What You Need to Prepare Your Students for the 21st Century
Saturday, April 8, 11:30 a.m. (Central Time). Guest expert: Ken Kay, president of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Washington, D.C. Are your schools adequately preparing your students to enter the workforce with the kinds of skills needed to succeed? What will it take to get them ready? Guest expert Ken Kay will discuss these questions as he shares results of a nationwide study of 21st century learning skills. Kay will also discuss how education leaders can create the right policies and programs to ensure their district is on track to a provide 21st century learning opportunities.
A school board member from Region 4, Deep River, Connecticut asks:
Would you send me some information on how I can help my Administration develop the right program to address the issues of a "Flat" world?
Ken Kay writes:
Our entire framework for 21st Century skills is a very appropriate response to the flat world. We have a group of 26 education groups and companies that have identified the very skills students need to succeed in the global economy. They include critical thinking, problem solving, global awareness, collaboration, communications and financial and business literacy. You can find more at our website:
www.21stcenturyskills.org A parent from Alexandria, Va. asks:
How can parents know if their children are learning all the skills to prepare them for the world they're going to enter after high school or college? What kinds of questions should parents be asking of principals or school board members to find out?
Ken Kay writes:
That's a great question. I would start by looking at our framework. It's on our website, but you can also find it in our new report, "Results that Matter". Go to our website,
www.21stcenturyskills.org and click on the new report. On page 10 and 11 you will find the framework described. It is pretty clear which skills we believe your district should be emphasizing. It makes a lot of sense to ask your superintendent and school board what they are doing to promote these skills in your district.
A school board member from Chicago asks:
How important are professional development programs to promote 21st century skills?
Ken Kay writes:
There isn't a school, district or state program I know that is promoting 21st century skills that isn't emphasizing professional development as a central part of their program. Lawrence Township (outside Indianapolis) has built their 21st century skills initiative around the designation of 21st century skills coaches. They took teachers from each school in their district with 15-20 years of experience and pulled them out of the classroom, trained them in 21st century skill strategies, and then sent them back to their own schools to train their former colleagues in effective 21st century skill strategies. Our state partners, North Carolina and West Virginia are also emphasizing professional development strategies as a major part of their 21st Century Skill initiatives.
An individual from Arlington, VA asks:
How can the "mold" of traditional teaching be changed and the school system make the jump to 21st century skills?
Ken Kay writes:
Another great question. The first step is to get agreement on the skill outcomes you want to emphasize. For example, one district in California had their business community very agitated that kids were graduating from their high schools without being able to effectively communicate. The business community, school board, administrators and teachers designed a new high school that emphasized those skills. Teachers know how to do in-classroom assessments of communications skills but they don't always give them enough emphasis.
Ken Kay writes:
On the other hand, you are right that not all teachers do know how to most effectively teach critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration and communications skills, nor do they always know how to help their students use technology to accomplish those skills. That's where professional development becomes critical.
An individual from Fredericksburg, VA asks:
How do you find the money for the 21st skills? Our school can barely fix the bathrooms for our kids much less keep up with ever-changing technology? How can schools meet these expectations?
Ken Kay writes:
Some of the 21st Century Skills strategy may cost money (like an adequate IT infrastructure) but a lot of the skills are the way curriculum is taught. Don't make the mistake of equating 21st century skills with technology. For example, you can teach "self-directed learning" by emphasizing certain teaching strategies that give students more ownership of their assignments, that really have little to do with more investments beyond effective professional development. A school board and its superintendent, need to look at the skills being described and determine which of these really require new resources and which require a repositioning and refinement of the old resources.
A school district administrator from Los Angeles, CA asks:
How do we assess these 21st century skills? Is anyone doing it effectively?
Ken Kay writes:
I don't think the 21st century skills movement will ever really "take-off" if we don't begin assessing these 21st century skills. These can be inclassroom assessments of skills like effective communications, but we are also going to have to migrate our current assessments which focus too much on content mastery to ones that focus on 21st century skills like critical thinking and problem solving.
