Building on Commitment 3 - Planning

At the pyramid base lies the corner stone-proof of commitment in the form of a planning processes that incorporates supportive funding. If your district's or school's strategic planning process is too vague to discern something more than lip service, as many are, look for an operational process with more specificity.

Planning as opposed to plan is a necessary distinction due to the rapidly changing nature of technology, and recently, of schools. The planning process needs, of course, to produce a dynamic document of some form open to review and comment by all stakeholders. Publication tends to connote a closed process; posting online on a website that allows sharing and interaction would be more desirous.

21st Century Skills???

The term is relatively new to the educational lexicon yet maybe should be replaced, considering we are more than a decade into the 21st Century. But that's not really the issue, is it? What are 21st Century skills? And can or should they be taught?


The Partnership for 21st Century Skills categorizes the skills, in part, as 21st Century Themes, Creativity and Innovation, Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Communication and Collaboration, Information Literacy, Media Literacy, ICT (technology) Literacy, and Life and Career Skills. Who can argue with these? When broken down further these "skills" appear to be even more platitudinous. For example, consider Life and Career Skills: Flexibility and Adaptability; Initiative and Self-direction; Social and Cross-cultural Skills; Productivity and Accountability; and Leadership and Responsibility. All desirous attributes for sure. It is extremely doubtful that prior to the coining of the term "21st Century Skills" educators did not realize the importance of such characteristics and behaviors to student achievement and eventual success.


Seems that promoters and some supporters intend that 21st Century skills be taught, that they should be considered additional content areas. Teachers have always encouraged students to internalize desirable personal attributes and practice behaviors consistent with accepted societal standards. Most of these "21st Century" so-called skills are of the "go forth and do good" genre. Teachers can teach about critical thinking or creativity, for example, but can they teach students to be critical thinkers or to be creative? Project- and problem-based learning exercises and assessments give students opportunities to practice processes that are representative of critical thinking and creativity but these are instructional methodologies unlikely to instill either.

Blame the Teachers?

From Changing the Odds for Student Success: What Matters Most, Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning(McRel}, by Brian Goodwin, 2010.

"When it comes to student learning, research points to the tremendous influence of a handful of variables as the root causes of their successes or struggles. MCREL research conducted by Robert Marzano in 2000, published as A New Era of School Reform: Going Where the Research Takes Us, analyzed multiple influences on student achievement and found that 80 percent of the variation in student achievement can be attributed to four student­-level variables:
"1. Home environment 2. Prior knowledge 3. Aptitude 4. Interest and motivation
"That leaves just 20 percent of the variance in student success related to teachers (13%) and schools (7%)."

Web 2.0 and Gpanion

As a user and teacher of Web 2.0 technologies and cloud computing, I find Gpanion very useful. Explore it. Especially look at the "More Apps" page to find little known but valuable gems. Set it to open automatically in a tab in your favorite browser.  I use it as a sort of online desktop.

Not Only Do They Walk Among Us and Vote but They Make Laws

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