21st Century Skills

Metacognitive Strategies for Improving Students' Mental Health

Metacognitive Strategies for Improving Students’ Mental Health

Presenter linkDeanne Kildare OpatoskyPresenter linkEdward P. DarrahPresenter linkJames SavagePresenter linkRichard K. CohenPresenter linkSusan Olsen Stevens
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Categories: 21st Century Skills, Instruction, Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)

Now more than ever, students need skills, strategies, and mental processes to more effectively cope with the many challenges that COVID-19, racial inequities, and distance learning pose.

Although many educators teach a wide range of critical-thinking skills, problem-solving processes, and coping strategies, students often lack the ability to independently identify and apply the appropriate critical-thinking skill, problem-solving process, or coping strategy to help them stay calm, think clearly, and resolve conflicts. Read more

Five Keys to Personalizing Deeper Learning

Five Keys to Personalizing Deeper Learning

Presenter linkJames A. Bellanca
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Categories: 21st Century Skills, Instruction, Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), Student Engagement, Technology

Based on Personalized Deeper Learning

Here’s a scenario to get us started: A colleague, Tom, is shoulder-deep advocating for technology as the best way to personalize learning for every kid. To start, he favors that every student be on a computer. For him, tech makes life easier for teachers.

I feel compelled to challenge Tom’s belief that every kid must have a digital program for every subject, all day, every day, if his teachers are going to personalize learning. (For starters, his declaration eliminates personalized learning for students who have neither a computer nor the internet, and most of those whose classrooms may have limited devices.) Read more

Constructive Rebellion Against Conformity

Constructive Rebellion Against Conformity

Presenter linkSuzette Lovely
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Categories: 21st Century Skills, Pandemic Response and Educational Practices

This entry is the 13th in a blog series called Pandemic Response and Educational Practices (PREP), which aims to highlight and further the important work educators are doing amid the worldwide COVID-19 crisis.

Based on Ready for Anything

Throughout our lives, society pushes us to conform.

Schools teach conformity, starting in preschool, initially under the guise of safety. As students matriculate through the K–12 system, they encounter a barrage of rules that implore them to do the right thing. Students are taught to listen quietly, raise their hand to be recognized, play nice, not talk back to the teacher, put their cell phones away, and so on. Read more

Insufficiency of Google

Dr. Google’s Knowledge is Not Enough!

Presenter linkBrian M. PetePresenter linkRobin J. Fogarty
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Categories: 21st Century Skills, Technology

Based on Literacy Reframed: How a Focus on Decoding, Vocabulary, and Background Knowledge Improves Reading Comprehension

“Dr. Google” is often considered “the background knowledge center” of the classroom, standing ready to accommodate student searches for words, concepts, ideas, and factual information.

This notion is well-deserved, as Dr. Google is the ever-ready battery that charges student work. However, Dr. Google’s knowledge is not enough! New knowledge builds on prior knowledge. The more one knows, the more one can connect one piece of knowledge with another. When prior knowledge is weak or missing, students are working with a huge deficit. Read more

Career & Technical Education Teams

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Collaborative Career and Technical Education Teams

Presenter linkPaul C. FarmerPresenter linkWendy Custable
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Categories: 21st Century Skills, PLC

Based on Collaboration for Career & Technical Education

“CTE” and “PLC” are six letters we don’t often see together.

Career and technical education teachers, authentically working interdependently within teams, has not become a common practice in most schools yet. This is not because CTE teachers do not want to work within collaborative teams—we do! We want to share curricula and reflect on data with colleagues. In most cases, we just don’t know how to establish teams that have a clear common purpose. Read more