We have a visiting literacy coach working with our teachers all this week on professional development. We spent the first 3 hours of her visit with us yesterday pitching our work on what is 21st Century Literacy, which our Elementary leadership team has been teasing out over the past few months. We wanted her to ask big questions and really test our thinking, trying to understand how we propose to meet the needs of our learners and prepare them for success in the 21st Century. After our 3 hour meeting, her comment was “Wow- I haven’t been challenged on that kind of intellectual level in a long time”.
The other very cool thing about our 21st Century thinking is that it is available for all to check out in Google Docs. It’s not “our” thinking, it’s our thinking and we are putting it out there for all to see, use, comment on, change, think about……. share! We want this to be a cornerstone of the vision for our Elementary School and for how we need to change our approach to education.
Technology is changing the world at an exponential rate. Education will never keep up. We believe that by basing our teaching and learning on best practice and these essential questions and enduring understandings, we will prepare our children to learn and be successful in the 21st Century. Our students today are, after all, very different from what we were like even 20 years ago. They are wired differently, all of them having never known life without a computer in the home. We call them digital natives. Are we engaging them in deep learning if we are still using the same tools that we taught with when I was at school? What changes do we need to make?
Our work began with an essential question: how can a modern day technology curriculum stay current with the ever-changing world? This question morphed into deep thinking and collaboration between our tech-learning coordinators (Justin Medved and Dennis Harter), elementary curriculum coordinator (Teresa Belisle) , 21st century tech/literacy specialist (Kim Cofino) and the administrators (Annelies and myself). The result is our work in progress, our best stab so far as to how we can meet the needs of our students and make them effective learners, communicators and collaborators in the 21st Century.
Why do I share this thinking and this story? I come back to the opening anecdote about our visiting literacy specialist who was impressed with our intellectual thinking. It made me reflect- through our daily collaboration, I am challenged everyday. We are asking big questions and although we don’t have all the answers, we are hungry for more. 21st Century thinking… bring it on!!
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November 27th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
…And it will take us to a consistent and workable model for all students PreK – 12 which I am excited about too.
Always being challenged intellectually….
Dennis
December 10th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
…and how privileged we are to be working with such amazing thinkers…keep it coming guys, our work has only just begun. Seize the moment!
As I have shared with a number of people during the past few weeks; I am currently learning more now on a monthly basis than I have ever in the past. That is mind blowing. Gosh, I hope I can still say that when I am 80! Keep the mind active, flexible, open and changing! It’s the only way forward.