In With The New, Don't Forget The Old

In reading about the 21st Century Skills and their applications in the classroom, I find myself conflicted between the critics and the advocates, and what happens when pure ideology takes over the discussion, and the pedagogical talking heads stop caring about the students and caring more about being right.

It is without question that some of the 21st Century Skills are important to a student's development, and making sure that students can think critically and are learning skills and having experiences in the classroom that prepare them for future careers and "the real world."While this is great in science in mathematics where students can use graphs and do hands-on science experiments, or even in the video we watched last week where the students could go out to the abandoned river bed and solve problems. In the social sciences field these kinds of skills are, in my view, hard to translate, and fail to address and very serious and pressing concern that was raised in the all the critical articles of 21st Century Skills.

While critical thinking and practical skills are important in education, it cannot exist and thrive without the backbone of knowledge to support it. In particular, the Ravitch article perfectly demonstrates this idea, and presents a situation where knowledge is sacrificed for skills in the classroom. She talks about the inevitability of the social sciences being pushed to the sides, and being marginalized in the 21st Century world. The Willingham article article also works partly on this idea, operating on the assumption that knowledge and skills are separate. This kind of thinking is just as flawed as saying that only knowledge or skills is needed in the classroom. I used a quote in my last blog post referring to facts as empty sacks, and that we use our own views and education to fill them with meaning. Based on what I've heard and read in the articles, 21st Century Skills are all about moving forward and looking to the future, but as a student of history, I can say safely this is the wrong way to approach education.

Though cliche, the quote "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" is relevant here. While we can't constantly be looking to our past to illuminate our futures, the important thing to remember is that for hundreds of years the way people learned was through memorization and retention of facts, and there's something to the fact that it was used for so long. When I was in AP US History, my teacher, the man who became my mentor and the reason I'm studying history education, opened his class with one very important idea. In order to consider the present implications, or do academic research of any kind, and even in the real world to think for yourself as a member of society, you MUST know your facts. History is about making connections and conclusions as it relates to you, and contributes to your own personal story, but you must know the names and the dates and the facts and the dead people before you can back up your answer.

How does this relate to the 21st Century Skills? Simply put, experience can't thrive without knowledge. To place all the emphasis on one over the other cheapens the education process, and essentially defeats the purpose of having school in its curent state. As more and more state and federal regulations strive to regiment and "reform" education on the whole, the question must be asked, is this in the student's best interest? Is the president consulting the average teacher, and numerous teachers, to help guide his reform policy, or his he listening to people like those who head the NEA, who have said on numerous occasions they don't care about the students, and only about their own agendas and interests. Like anything that appears to come from talking heads or mouthpieces serving to accomplish an agenda, I have my share of skepticism and apprehension of whether these ideas can be put into my own classroom. WHile I will work to operate within core content standards, my classroom will be a place that focuses now only on knowledge but experience, taking the facts and having them form ideas, conclusions, and to create a body of students that can become intelligent, curious, and thinking members of our society.

Planning the Technology Integrated Lesson

For this assignment, I have chosen to use the wiki as my web tool for my high school history class. While a vital part of the research experience is going to a library and immersing yourself among the texts, not everything can be found on a bookshelf, and some research must be down outside the classroom, and on the computer. The following Core Content Standard is what I have chosen for my class to use.

Section 8.1, Strand F. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision-Making

CPI: By the end of grade 12: information accessed through the use of digital tools assists in generating solutions and making decisions.

- Select and use specialized databases for advanced research to solve real-world problems.

- Analyze the capabilities and limitations of current and emerging technology resources and assess their potential to address educational, career, personal, and social needs.

In more basic language, this is the process of using databases to answer a personal historical question, in addition to this learning the how to use their historical knowledge in the real-world, bringing the history to life and beginning the practice of "doing history."

For this project, each student will pick a historical question, something that interests them about a certain period, whether in the social, political, or economic field, and research the event itself, it's prelude and aftermath, and additionally the lasting consequences of said event. In a separate lesson, the students can keep a blog as a research journal, saving sources and conclusions they have drawn about the topic. By using databases such as EBSCO, JSTOR, and even the National Archives and the New York Public Library online content, the students will research and become experts in their historical question, and as a result be able to form their own answer based on in-depth review of primary source documents. This is only one half of the project, and where the wiki component begins.

The historical question the student has selected of their own accord should relate to a historical event or trend, but at the same time should in some way be dominating the current social or political conversation. It was famously said that "facts are empty sacks unless you fill them with meaning" and here we are going to give our facts the meaning they need. The Wiki will be established on the given topic and historical question, giving the background information and major research cited, along with the author's major conclusions about the historical event. A final sub-section will be added called "The Present Connection," in which the student will discuss how his conclusion and his research can relate to a dominant social issue and possible ways to learn from or prevent a decision as we have made in the past. Students whose topics overlap or who just have interest in the topics can add information to the page, citing new sources, data, etc. to reach new depth of understanding. They will also edit the Present COnnection page, a vital part of the assignment. Much as Wikipedia has talk pages for highly debated topics, the students will engage in pragmatic and intellectual discussions, bringing the knowledge from their own topics into this current issue, and eventually reach a consensus on a solution to the issue, or at the very least a list of possible ideas to present.

Effective Teacher Websites

Much as the Internet has become ubiquitous in our lives, it has become so also in the classroom. Every school district, college, and any other educational institution has a website that ideally communicates the values of the school, while also allowing students and parents to stay in touch with the faculty throughout the student's educational career. The success of these websites varies greatly, offering a spectrum from the cutting edge of websites and communication to websites that look like they haven't been updates since the long-forgotten days of Dial-Up connections. When used effectively, websites have the potential to bridge the gap between home and the classroom, and serve to streamline education into a more natural process.

Through my research, I found the personal website of Mr. Delucca, a social studies teacher at Dunellen High School and the website he set up for his US History II classes. Though not overly complicated, his website is an ideal example of how teacher websites can be used to streamline the classroom experience. The main page outlines his idea for the website for his classes, saying that this website is meant to create personal accountability in his students, and also allows parents to check up to make sure that their children are doing the assigned work. He also offers numerous ways of getting in touch with him, additional websites and resources for his students to use for research, and that week's assignments. The main purpose of the website is to offer supplemental materials and work based on the chapters and learning units. Each learning unit page features the week's homework assignments in greater detail, project prompts, and brief summaries from the in-class texts as a refresher. Numerous primary-source documents are available in PDF and word formats, along with some class nots and assignment rubrics, inadvertently saving paper costs and making the class as paperless as possible.

This website brings parents, students, and the teacher into the classroom no matter where they are, and are extending as much help as possible for their homework and projects. While it may seem to some that putting all this information is in a way babying the students and making them dependent on the teacher putting out notes, but in my opinion teaching isn't about making good note-takers. What's important, especially in my field of history, the students know the facts and dates but also the significance of those dates, and how they fit into the larger historical picture. I would definitely create a website like this for my students, as a way to keep in touch with them and to let the learning process extend of the time I spend with them solely in the classroom.