I will have to officially state that my view of the teaching profession has changed forever. First, I would like to point out that I will no longer settle for status quo teaching. I will ensure critical thinking is implemented in my classroom. I want to inspire change as inspired by other master learners. I began my career thinking of myself as a facilitator of knowledge, now, I recognize that this belief is more in line with where education is headed. Therefore, I want to join the group of people interested in the very change that will benefit learners, master learners, and ultimately our global society. We need critical thinkers with the ability to solve real-world problems and at the same time prepare for that uncertainties of our future.
I completely agree with all seven of Wagner’s essential survival skills for the 21st century. I also understand the need for compassion and respect for other people and our world as vital to our global society and for our learners’ well being.
Critical thinking and problem solving involve more than just thinking critically. These skills require the student to observe the situation and to ask the necessary questions to lead the student to the solution. I understand that I can't just teach students to answer my questions. The students must practice creating questions on their own, a process that is crucial for all learners. This way students can rid themselves of that need to be given the questions, but instead, dig deep in their intellect and devise their own questions. They should be guiding their own thinking. They can't understand something if they are not working on finding questions for their inquiry. I have worked on retraining my instruction to include more moments where the students can think for themselves with little support. Through this process, the students can build on their experience and gain the tools necessary to succeed with their problem solving skills.
Collaboration across networks and leading by influence creates that connectedness that globalization and technology has initiated. We need to understand that we can stand alone, but if there are no other people around, than we were just standing. We need each other to solve problems having multiple angles in an efficient manner, therefore, we should be able to collaborate with everyone, including people from other walks of life.
Agility and adaptability push us to be flexible. I think that our learners need to understand that the world is constantly changing and we need to adapt accordingly. Our history proves it, they should be able to understand this just by seeing how much the real world has changed and continues to change.
Initiative and entrepreneurialism provides the edge that keeps our world interesting. Learners are innately curious, which is why we are always trying to improve our lives by solving current problems and thinking of ways to make our lives easier, while also planning for the future.
It’s not all about solving problems, learners should be have effective oral and written communication, so that we can push our progress further. Once a learner has solved an issue, they should be able to clearly state how they got the answer so we can continue to build on this knowledge.
However, before a learner can communicate,they should be able to go through the plethora of information that is readily available to them to determine what is useful and valid. This will make it easier for them to find those self created questions and continue to add to this useful information.
By adding to the current knowledge banks we house via the internet, a learner can build that curiosity and imagination that pushes the learning to higher levels of understanding and ultimately building that compassion/respect for other fellow human beings and our world.
The implementation of these skills will create well rounded global citizens and the future leaders of our world.
These skills are not implemented the same way everywhere, as we read in the three examples provided by Wagner. These skills need to be delivered according to the needs of the learner, because if there is one thing all current educators can agree on, it’s that we all learn differently. I believe that in my classroom, implementing these skills would be focused around project based learning and using technology as primary tool. Wagner did not make many references to elementary school educators, but I expect that he would agree that by combining rigor with basic concepts that need to be learned at the primary grades, learners will be better prepared once they reach the junior high and high school level. The more opportunities that we provide learners to developing these skills, the better prepared they will be for the real world, which in my opinion is the ultimate goal of education.
I will commit to begin by bimonthly projects in which the students have opportunities to apply these skills. I want them to see these skills as something that happens organically and that asking a lot of questions is important and useful. I will create these projects based on content that we are currently studying and tie it in with the real world issues. An example of this would be having the students study why we are conserving water, then exploring that subject from various angles. The project assignment would have them find guiding questions to help us understand and ultimately find a solution. I would give my students creative freedom to present their findings via a medium of their choice. Then we would would all find ways to assess each other via a rubric. I would measure success by using this rubric as well the constructive criticism provided by their fellow learners. I will then create opportunities for us to find other problems of their choice and have them explore these.
Wagner has breathed change into my conscious and I’m ready to attempt to be part of it.
I completely agree with all seven of Wagner’s essential survival skills for the 21st century. I also understand the need for compassion and respect for other people and our world as vital to our global society and for our learners’ well being.
Critical thinking and problem solving involve more than just thinking critically. These skills require the student to observe the situation and to ask the necessary questions to lead the student to the solution. I understand that I can't just teach students to answer my questions. The students must practice creating questions on their own, a process that is crucial for all learners. This way students can rid themselves of that need to be given the questions, but instead, dig deep in their intellect and devise their own questions. They should be guiding their own thinking. They can't understand something if they are not working on finding questions for their inquiry. I have worked on retraining my instruction to include more moments where the students can think for themselves with little support. Through this process, the students can build on their experience and gain the tools necessary to succeed with their problem solving skills.
Collaboration across networks and leading by influence creates that connectedness that globalization and technology has initiated. We need to understand that we can stand alone, but if there are no other people around, than we were just standing. We need each other to solve problems having multiple angles in an efficient manner, therefore, we should be able to collaborate with everyone, including people from other walks of life.
Agility and adaptability push us to be flexible. I think that our learners need to understand that the world is constantly changing and we need to adapt accordingly. Our history proves it, they should be able to understand this just by seeing how much the real world has changed and continues to change.
Initiative and entrepreneurialism provides the edge that keeps our world interesting. Learners are innately curious, which is why we are always trying to improve our lives by solving current problems and thinking of ways to make our lives easier, while also planning for the future.
It’s not all about solving problems, learners should be have effective oral and written communication, so that we can push our progress further. Once a learner has solved an issue, they should be able to clearly state how they got the answer so we can continue to build on this knowledge.
However, before a learner can communicate,they should be able to go through the plethora of information that is readily available to them to determine what is useful and valid. This will make it easier for them to find those self created questions and continue to add to this useful information.
By adding to the current knowledge banks we house via the internet, a learner can build that curiosity and imagination that pushes the learning to higher levels of understanding and ultimately building that compassion/respect for other fellow human beings and our world.
The implementation of these skills will create well rounded global citizens and the future leaders of our world.
These skills are not implemented the same way everywhere, as we read in the three examples provided by Wagner. These skills need to be delivered according to the needs of the learner, because if there is one thing all current educators can agree on, it’s that we all learn differently. I believe that in my classroom, implementing these skills would be focused around project based learning and using technology as primary tool. Wagner did not make many references to elementary school educators, but I expect that he would agree that by combining rigor with basic concepts that need to be learned at the primary grades, learners will be better prepared once they reach the junior high and high school level. The more opportunities that we provide learners to developing these skills, the better prepared they will be for the real world, which in my opinion is the ultimate goal of education.
I will commit to begin by bimonthly projects in which the students have opportunities to apply these skills. I want them to see these skills as something that happens organically and that asking a lot of questions is important and useful. I will create these projects based on content that we are currently studying and tie it in with the real world issues. An example of this would be having the students study why we are conserving water, then exploring that subject from various angles. The project assignment would have them find guiding questions to help us understand and ultimately find a solution. I would give my students creative freedom to present their findings via a medium of their choice. Then we would would all find ways to assess each other via a rubric. I would measure success by using this rubric as well the constructive criticism provided by their fellow learners. I will then create opportunities for us to find other problems of their choice and have them explore these.
Wagner has breathed change into my conscious and I’m ready to attempt to be part of it.