21st Century Skills

(cross posted at http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/23342)

"21st Century Skills" is an often used phrase to describe the skills that educators and employers feel that students need to learn in order to be successful in school, careers, and life. I've argued that many of those skills have been needed and taught for decades.

If you think about it, students have always needed to be able to communicate, work in teams, follow directions, solve problems, and find information. I was taught these skills in high school and college and I was doing projects back then also. I graduated high school in 1988 and college in 1992. 21st Century Skills and Project Based Learning are not new ideas. The difference is that these skills need to be applied using new technology.

I was in college when the internet was young. We had text based FTP, email, and newsgroups. In my first engineering job, we started to use the internet for research and communication. Today, everything can be done using the internet and anything and everything can be found on the internet. When I was in school, we had encyclopedias and other reference books that were considered acceptable, reliable and peer reviewed. Today, we have the internet with information published by anyone. This means that today's students need to know how to find the information they are looking for and analyze it to see if it is reliable.

When I was in school, we had to go to the library, or hope our textbook or the encyclopedia at home had the information we needed. Today, students can find information on the internet from home, school, or anywhere using WiFi and even their phones.

This instant access to information means that students don't have to memorize as much information to get things done. They have to know how to find it and analyze it to see if it is reliable or not. We should be teaching them this. Instead of content memorization, we should be teaching content processes.

I feel that critical thinking, problem solving, communications, and teamwork are not 21st Century Skills. They are critical skills that humans have needed throughout our history. I would say that 21st Century Skills would include finding and analyzing data on the internet and using new technologies to do things better and more efficiently.

To do this, we should incorporate projects in our curriculum that require students to use technology to complete the project. We need to go beyond just web research and PowerPoint and have students create and interact. Blogs, web sites, online discussions, videos, and more can all be used in a project. The project then teaches the critical skills mentioned above, as well as the 21st Century Skills.

Projects should be based on real life issues, not just a topic from class turned into a project. To get ideas, look in the newspaper and news stories, as well as hot topics online. You can also talk to local businesses about issues that they are working on. You can even ask the students if there are issues or projects that they would like to work on. Be creative.

Educators need to teach content, critical skills, and how to use technology to find information, solve problems, and achieve goals. Projects are a great way to do this.

For more information on 21st Century Skills and Project Based Learning:

http://www.techlearning.com

and search this blog.

End of the year fun / madness?

(cross posted at Tech&Learning magazine)

As the end of the school year approaches, we, as teachers, have a lot of things to deal with. I can only speak about high school, but I'm sure the middle and lower grades have similar issues.

At the high schools we first have the issue of AP Exams at the beginning of May. Once the exams are done, many AP Students feel that they are done for the year. As an AP Physics teacher, I keep them engaged and learning for the rest of the year with fun projects. They start with a web quest about rockets and then build and launch their own model rockets. They love it! Then, they do a web quest on aerodynamics and then design, build, and fly their own gliders. They learn some great physics topics while having a lot of fun.

The next issue we run into is prom season. Prom's and Ring Dances equal early dismissals on those days for the students attending (need to do hair, makeup, tux, limo, etc.). On these days, I do fun learning activities with the students that are here. The activities are web based, which they enjoy. But this also means that I can have the absentee students make up the assignment on their own later.

I teach 90% seniors. Senior skip day is another day where I have some students and I do the same thing as the prom day.

Then the inevitable end of the year assemblies, parties, and events start interfering with class time. I have learned to finish the majority of the material by AP Testing time so that I'm not pulling out my hair with all the interruptions to class time at the end of May and beginning of June.

My class plan for May and June is all projects. In this way, class interruptions and absences don't really affect the class. Students can work on the projects on their own when they miss class, and the rest of the students are engaged. They very quickly get senioritis and can not, and will not, sit for very long. Group projects keep them learning and engaged while allowing them the socialization and change in pace that they all want.

Another nice part of projects is the fact that they give the teacher more time to mingle with the students during the day and really get a feel for how the class went and how much the students have learned. It is also easier than correcting problem sets or essays!

I use web quests, videos from Discovery Streaming, and projects to keep my students learning during a time of distraction. Think of projects related to your curriculum that would be great to do at the end of the year and use that instead of lectures, problem sets, or standard labs.

The rockets project is my favorite and my students favorite. The web quest incorporates elements from NASA's web site. The students are applying multiple areas of physics during this project: energy, chemical reactions, fluid dynamics, forces, Newton's Laws, and more. They get to work in a group and do something hands-on and creative (they get to decorate the rockets any way they want and they are also able to do different fin designs). The best part is launch day. The students get to go outside and launch rockets. I handle the actual launching so that I can ensure safety, but the students love the countdown and watching the launch. They also have to chase down rockets that drift in the wind. Who wouldn't want to be outside launching rockets on a beautiful Spring day?

