This has got to be one of the most inspiring books I have read in a long time. I am sad to say that this book study is almost over. Paul Solarz has written an amazing book that I recommend all teachers read at some point of their career. I know Student Led sounds scary but the way Paul Solarz has written and explained this concept, any teacher can implement this in their classroom in one form or another.
Well enough of my rambling, let's discuss Chapter 7, Twenty First Century Skills!
First I love all the quotes that he writes at the beginning of each chapter. This one is so inspiring!
He starts the chapter off discussing how he thought he had to teach, that the content standards were the end all do all of his teaching. But as he taught on, he realized that he needs to teach the kids how to communicate and work collaboratively and cooperatively. This is where the twenty first Century skills come in. Now many believe that these skills are all technologically based! This is not true. As a matter of fact, very few of these skills are technologically based!
There are pages upon pages of these skills in this book! I will only list a few.
These are just a few of these skills! Knowing them is not enough! Teaching them and the students internalizing them is what our goal is.
How do we do this????
1.Through feedback, positive, immediate, constructive!
2. Reflection- both teachers and students
3. Progress Report- A report that gives the skills a score of 1 to 10. Great communication for parents.
4. Make Math meaningful- teach them perseverance, problem solving, many of the twenty first century skills are focused on in math block.
Our goal as educators is to create high functioning citizens that will be productive and successful in society. This can not be done by just teaching the content standards. We need to teach the twenty first century skills as well.
As usual, this was another informative and awesome chapter!
