Shifting Our Educational Perpectives for the 21st Century

21st century learning and skills requires teachers to shift their perspective of how to teach students and an even greater understanding of the expected outcomes. Historically, credential programs encouraged teachers to focus on whole class instruction and individual seatwork. More so, the expected outcomes for students involved low level thinking skills in memorization and re-gurgitation of the facts. Students were not asked to critically thinking about information being presented but instead expected to demonstrate learning by memorization (Rotherman & Willingham, 2009). Educator Shift This shift in perspective significantly affects the role of the classroom teacher by requiring us to adapt to a new set of content standards, skills, and instructional strategies. In order to teach these 21st century learning skills of collaboration, creativity, and self-reflection, we must teach content and skills seamlessly and equitably. Seamlessly because with this shift some educators only see the emphasis on teaching critical thinking skills and forget about teaching content knowledge (Rotherman & Willingham 2009). Evaluation & Assessment In order to evaluate teacher effectiveness and 21st century skills it is important to first for district’s to take the lead in providing on going professional development training/support. 21st century learning skills should focus on an opportunity for students to demonstrate their learning and skills in a collaborative learning environment. To evaluate this, it should be important to have these types of skills on a check off sheet that details the level of implementation and mastery. My District Area of Needs My District could improve the teacher evaluation system by identifying important 21st century skills and rating the teacher on both implementation and level of mastery. For example, project based learning is a more student centered skill that provides students with an opportunity to collaborate and engage in authentic problem solving skills. If this can be reflected on our teacher evaluation system, we could better assess teacher effectiveness and improve student outcomes. Rotherman, A.J. and Willingham, D. (2009). ASCD: Educational leadership. 21st century skills: the