Technology Article #3

The third article I chose to reflect on is titled "21st Century Skills: Will Our Students Be Prepared?" I became a member of an organization called Kal-Tech this year and a lot of the conferences I attended focused on 21st Century Skills. I was interested to see the similarities and differences to what I had previously learned. The six key elements of 21st century learning are core subjects, learning skills, 21st century tools, 21st century context, 21st century content, and new assessments that measure 21st century skills.

I think one thing that is key to our students today is connecting the learning to the world outside of the classroom. If students can see how what they are learning is of use to them and how it is used, that are much more likely to understand and retain the knowledge. Of course, technology is transforming the way our students learn and behave. One interesting comment in the article was that technology is making it necessary to constantly learn and adapt. I think that is so important for people to know and understand. I know there are people out there that are very against change, but one thing I have learned over the course of the past several years is that the only thing that is constant is change.

Another important statement in this article was the fact that we have done tons of research on learning and we know how people learn and don't learn. All human beings learn by doing, analyzing, talking, processing, and problem-solving. Eeva Reeder made the comment that "talking at kids never has been and never will be an effective way to help them learn," yet some teachers are still using this as their only teaching strategy. I think that this has got to change to help kids succeed in the 21st century. Many of our newer teachers have been taught in their teacher preparation courses that it is essential to address the many different learning styles in their classrooms, so hopefully we will continue to see improvements in the future.