown & Abell, 2007). As globalization becomes more common, students taught under a CRP are able to understand and connect to a diverse range of cultures.
|
By its very nature design thinking incorporates 21st century skills. As a process-driven strategy at the cutting edge of project-based learning, it emphasizes problem-solving, creativity, innovation, analytical thinking, communication, and collaboration (Carroll et al., 2010; Larmer & Mergendoller, 2010). Design thinking challenges students to consider the whole system, to work with one another, and to prototype products with user groups in mind.
|
Inquiry enables students to use technology in collecting their data, as well as allowing students to practice communicating in order to share their ideas. The different 21st Century skills all play into inquiry either in communicating or in using a technological part of collecting data part of the science circle (Larmer & Mergendoller, 2008).
|
Project-based learning (PBL) allows students to engage with scenarios that can be applied to relevant, real-world situations inside and outside of the classroom. PBL puts emphasis on developing students’ abilities to solve problems and answer questions using a variety of skills across multiple subject areas, often blending them to address design and systems thinking strategies. By taking part in complex, meaningful projects, students are engaged with higher-order skills that lead to the production of quality products. (Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008). This approach challenges students in ways that will transfer to their experiences within their families, communities, and future endeavors.
|
References
Barron, B., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2008). Teaching for Meaningful Learning: A Review of Research on Inquiry-Based and Cooperative Learning. Book Excerpt. George Lucas Educational Foundation.
Carroll, M., Goldman, S., Britos, L., Koh, J., Royalty, A., & Hornstein, M. (2010). Destination, imagination, and the fires within: Design thinking in a middle school classroom. International Journal of Art and Design Education, 29(1), 37-52.
Larmer J. & Mergendoller J.R., (2010). Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning. Educational Leadership, 68(1), 34-37.
Carroll, M., Goldman, S., Britos, L., Koh, J., Royalty, A., & Hornstein, M. (2010). Destination, imagination, and the fires within: Design thinking in a middle school classroom. International Journal of Art and Design Education, 29(1), 37-52.
Larmer J. & Mergendoller J.R., (2010). Seven Essentials for Project-Based Learning. Educational Leadership, 68(1), 34-37.