Can you believe another week has flown by? I cannot even believe that summer is half over for me - though I can't really complain because I won't be heading back to school until December! That will be really wonderful once I get everything set up for the sub!
Until then however, I have been spending some time reading our awesome book! This week we are talking about 21st century skills - some really important things that kids need to know but they are hard to teach skills.
Most of these skills need to be taught while kids are learning other concepts and while they are working together with their peers.
Paul broke up the skills into some main categories - which I think would be a great start as I begin to think about finding ways to incorporate these skills into my daily curriculum.
- Communication and collaboration (communicate clearly, collaborate with others, think interdependently)
- Creativity and Innovation ( think creatively, work creatively with others, implement innovations, apply past knowledge to new situations)
- Critical Thinking and Problem Solving (think critically, make judgements and decisions, ask questions, solve problems)
- Reflection and Awareness (metacognition, reflect and synthesize)
- Flexibility and Adaptability (Adapt to change, think and learn flexibly, demonstrate learning through all intelligence pathways)
- Initiative and Self-Direction (manage goals and time, be a risk taker, be self-directed learners, persist despite setbacks, be curious, learn continuously)
- Social and Cross-Cultural Skills (interact effectively with others, work effectively in diverse teams, find humor)
- Productivity and Accountability (manage assigned tasks, produce results)
- Leadership and Responsibility (guide and lead others, be responsible to yourself and others)
- Information Literacy (access and evaluate information, use and manage information)
- Media Literacy (analyze media, create media products, apply technology effectively)
These big ideas are going to help me launch my first graders into a world that is ready and waiting for 21st Century skills. They are going to need more instruction and more time on learning these skills, but I hope it will be a great beginning to their journey.
Keep reading for more thoughts about 21st Century Skills and don't forget to come back next Thursday when we chat about Chapter 8 - Empowerment!
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