Melissa McEntee's List: 21st Century Skills & Education

• components of human progress
• Critical thinking and problem solving
• If we are to have a more equitable and effective public education system, skills that have been the province of the few must become universal.
• chools must be more deliberate about teaching critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving to all students
• some of the rhetoric we have heard surrounding this movement suggests that with so much new knowledge being created, content no longer matters; that ways of knowing information are now much more important than information itself
• Better Curriculum
• Skills and knowledge are not separate, however, but intertwined
• it's inaccurate to conceive of logical thinking as a separate skill that can be applied across a variety of situations
• without content knowledge we often cannot use thinking skills properly and effectively.
• To think critically, students need the knowledge that is central to the domain.
• hey need exposure to varied examples before their understanding of a concept becomes more abstract and they can successfully apply that understanding to novel situations.

  • continued exposure instead of the drive by curriculum...key!
• we don't yet know how to teach self-direction, collaboration, creativity, and innovation the way we know how to teach long division

  • No systematic way to teach these abstract & nonsystematic skills...
• Experience means only that you use a skill; practice means that you try to improve by noticing what you are doing wrong and formulating strategies to do better

  • very true
• If we deem that such skills as collaboration and self-direction are essential, we should launch a concerted effort to study how they can be taught effectively rather than blithely assume that mandating their teaching will result in students learning them

  • Absolutely! but how???
• Better Teaching
• We must have a plan by which teachers can succeed where previous generations have failed.
• problem-based learning and project-based learning—that allow students to collaborate, work on authentic problems, and engage with the community
• Recent data show that most instructional time is composed of seatwork and whole-class instruction led by the teacher
• student-centered methods
• teachers be knowledgeable about a broad range of topics and are prepared to make in-the-moment decisions as the lesson plan progresses. Anyone who has watched a highly effective teacher lead a class by simultaneously engaging with content, classroom manageme

  • Tough to do it the right way but sooo effective!
• For change to move beyond administrators' offices and penetrate classrooms, we must understand that professional development is a massive undertaking

  • Good line!
• more robust training and support than they receive today, including specific lesson plans that deal with the high cognitive demands and potential classroom management problems of using student-centered methods.
• staff development planners would do well to engage the best teachers available in an iterative process of planning, execution, feedback, and continued planning

  • Advice for PD planning
• broader reforms in how teachers are recruited, selected, and deselected in an effort to address the whole picture of education's human capital challenge.

  • Teacher accountability reforms
• Better Tests
• assessments that measure thinking skills and are also reliable and comparable between students and schools—elements integral to efforts to ensure accountability and equity.

  • the challenges of creating better assessments
• education faces enormous challenges in developing the ability to deliver these assessments at scale.
• getting policymakers to commit substantially more resources to it is a difficult political challenge
• We would need a coordinated public, private, and philanthropic strategy—including an intensive research and development effort—to foster genuine change.

  • The price of progress
• most of these assessments will be technology-based, most schools' information technology systems will require a substantial upgrade
• None of these assessment challenges are insurmountable, but addressing them will require deliberate attention from policymakers and 21st century skills proponents, as well as a deviation from the path that policymaking is on today
• A Better, But Harder, Way
• Without better curriculum, better teaching, and better tests, the emphasis on "21st century skills" will be a superficial one that will sacrifice long-term gains for the appearance of short-term progress
• Curriculum, teacher expertise, and assessment have all been weak links in past education reform efforts—a fact that should sober today's skills proponents as they survey the task of dramatically improving all three
• Today's reformers can build on that progress only if they pay keen attention to the challenges associated with genuinely improving teaching and learning. If we ignore these challenges, the 21st century skills movement risks becoming another fad that ultimately changes little—or even worse, sets back the cause of creating dramatically more powerful schools for U.S. students, especially those who are underserved today

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• We agree about “data informed, not data driven.” Data are in the saddle now, to the detriment of kids and their education. Data are being treated as objective facts, when they really are the numbers produced based on assumptions. If the assumptions are wrong, the data are useless. Our schools are now being evaluated and swamped by a tidal wave of useless data. We need to re-examine our assumptions.

