21st Century
pedagogyhttps://edorigami.wikispaces.com/21st+Century+PedagogyIntroduction
Even if you have a 21st Century classroom (flexible and
adaptable); even if you are a 21st Century teacher ; (an adaptor, a
communicator, a leader and a learner, a visionary and a model, a
collaborator and risk taker) even if your curriculum reflects the
new paradigm and you have the facilities and resources that could
enable 21st century learning you will only be a 21st century
teacher if how you teach changes as well. Your pedagogy must also
change.
So what is 21st Century pedagogy?Definition:pedagogy - noun the
profession, science, or theory of teaching.Source:
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/pedagogy?view=uk
Key featuresHow we teach must reflect how our students learn. It
must also reflect the world our students will move into. This is a
world which is rapidly changing, connected, adapting and evolving.
Our style and approach to teaching must emphasise the learning in
the 21st century..
The key features of 21st Century Pedagogy are: building
technological, information and media fluencies[Ian Jukes]
Developing thinking skills making use of project based learning
using problem solving as a teaching tool using 21st C assessments
with timely, appropriate and detailed feedback and reflection It is
collaborative in nature and uses enabling and empowering
technologies It fosters Contextual learning bridging the
disciplines and curriculum areasKnowledgeKnowledge does not
specifically appear in the above diagram. Does this mean that we do
not teach content or knowledge? Of course not. While a goal we
often hear is for our students to create knowledge, we must
scaffold and support this constructivist process. The process was
aptly describe in a recent presentation by Cisco on Education 3.0
[Michael Stevenson VP Global Education Cisco 2007]
We need to teach knowledge or content in context with the tasks
and activities the students are undertaking. Our students respond
well to real world problems. Our delivery of knowledge should
scaffold the learning process and provide a foundation for
activities. As we know from the learning pyramid content delivered
without context or other activity has a low retention rate.
.
Thinking skillsThinking Skills are a key area. While much of the
knowledge we teach may be obsolete within a few years, thinking
skills acquired will remain with our students for their entire
lives. Industrial age education has had a focus on Lower Order
Thinking Skills. In Blooms taxonomy the lower order thinking skills
are the remembering and understanding aspects. 21st Century
pedagogy focuses on the moving students from Lower Order Thinking
Skills to Higher Order Thinking Skills.
The 21st Century Teacher scaffolds the learning of students,
building on a basis of knowledge recall and comprehension to use
and apply skills; to analyse and evaluate process, outcomes and
concequences, and to make, create and innovate. For each discipline
in our secondary schools the process is subtly different.
CollaborationThe 21st century is an age of collaboration as well
as the Information Age. 21st Century students, our digital natives,
are collaborative. The growth of social networking tools, like bebo
and myspace and the like, is fueled by Digital natives and Gen Y.
The world, our students are graduating into is a collaborative one.
Collaborative projects such as Julie Lindsay's and Vicki Davis's
Flatclassroom project and the Horizon Project, iearns and many
others are brilliant examples of collaboration in the classrooms
and beyond. These projects, based around tools like ning or wikis,
provide students and staff a medium to build and share knowledge
and develop understanding. For example:My own students are
collaborating with students from three other schools, one in
Brisbane, another in Qatar and a third in Vienna; on developing
resources for a common assessment item. Collaboratively, they are
constructing base knowledge on the technologies pertent to the
topic. They are examining, evaluating and analysing the social and
ethical impacts of the topic. But perhaps even more holistically
they are being exposed to different interpretations, cultures and
perspectives Developing an international awareness which will be a
key attribute in our global
future.URL:http://casestudy-itgs.wikispaces.com
Don Tapscott in Wikinomics, gives are many of examples of the
business world adopting and succeeding by using global
collaboration. In a recent blog post from the Official google Blog,
Google identified these as key traits or abilities communication
skills. Marshalling and understanding the available evidence isnt
useful unless you can effectively communicate your conclusions.
team players. Virtually every project at Google is run by a small
team. People need to work well together and perform up to the teams
expectations. Source:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/our-googley-advice-to-students-major-in.html
So to prepare our students, our teaching should also model
collaboration. A vast array of collaborative tools are available to
wikis, classroom blogs, collaborative document tools,social
networks, learning management systems - Many are available at no
cost. If you have not yet tried them, look at: wikis wet paint and
wiki spaces Classroom blogs edublogs, classroomblogmeister
Collaborative document tools Google documents, zoho documents
Social Networks ning learning managements systems Moodle etc
These tools are enablers of collaboration, and therefore
enablers of 21st century teaching and learning.
