If you read my blog post What is 21st Century Learning?, you most likely have an idea of the many components and skills involved in this movement within education. When diving into the many components of 21st Century Learning, the 4Cs are prominent in developing learners to become global citizens. The 4C's include collaboration,creativity, communication, and critical thinking (Shauffer, 2020). When 21st Century Learning takes place, students are engaged because they are collaborating, communicating, and expressing themselves creatively. Furthermore, they are engaged with the content because they are critically thinking. Students need to be prepared to compete in the global society in which we live and as educators it is our responsibility to prepare students.
As an educator, I constantly consider how to implement these critical skills into the classroom to prepare my students for the future. After reflecting on my own practices in the video, 21st Century Learning, I realized that I can provide my students with more opportunities to collaborate and connect to the outside world. In the video, I state that I would like to move my practice more towards 21st Century Learning by having students collaborate in a service learning project. According to Geortz (2015), “Any opportunity to connect to the outside world is a chance to enhance student achievement.” Therefore, I created a lesson plan in which students collaborate to address a need within their local or school community to enhance collaboration when working together to make a difference.
My Civic Engagement Lesson Plan supports 21st century learning because students are given the opportunity to engage in the 4Cs while promoting the quality of life within a community. 21st Century Learning goals include students collaborating within their teams, creating a survey, communicating with local officials, teachers, or students, and applying critical thinking skills to create questions to address different needs. While this is a snapshot of the overall unit, students are engaged in 21st Century skills.
When creating the lesson, I had to consider using the lens of TPACK. For example, the content of teaching civic engagement is important for students to understand before I introduce instructional strategies or pedagogy such as students working in teams or inquiry. Students are also engaged with technology because students are using Chromebooks to create a Google Form to collect data to gather feedback from the local or school community. Lastly, the context of the learning setting involves teams reaching out to local neighborhood officials or different grade levels within the school. Throughout the process of developing the lesson plan, one challenge I faced was whether or not students should have the freedom to choose a digital tool of their choice to create the survey such as survey monkey. However, because our class is 1:1 with Google Chromebooks I would like students to become familiar with the Google applications because fourth grade is the first year students become 1:1. Students will also be working in teams to enhance collaboration, and while this is a goal it can also be a challenge for nine and ten year olds. However, students sign a team contact and review team expectations.
While 21st Century Learning is open to controversy and interpretation, I believe the 4Cs are essential in preparing our students for the future. However, access to education plays a role in which students are exposed to 21st Century skills due to funding and access to technology. Many of my students come from other countries and technology is a huge learning curve for students and families...I have witnessed this due to E-Learning. As I reflect on my own practices, I often look for a desired outcome but I have learned it is critical to give up control and allow the students to take over in their own learning. It is time for educators to integrate the 4Cs into classrooms to produce citizens that are equipped to compete in a global society.
References: Carioti R. (2012). Green Team. [image] https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/schools Civic Engagement. Youth.gov. [image]. https://youth.gov/youth-topics/civic-engagement DeVoursney J. (2020, June 2). 21st Century Learning. [video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2936SvgJCug Geortz P. (2015) 10 Signs of a 21st Century Classroom. https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/10-signs-21st-century-classroom Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Framework for Teacher Knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054. http://www.tpack.org/ Ralph. Teamwork [giphy]. https://gph.is/16xuwbF Stauffer B. (2020). What are 21st Century Skills?. https://www.aeseducation.com/blog/what-are-21st-century-skills Comments are closed.
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