Strategies for Success: May 2009

What skills will guide our students into becoming 21st century thinkers?

Ironically, one of the skills that a 21st century student should show proficiency with is one with which most students already have a great deal of experience, but are frequently asked not to do in the classroom. I'm sure it wouldn't take all three guesses to figure out what that skill is...TALK!

There is quite a bit of research to support the positive effects of letting students have a voice in the classroom. Students need to discuss what they learn. They need to develop and defend a point of view. They need to ask thoughtful questions, find answers to those questions and generate good questions for other students to answer. They need to have a voice in designing and assessing their curriculum as well as their own progress through that curriculum. When students have these kinds of experiences while engaging with the content, they tend to perform better in the classroom as well as on high stakes assessments.

The links below represent a sample of activities and discussion on this topic. Some are “old friends” we can take one step further and some may spark new thoughts and ideas about how we will teach in the future as we continue our journey in the 21st century (too hokey? Sorry about that!).

As always, I would appreciate any thoughts or comments you would like to share and would be more than willing to help with new ideas you would like to try.