Wednesday, December 2, 2009

More Skills Students Need to Succeed

In my last post, I talked about the importance of giving our home schooled children tests. Being successful on tests requires the development of important skills which will serve our children well in college and beyond.

What are some other skills they need?

This question can be explored from two perspectives: 1) what skills will they need in college, and 2) what skills will they need to succeed in the work place? These questions are deceptively simple. The first focuses on academic skills such as being able to listen to a lecture, take notes, read a textbook or other written material, and engage in self-directed study. The second draws attention to important vocational skills like punctuality, following directions, and getting along with co-workers. When we consider the work environment of the 21st century and the explosion of information, the questions become more complex.

The amount of information in the world is growing at an exponential rate. According to How Much Information? 2003, a study by two scientists at Berkeley, new stored information grew by 30% between 1999 and 2002 and 92% of new information is stored magnetically (primarily on hard discs). This study is now 6 years old, and you know information continues to expand. According to information management industry experts, the amount of information produced annually between 2006 and 2010 was expected to increase more than six times, and the amount of digital information doubles every 18 months.

Our children are growing up in a world in which information is proliferating and more and more communication is digital (through computers, cell phones, laptops, palm pilots, etc). In this world, the goal of education can no longer be knowledge mastery-- there is just too much information, and that information constantly is changing. Consequently, our goal should be to teach our children how to learn rather than what to know.

Our children need to learn:
  • how to ask questions
  • how to find high-quality, relevant information, in both print and digital formats
  • how to evaluate and interpret information
  • how to analyze and synthesize information to produce new understanding (or knowledge)
  • how to use technology to find information and to create information products
  • how to collaborate both in-person and on the Web
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills identify 3 sets of skills students need: Life and Career Skills

1. Learning and Innovation Skills
  • Creativity and Innovation
  • Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
  • Communication and Collaboration
2. Information, Media and Technology Skills
  • Information Literacy
  • Media Literacy
  • Information, Communications, and Technology Literacy
3. Life and Career Skills
  • Flexibility and Adaptability
  • Initiative and Self-direction
  • Social and Cross-Cultural Skills
  • Productivity and Accountability
  • Leadership and Responsibility
The International Society for Technology in Education identifies six separate skill sets necessary to succeed in the 21st century including: Creativity and Innovation; Communication and Collaboration; Research and Information Fluency; Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making; Digital Citizenship; and Technology Operations and Concepts.

So what should we be teaching our children? Skills! Of course children do need to learn content. They need a base of knowledge against which to evaluate new information and learning, but more importantly, they need to learn how to learn! Our job as home schooling parents is not just to teach them history, science and math. Our job is to use these core subject areas as jumping off points for directed inquiry, guiding our children through the process of raising a question, finding relevant information, evaluating the quality of that information, and analyzing and synthesizing that information to create new knowledge. By preparing our children for the 21st century, we will be creating independent thinkers and problem solvers who are ready to participate in our democracy.

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