• ere are four forces underpinning the demand for  reform in high school vocational education, hereafter referred to as  career and technical education:  (a) The new economy, (b) public expectations for students, (c) new  research on student learning and motivation and effective teaching, and  (d) a loud and vocal call for reform of the American high school.
• As economists are widely pointing out, it is no  longer a post-agricultural or post-industrial world. Rather it is a new  world of fast communications and information, rapid decision-making,  and intelligent social skills that are needed to deal with economic,  technical, ecological, and ethical issues identified with complex  problems facing every economic, social, or political system (Nijhof, 1998). This new economic world is vastly  different from the agricultural/factory environment that ushered in  public school vocational education at the turn of the 20th Century. It  is characterized today by international activity, cyberspace,  ever-changing market demands and standards, rapid product life cycle,  ever-increasingly sophisticated computers and need for a more thorough  knowledge of the holistic (the gestalt) of the business environment  rather than just specific skills or narrow job tasks (Carnevale, 1991; O-Hara-Devereaux & Johansen, 1994; Wirth, 1992). Today's workplaces are often in multiple  locations characterized by cultural diversity-almost mosaic, fragmented  or "different" organizations and infrastructures, periodic economic  restructuring, and constantly changing worker roles and duties.
• incredible (and sometimes difficult) need to  manage information and technology; ability to analyze, synthesize, and  evaluate information and use that information to solve problems; new  versions and forms of prerequisite technical skills; flexible jobs; and  new iterations of related education and skill requirements, that is, a  constant need to continue to learn and upgrade
• echnical and technological skills remain important, but they must be  modified and grounded in employees' ability to think of them in the  context of the big picture (
• ew skills crucial to employees'  ability to work effectively, such as knowing how to learn,  interpersonal skills, competence in applying general education  (reading, writing, calculating, computing) to workplaces, ability to  work in teams or groups, effective listening and oral communications  skills, adaptability and flexibility, personal management skills with  good self esteem, and personal and workplace ethics, leadership or  initiative, and-seemingly, above all-the ability to think and to solve  problems in workplaces. Many of these skills were once reserved for  those in management; today, they are considered necessary for  individuals of all levels of employment
• ess than 20 percent of the  workforce is in jobs classified as unskilled. This is almost an exact  reversal of the nature of the American workforce just 40 years ago. In  1959, 60 percent of the workforce was unskilled, with 20 percent  classified as professional and 20 percent as skilled. Today 60 percent  of the workforce is in skilled occupations and 20 percent in  professions.
• igher levels of learning result in increased wages.  Expressed in constant 1997 dollars, the fully employed high school  dropout earns an average of $16,124 per year, the high school graduate  (no college) earns $22,895, the associate degree graduate earns  $26,235, the baccalaureate degree graduate earns $40,478, and the  college grad with an advanced degree earns $63,229. Some college (no  degree) also increases the median annual earning of full-time  year-round wage and salary workers for all adult population segments.  For example, just one year of non-degree education at a college  increases hourly wages above those for high school graduates by 8  percent for males and 5 percent for females less than 21 years of age.  Even nondegree but extensive postsecondary company training programs  add dollars to wages
• Marzano, Kendall, and Cicchinelli (1999) concluded that five subject areas have  majority acceptance by the American adult public as definitely necessary in school curriculum:  Health, work skills, language arts, technology, and mathematics. All  standards identified with the work skills subject category were rated  as definitely necessary; the specific skills were drawn heavily from  general employability skills and included for example, standards about  working with others, working with tools and technology, work ethics,  and managing money.
• Business persons and educational researchers continue  to say we must teach all students to new levels of higher-order  thinking. This, then, is much of the impetus that undergirds the  initiatives to integrate vocational and academic education. It is  important to teach youth how to think, not just what to think. Any  definition of higher-order critical thinking skills include the ability  to think creatively, make decisions, solve problems, visualize a  solution, reason, analyze, interpret, and how to continue to learn.  Critical thinkers draw on a variety of resources and disciplines to  solve problems, use standards of performance as a benchmark, and are  intermittently independent and group reliant for assistance.
• he essence of real  learning-that which leads to individual and organizational changes-is  social, that is, undertaken with peers and tackles real problems (Spence, 1998).
• the economy of the 21st Century clearly calls for thinking and  culture into career and technical education. The learner needs to be  able to make sense of the workplace and its context within that  person's life. It isn't just "training" for specific jobs that is  needed, but to make decisions, solve problems, find answers, and draw  on a variety of disciplines and cultural contexts to make sense out of  changes, challenges, and day-to-day operations at the workplace. Thus  the learner (i.e., the worker) needs both the theory or the broad  framework of that which underlies the mission and all aspects of that  industry, as well as the company's and his or her role,  responsibilities, and duties within the larger society. This leads to  the integration of vocational and academic education, which may be  among the most important recommendations emanating from federal  legislation and funding in the past decade.
• Common denominators from several reports that have  evaluated and then reported on "outstanding" or "effective" high  schools include, among others, (a) high academic standards; (b) a  coherent core curriculum that integrates rigorous academic content with  real-world applications; (c) authentic student assessment; (d) good  human, equipment, governance and financial resources to enhance student  success; (e) availability of school-supervised service- and work-based  learning opportunities; (f) highly qualified teachers--the key to  increased student achievement; (g) meaningful partnerships with  parents, local or area colleges including community and technical  colleges, business and industry, policy makers, social services, and  other community groups; (h) a small-school or school-within-a-school  environment where administrators and teachers know each student, often  achieved with a team approach through an integrated professional,  career, or applied major (American Association of  School Administrators, 1999; Bottoms,  Presson, & Johnson, 1992; National Association  of Secondary School Administrators, 1996; Toth,  1999; U.S. Department of Education,  n.d.).

