miércoles, 19 de febrero de 2014

21st Century Learning

Video 1: Skills

It is true that we were not born in a digital world, like inmigrants we entered a new world. The change was quite abrupt. Suddenly, we are bombarded with information and we are offered innumerous tools. We cannot denny that what digital natives do intuitevely, it demands from us at least some effort. I think all the teachers at school are flexible enough to learn to handle the new digital tools and use them in their lessons. That's why I consider that none of us should feel uncomfortable because of falling into the category of digital inmigrants.
It is very clear how important the skill of summarizing is in this new world. I think we can work on this skill since the very beginning. When a techer in kindergarten or first form asks her students to retell a story or to tell her what the story was about, they are summarizing. Choosing relevant items from a collection, such as writing a shopping list or selecting the most appropriate blocks to build a big castle, or identifying key words in a story, or thinking about a title for a poem, pave the way to develop summarizing skills. It is about finding what is relevant or useful to solve a particular task.
Whenever you visit a classroom at school you can see lots of interaction. There's communication, reflection, association, creativty, ect. There is a lot of logical thinking. What I wonder is up to what extent what you can see in the classrooms was explicitly included in the lesson plan, came up incidentally, or it is something that the teacher does uncounciously or intuitively.
From my experience as a teacher I can say that planning ahead really makes a difference. The planning stage is crucial. Selecting what we are going to include, in what order, and how is a very hard work. A long time ago, when I entered school we used to include in our plannings a flowchart like the one Vivi suggested in one of her entries and for me it was very useful. It helped me to see the whole picture and not to leave anything aside. Having a chart like this on line where two teacher can work collaborative could be very useful. So, knowing my objectives for the project, I would start by writing a list of all the skills students should develop and a list of possible activities to include in the flowchart. For me it was a great tool for generating ideas. Planning in pairs is not always easy but it has great advantages. I hope you all find the way of planning that suits you and that you manage to include 21st century skills in your projects.


1 comentario:

  1. Moni, I like your ideas to work summarizing skills with little children, which is closely connected to the idea of relevance.I totally agree on the fact that in most cases teachers include many contents accidentally and that is the the focus we will have this year!!!planning in advance and devoting time to selecting contents ,skills and strategies each teacher will choose is my main concern as a the head of the team for this year! I hope we will do a good job!

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