Tag: 21st century

S. Bill 1483 proposes a fund that will encourage states to adopt the 21st Century Skills framework.

As part of the rationale Congress has concluded that:

• In order for our Nation’s students to be prepared to succeed in our communities and workplaces, students need 21st century content, beyond the traditional core subjects, that includes global awareness, financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy, civic literacy, and health and wellness awareness.
• Students need to go beyond just learning today’s academic context to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills, communication skills, creativity and innovation skills, collaboration skills, contextual learning skills, and information and media literacy skills.
• Information and communications technology literacy is the ability to use technology to develop 21st century content knowledge and skills, in the content of learning core subjects, and students must be able to use technology to learn content and skills so that the students know how to learn, think critically, solve problems, use information, communicate, innovate, and collaborate.

I was reading the provisions guiding the award of grants should the bill be passed.

Award Rule- The Secretary shall award grants under this Act on a first-come, first-served basis, so that the grants are awarded–

(1) to eligible States in the order the Secretary receives approvable applications; and

(2) in an amount determined on the basis of the amount of the non-Federal share identified, and supported by the information contained, in an approvable application.

My participation in grant writing typically occurs when someone needs help. I usually do not follow the process from authorization through to the process of application. However, this language about first come, first served seems strange. Whatever happened to a deadline and review process with intent of identifying the most deserving proposals?

Pay attention – some folks probably knew this was coming and have their proposals ready to mail.

The proposals require a 50% match so perhaps those looking for a handout will look elsewhere. These seems one of those initiatives intended to steer state money in a particular direction by offering the opportunity to double your money.

Note the connection to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

A white paper from this organization is available. I have a test I apply when examining white papers – I check the references. You can do the same – do you see any research reviews from the Review of Educational Research or individual research studies from the American Educatioanl Research Journal or the Journal of Educational Psychology. I am in support of most of the core ideas of this initiative, but we need a more serious approach to the examination of issues. If the incentive fund can come up with couple of hundred million for implementation and there seems to be a great urgency for how these funds will be dispensed, perhaps a little more funding for research would seem warranted.

The New York Times reports that the Christian Science Monitor has decided to terminate the hard copy edition and try to make it online (with the addition of a weekend magazine).

The announcement of the decision from the Monitor includes the following quote –

“We plan to take advantage of the Internet in order to deliver the Monitor’s journalism more quickly, to improve the Monitor’s timeliness and relevance, and to increase revenue and reduce costs. We can do this by changing the way the Monitor reaches its readers.”

The article also indicates that sales have trended downward for 40 years. A video from major players at the Monitor offers a very informative account of trends faced by print publishers and their thinking in trying to make the move before other papers with a national distribution.

Sometimes, the idea of change seems remote and speculative. Sometimes, the idea hits you up alongside your head.

There have been many efforts to identify 21st century skills and propose educational systems that would increase the probability of developing these skills.

Cindy just sent me a link to “the official Google blog” identifying and explaining important characteristics in folks the author argues are likely to be of interest to Google. The characteristics include:

• analytical reasoning
• communication skills
• willingness to experiment
• team players
• passion

The title of the Google blog entry argues potential knowledge workers need to be capable of non-routine problem solving.

The challenge for the up-and-coming generation is how to acquire them. It’s easy to educate for the routine, and hard to educate for the novel.

Seems the development of such skills would be more likely if students had occasional opportunities to collaboratively take on non-routine problems.