Collaboration is not a 21st century skill it is a 21st century
essential.
If we look at UNESCOs publication The four pillars of Education,
Learning: The Treasure within Collaboration is a key element of
each of the four pillars. Learning to know Learning to do Learning
to live together Learning to
be(http://www.unesco.org/delors/fourpil.htm)Collaboration is not
limited to the confines of the classroom. Students and teachers
collaborate across the planet, and beyond the time constraints of
the teaching day. Students work with other students regionally,
nationally and globally. Learners seek and work with experts as
required. This is 21st Century Collaboration
Real World, Inter-disciplinary & project based learning21st
Century students do not want abstract examples rather they focus on
real world problems. They want what they learn in one subject to be
relevant and applicable in another curriculum area. As teachers we
need to extend our areas of expertise, collaborate with our
teaching peers in other subjects and the learning in one discipline
to learning in another.Projects should bring together and reinforce
learning across disciplines. The sum of the students learning will
be greater than the individual aspects taught in isolation. This is
a holistic overview of the education process which builds on and
values every aspect of the 21st Century students education.
AssessmentAssessment is still a key part of 21st Century
Pedagogy. This generation of students responds well to clear goals
and objectives, assessed in a transparent manner
Students should be involved in all aspects of the assessment
process. Students who are involved in setting and developing
assessment criteria, marking and moderation will have a clearer
understanding of: what they are meant to do, how they are meant to
do it, why it is significant why it is important.Such students will
undoubtedly do better and use the assessment process as a part of
their learning.Students are often painfully honest about their own
performance and that of their peers. They will, in a collaborative
project, fairly assess those who contribute and those who
don't.
This is their education, their learning and their future they
must be involved in it.Linked to assessment is the importance of
timely, appropriate, detailed and specific feedback. Feedback as a
learning tool, is second only to the teaching of thinking skills
[Michael Pohl]. As 21st Century teachers, we must provide and
facilitate safe and appropriate feedback, developing an environment
where students can safely and supportively be provided with and
provide feedback. Students are often full of insight and may have
as valid a perspective as we teachers do.
FluencyWhat is fluency and why is it better than Literacy?Ian
Jukes introduced this concept at NECC. He asserts that students
need to move beyond literacy to fluency. They need to befluent in:
The use of technology = technological fluency, Collecting,
processing, manipulating and validating information = information
fluency, using, selecting, viewing and manipulating media = media
fluency,http://web.mac.com/iajukes/thecommittedsardine/Handouts.html
What is fluency compared to literacy?A person who is fluent in a
language does not need to think about speech, or reading rather it
is an unconscious process of understanding. A person who is
literate in the language must translate the speech or text. This
applies to our students and their use of 21st century media. We
need them to be unconsciously competent in the use and manipulation
of media, technology and information.The conscious competence model
illustrates the difference between Literacy and Fluency. The person
or student who is literate is in the conscious competence category.
The person or student who is fluent is in the unconscious
competence category.
For us as educators, we must identify, develop and reinforce
these skill sets until they become literate and eventually
fluent..
Conclusion and the path forward.To teach using 21st Century
pedagogy, educators must be student centric. Our curricula and
assessments must inclusive, interdisciplinary and contextual; based
on real world examples. Students must be key participants in the
assessment process, intimate in it from start to finish, from
establishing purpose and criteria, to assessing and moderating.
Educators must establish a safe environment for students to
collaborate in but also to discuss, reflect and provide and receive
feedback in. We should make use of collaborative and project based
learning, using enabling tools and technologies to facilitate
this.We must develop, in students, key fluencies and make use of
higher order thinking skills. Our tasks, curricula, assessments and
learning activities must be designed to build on the Lower Order
Thinking Skills and to develop Higher Order Thinking Skills. We
must also look at different learning styles to. e.g VARK Visual
Kinesthetic, Read/Write or Auditory learners
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