Photo by Mikel Parera on Unsplash
Education is an ever evolving art. Constantly redefining what is known as best practice to meet changing individual and societal needs. Students are respected as reflective individuals with diverse interests and skill sets. While in school they are to be molded and shaped into life long learners prepared to take on the world as contributing members of society. Teaching in 21st century often focuses on providing students with 21st century skills, deep understanding of core content, and the use of 21st century technology. In this blog I will address the challenge of what learning in the 21st century looks like with examples from my 3rd grade science lesson plan.
Motivation and Engagement
One of the biggest challenges of teaching in the 21st century is motivating students. We know that "Motivation is a key determinant of transfer" (Master of Arts in Educational Technology, 2022) thus essential to learning. However, to be motivated we need the attention of our students. We need engaging lessons that motivate learners to persist when presented with rigorous content developing the necessary skills to tackle 21st century challenges. This is not a simple task in a world where we are competing for student attention against advanced technology like video games, television, and social media. There is an old saying that applies to my approach to this challenge.
"If you can't beat them, join them"
The key to successfully engaging learners in rigorous content is the inclusion of the technology that our students find so engaging in their everyday lives in our lesson plans. For example I employ virtual reality tools for students to connect with the biomes they are learning about. Then utilize collaborative digital tools like Jamboard, Google Classroom, and Google Drawings to provide students with opportunities to amplify their voice and express themselves in creative ways. By joining the digital age we ally ourselves with the interests of our students while providing opportunities for the development of 21st century skills like technology literacy, collaboration, and critical thinking.
Considering that Artifacts have Politics
Winner (1980) wrote a warning about the "Politics of Artifacts" discussing how objects can be used to create or widen societal gaps. This is something I find myself considering while looking over my ideal 21st century learning lesson. I included the use of virtual reality (VR) technology for a multitude of reasons but neglected to consider the accessibility of this tool. Once pointed out I realized that while accessibility to the tool is a barrier, we can once again look to 21st century technology for a solution. YouTube is a free video streaming service. Educational videos visiting real life locations could be supplemented for VR field trips in my lesson. This provides students with the same learning opportunity utilizing a free medium and increasing accessibility to the learning for all learners. Photo by Thomas de LUZE on Unsplash
Building Skills with a Growth Mindset
Carol Dweck is an expert on one of my favorite 21st century learning topics, fostering a growth mindset. Having a growth mindset means that students see failure as an opportunity to grow. Building a classroom culture around a growth mindset increases engagement, increases effort, and diversifies problem solving strategies while moving away from challenging behaviors like cheating, putting others down, and running from challenges (Dweck, 2014).
In my lesson I foster a growth mindset by providing students with clear expectations and opportunities to analyze, adjust, and adapt their work in a continues improvement process. Student are tasked with creating an animal that can survive in an assigned biome. They synthesize their knowledge of animal traits with what they learned about biomes creating a diagram of their animal and the traits that help it survive. Expectations are clearly defined in the provided rubric. Students are given the time to analyze their own work as well as the opportunity to collaborate with their classmates before adjusting and turning in their final project. This process not only fosters a growth mindset, but accurately reflects the workflow of a modern workplace to help build a 21st century skillset with 21st century learning.
References:
TED. (2014, December 14). The power of believing that you can improve | Carol Dweck. [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/_X0mgOOSpLU
Master of Arts in Educational Technology (2022, Spring). Course content from Unit 2: Unit 2: Learning, Understanding, and Conceptual Change. Michigan State University, CEP 810: Teaching Understanding with Technology.https://d2l.msu.edu
Winner, L. (1980). Do artifacts have politics? Daedalus, 109(1), 121-136. http://www.jstor.org.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/stable/20024652
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