• Drawing from recent research and literature and  opinion, four purposes for high school career and technical education, for up to  the first 5 to 10 years of the 21st Century, appear to be:

    

   
  1. Providing career exploration and planning
    
  2. Enhancing academic achievement and motivation to learn more
    
  3. Acquiring generic work competencies and skills useful for  employment
    
  4. Establishing pathways for continuing education and lifelong  learning
   

   

    

  Themes and Components of High School Career and Technical Education  for the First Decade of the 21st Century

    

   

  There are four themes that were consistently  discussed in the extant literature and that seemed to frame much of the  discussion of career and technical education. These themes, or unifying  representations about needed reform in high school vocational  education, were almost ubiquitous in conversations with educators,  business persons, and policy groups:

    

   
  1. Infuse career planning throughout the entire curriculum, from  pre-K through lifelong learning. The essence of this theme is that  all teachers (and parents) should be cognizant of applications of  knowledge to real-world environments, especially workplaces.
    
  2. Ground career and technical programs in high school reform.  Consistently, respondents spoke of the need to change the way in  which high schools are organized, programs and curriculum are  delivered, and students are taught.
    
  3. Improve the image and upgrade vocational education into a new and  improved career and technical education. Reform initiatives must be  important and substantive.
    
  4. Prepare high school graduates both for workplaces and continuing  education. Many reports reviewed and most people interviewed for this  project called for a 13th and 14th year as a minimum education  benchmark for the next generation of American students.
• Organizing high school curriculum into majors is  conceptually similar to the liberal arts and professional fields that  students choose in college around which to organize a program of study;  choose specific courses including general, professional, and applied  work; arrange internships and other experiences; complete term or  senior projects; and collaborate with fellow students, advisors,  faculty, and others involved with the major. It isn't just career and  technical majors that would be provided to high school students, but  focused study and related experiences might surround majors such as the  performing arts, the liberal arts, technology, math and science, and  education.

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