Ken Kay writes:
John Bransford, at the University of Washington, makes the point that our current system teaches them the same thing 100 times and then on the 101st time asks students to repeat what they heard the first 100 times. But he makes the point in the 21st century students need to demonstrate their ability to analyze and solve problems with material they have never seen before.
Ken Kay writes:
The Partnership completed a study on assessment of 21st Century Skills last year that is worth looking at. You can find it on our website (
www.21stcenturyskills.org. One of the assessment tools it emphasizes was developed by the Council on Aid to Education in New York that has developed an on-line tool for assessing critical thinking, problem solving and communications skills.
A public information officer from Long Beach, CA asks:
What direction should NSBA take as a national organization to ensure technology is not "left behind" for our public schools?
Ken Kay writes:
Three things:
1. Encourage every district to support technology investments as an essential ingredient of a 21st Century education.
2. Encourage the federal government to continue to fund programs that support investments in technology.
3. Don't equate 21st century skills and technology. Technology investments are important, but strategies to infuse 21st century skills are broader, and should also be supported by NSBA. (NSBA has been involved in our high school reform efforts and signed on to our principles on "21st Century Skills and High School Reform".)
A school board member from Florida asks:
What should school board members do to promote 21st century skills in their district?
Ken Kay writes:
Several things:
1. Gather all the community stakeholders and reach consensus on the 21st century skills students in your community need.
2. Create a teacher professional development strategy specifically on 21st Century Skills.
3. Use in classroom and high stakes assessments that measure 21st century skills.
4. Use senior- year projects and portfolios as additional methods of assessing 21st century skills.
5. provide carer awareness and internships that offer opportunities to learn beyond the classroom.
6. Collaborate with youth development programs and the after-school community to develop a broad-based community approach to addressing 21st century skills.
A superintendent from Seattle asks:
Our district is considering a major high school reform program. How could 21st century skills inform our efforts?
Ken Kay writes:
Our new report "Results that Matter: 21st Century Skills and High School Reform" answers that issue directly. Go onto our website (
www.21stcenturyskills.org), download the report, and ask for a hard copy if you would like one. It should be very helpful as you consider how 21st century skills can help your high school reform efforts.
A school district administrator from D.C. asks:
How seriously are colleges of education and the higher education community taking the 21st century skills movement?
Ken Kay writes:
Not seriously enough.
Colleges of Education should really be at the front end of the 21st Century Skills movement- they aren't. We need Colleges of education to be developing the best strategies to teach and assess 21st century skills, and to assure every new teacher they graduate possesses the ability to teach and assess these skills.
All of higher education needs to consider the degree to which it is taking cross-cutting skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, communications and collaboration skills seriously enough. Many students are coming out of four-year institutions without being able to adequately display this critical skillset. Higher education will have to review their performance in this regard because parents and students can't afford 30-40K of yearly college investments that aren't preparing young people for the challenges of the new global economy.
A school board member from New York asks:
Why should we be bothering with 21st century skills when we're barely able to cope with the new requirements of No Child Left Behind?
Ken Kay writes:
We shouldn't be viewing NCLB and 21st Century Skills as at odds with one another. In fact, they are potentially very complementary to one another.
NCLB is basically about metrics and accountability. The business members of the partnership, in particular, are extremely comfortable with metrics and accountability. However, WHAT YOU MEASURE REALLY MATTERS! Many, many school districts implementing NCLB are using 50-60 year old metrics. That will produce students with 50-60 year old skill sets. We shouldn't be fighting the framework of NCLB but using it as a platform to promote 21st Century skills. If the 21st century Skills framework were used to assess students and schools under NCLB we would be producing students with 21st Century skillsets. That's where we need to be heading. We need to use the 21st Century skills framework as the future of NCLB.
BoardBuzz Feed