Rockets resources:

NASA's Beginners Guide to Rockets: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/rocket/index.html

Estes Model Rockets - Educator Page: http://www.esteseducator.com/

Apogee Rockets - http://www.apogeerockets.com/ (click on "Educational")

National Association of Rocketry: http://www.nar.org/teacher.html

Fly Rockets: http://www.flyrockets.com/

I also use a music video to get them inspired for the rockets project - "Countdown" by Rush. The video is on YouTube and you can find the lyrics on line on a variety of web sites.

The song was written after the band attended a Shuttle launch in the 80's. The song and video are very powerful and really show the excitement and achievement of the space program.

Many of the science teachers in my school also use projects at the end of the school year and do many of them outside. Next year, we are thinking of doing a science field day outside in May, and have a cookout for lunch. I am working on some ideas for projects now. For physics, I was thinking of the rockets, catapults, bridges, mousetrap cars, and boats.

The end of the school year has many distractions for students and teachers need to be creative in how they keep students learning and engaged during this crazy time.

How to Get Started with Project Based Learning

(image from education-world.com)

Originally posted on TechLearning magazine.

Project Based Learning (PBL) is a great way to teach students content, 21st century skills, and engage them in something fun and educational. I spoke more about PBL in an earlier blog (http://www.techlearning.com/blogs_ektid17052.aspx ) and we had some great reader comments (Tech&Learning, May 2009, page 14). Today I'd like to give some tips and ideas on how to get started with PBL in your classroom.

First of all, PBL can be used in any classroom, in any subject, at any grade level. Projects can be one class period, or take weeks to complete. Projects can address one curriculum item, or many. It all depends on how you want to implement it and how comfortable it is for you.

PBL does take planning. You need to look at your curriculum and the objectives you want to accomplish and then plan a project that will lead your students to reach these objectives.

For instance, I teach physics and developed a project for my classes on structures and stress and strain. The project started with a very short lecture on the topics of stress and strain and the physics behind it. Then the students completed a webQuest about stress and strain that lead them to information about bridges and bridge design. From here, they used bridge design software from West Point to design a bridge that would meet certain requirements I set up. The final step was to build a model of their bridge and see if it would hold the weight. Each group was competing to see who's bridge would hold the most weight. During this project, students learned about stress and strain, structures, applications of physics to real life, web searching, team work, communications, design, and model building.

Another example of PBL is having the students research a topic and present it to the rest of the class through a multimedia presentation, website, or poster. Each topic should be an extension of something you just did in class. In this way, the students teach each other. They will also learn their topic more in depth when they have to be able to explain it to others.

Start small. Think of a lesson you teach and think of a way that the students could do a project to learn that topic instead of sitting in class listening to you talk about it. Try out a one class period project before moving on to a large scale project. Search the internet for examples of projects and adapt them for your class. An internet search of "Project Based Learning" will get a huge list of results for you. I also suggest searching for "WebQuests", "Problem based learning" and "Projects" with your classes subject and grade.

Another idea for projects is to look at your school or community and see what they need. Art students could research the history of the school and create a wall mural. English students could write a history of the school, or help other groups write letters to lawmakers to get an issue addressed. Music students could write an updated version of the school song, or even a new one. Tech Ed students could build wheelchair ramps, furniture, or other items needed in the community. Biology students could study water quality in a stream nearby or research animal or plant life.

An idea I got from my wife (a Biology Education student) is to have students create a lesson for other students about a topic. I am planning on using this with my AP Physics students after AP testing this month. They are going to create a physics help guide for the honors physics class. Next year, I'm going to have the honors physics class create a help guide for the general physics class. The students will learn their content better and provide a great resource for fellow students.

PBL offers teachers a new way to have their students learn content as well as 21st century skills. The students can have fun while learning, and even provide a service for others as part of the project. Be creative and have fun with PBL.

Some web resources to get you started:

Tech&Learning - http://www.techlearning.com/article/1784,http://www.techlearning.com/article/7942

Project Based Learning online - http://pbl-online.org/

Edutopia - http://www.edutopia.org/project-learning

THE Journal - http://www.thejournal.com/articles/23893,http://www.thejournal.com/articles/17124, http://www.thejournal.com/articles/17105

Checklists for PBL - http://pblchecklist.4teachers.org/

PBL Multimedia Project - http://pblmm.k12.ca.us/PBLGuide/WhyPBL.html

Intro to PBL - http://www.gsn.org/Web/pbl/

Getting started with PBL - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA011887851033.aspx

Eduscapes PBL guide - http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic43.htm

Please share your project ideas with everyone!

Updated - another great resource: http://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/free-project-based-learning-resources-that-will-place-students-at-the-center-of-learning/