This module has helped me think about using standards, CFQs, or 21st-century skills in the following ways...
- Using standards is inevitable in today's educational world. As a teacher, I have to make sure to meet all of the standards listed in my curriculum in the given school year. I also have to produce lesson plans that incorporate at least one standard from the Alabama Course of Study. This is not new to me. What is new, however, are the definitions of what exactly an essential question is compared to a unit question or a CFQ. What I have always been told is the essential question encompasses the standard/unit you are teaching, which would actually be today's definition of a unit question.
- CFQs are not necessarily a new thing, but they are relatively new to me. Last school year, we had to make sure that we listed an essential question and a student-friendly objective - among many other things - on our board for any visitors and our students to see. What I used for the student-friendly objective was essentially a CFQ in an "I Can" statement. Knowing how to utilize these more will help me to help my students by allowing them to see/read what I am expecting them to know from the day or week's lesson(s).
- The topic of 21st-century skills honestly scares me a little, especially the technological aspects. I know that we are in the technological age in which it seems like students will die if they are not using their phones every 5 seconds, but I think that technology should be used effectively in moderations. I think it would be great to have each of my students pull out a device of some sort each day to complete and turn in an assignment, trust me, it would be so much easier and way less paperwork to grade and hand back. But, this is not feasible in the school system I am currently in. Some of my students do not have a device to work with other than a home computer which cannot be brought to school. The school's WiFi connection is hit or miss, and students do not have very good cell reception in my classroom when they have to resort to using data. We have laptop and chrome carts, but they are often checked out when I need them or students have not turned in Internet Use forms in order to actually use these resources.
- The other parts of 21st-century skills are a good stepping stone that I need to incorporate more into my classroom. Again, there is the technological aspect being very prominent, but I think that collaboration is utilized a lot in my classroom. Many of my students work together for various activities, and there are plans in place for the 10th-grade classes at PC to have a combined gallery walk and other collaboration assignments during this semester.
*I realize this post got lengthy, I do apologize, but I realized that I had a lot of thoughts about the technological aspects of 21st-century skills. Also, the YouTube videos were great, but they were all in schools that have those resources readily available for all students, which is not what my school system has, so incorporating these technological aspects will not always work.*
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