21st century classroom, has anything really changed? In today’s world we are obligated to push our limits due to the need of developing special abilities that will prepared us for the challenges of work and life. These abilities also known as the 21st Century skills will not enable young and adults to be academically competitive in their fields, but also increased the level of awareness in their community, atmosphere, and everyday activities. I have identified what I believe are critical skills that if mastered will equip people with the necessary tools to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
However, this skills are hard to identify due to the high pressured path we are putting are children in. For example, today’s children are spoiled and are led to believe that they can do anything they want. But, is it really this kind of mentality we want to teach them?
However, this skills are hard to identify due to the high pressured path we are putting are children in. For example, today’s children are spoiled and are led to believe that they can do anything they want. But, is it really this kind of mentality we want to teach them?
Believing you can become whatever you want when you were not born with "it" to do so will only bring frustration to your so-called dreams. Personally, after many years trying to be someone I was not, I met a person who will put an end to that. I was pushing hard to be and do things that although I am capable of doing, I don’t have the talent to keep doing it. For example, this person was trying to become a musician but then realized that even though he had skills, and he was putting his all into music, there were others who were putting half of the effort he was and still do better than him. This was a breakthrough were he changed careers and decided to major in Philosophy – which, later on brought business skills, travel abroad, starting his own business etc. Therefore, instead of forcing our children to become people their not, let’s identify their skills at a early stage of life and develop those skills.
We, as humans, believe that because we were able to do something quickly means we are talented at it, but remember, skills you can develop and being born with "it" are different.
I will add part of my research below and in different posts add what I think are crucial skills for everyone…
We, as humans, believe that because we were able to do something quickly means we are talented at it, but remember, skills you can develop and being born with "it" are different.
I will add part of my research below and in different posts add what I think are crucial skills for everyone…
Problem-Solving
According to Anderson (2009), Problem solving is goal-directed behavior that often involves setting subgoals to enable the application of operators. Therefore, Problem solving can be described as the utilization of specific methods or mental processes for finding solutions to problems.
Example #1:
• Identify the problem – Improve students forehand strokes
• Proposed solutions:
o Motivate students with videos
o Spend personal time with each student
o Let them find the solution by themselves
• Select best solution – Spend personal with each student
• Test and review: When teaching tennis, I faced many unmotivated students and I had to think of new ways to increase students’ energy and excitement towards practice. It was difficult to understand my students’ needs as I already knew how to perform a perfect forehand – I needed to learn how to learn Mumford (1986). After several days spent talking with my previous instructor, watching videos, and reading books on how to teach I concluded that the best motivation a student can receive is by caring about him or her development. This make my students feel more comfortable expressing their flaws in a proper manner, directing me to address those flaws in the limited personal time I had with everyone.
Example #2:
• Identify the problem – Lost in translation
• Propose solutions:
o Practice tenses by writing them repeatedly
o Put them a test and evaluate them
o Have them watch videos in Spanish and identify the tenses
• Select best solution – Practice tenses by writing them repeatedly
• Test and review: When teaching Spanish to children aged 6 and 7, they often asked me how to formulate sentences in the past tense. I originally thought of just giving them the answer, but that would not have helped in their future studies. Thus, I asked them to write three possible ways of writing what I asked. To my surprise, they wrote five sentences, where two of them were correct. Identifying the problem was difficult but finding the solution was harder. First, I needed to understand how to learn, which took me several days to identify. Then, test several teaching methods. At the end, I understood that putting the responsibility of doing well in my students, helped me understand how they felt about what their parents viewed as ‘dumb.’
Justification: Problem-solving is probably one of the most wanted skills in companies today.
Moreover, most of them do not test this skill believing entirely in what the candidate and his or her references say. However, identifying how someone will react to a certain problem is difficult
to identify in an interview or classroom. Commonly, when facing a new adversity the first human behavior is panic, but if problem-solving skills are trained properly, it will create people knowing how to react emotionally to any given situation.
References:
1. Anderson (2009) says that there are at least three ways to acquire new problem-solving operators: by discovery, by being told about them, or by observing someone else use them. Therefore, when my students struggled learning the future tenses in Spanish, I encouraged them to discover possible ways to formulate the sentences. At the end, they discovered that the best way to do it is by throwing several possibilities rather than over think one and be wrong.
2. Learning is a constructive process in which a student converts words and examples generated by the teacher or presented in a text, into usable skills, such as solving problems (Chi et al. 1989). In my example, as I spent more time with my students they got motivated and transformed my words by putting them in action.
How people should learn this skill:
Anderson (2009) says that there are at least three ways to acquire new problem-solving operators: by discovery, by being told about them, or by observing someone else use them. Therefore, I believe children should spend more time in complicated situations, of course to their level. For example, my nephew is 1 year and a half old and he is constantly playing with games that will greatly improve his cognitive skills. My sister is a musician and always plays drums with him. It is impressive how fast he learns and distinguishes sounds. When he is on a bad tempo, he waits until he feels the music and accordingly continues beating the drums.
References:
According to Anderson (2009), Problem solving is goal-directed behavior that often involves setting subgoals to enable the application of operators. Therefore, Problem solving can be described as the utilization of specific methods or mental processes for finding solutions to problems.
Example #1:
• Identify the problem – Improve students forehand strokes
• Proposed solutions:
o Motivate students with videos
o Spend personal time with each student
o Let them find the solution by themselves
• Select best solution – Spend personal with each student
• Test and review: When teaching tennis, I faced many unmotivated students and I had to think of new ways to increase students’ energy and excitement towards practice. It was difficult to understand my students’ needs as I already knew how to perform a perfect forehand – I needed to learn how to learn Mumford (1986). After several days spent talking with my previous instructor, watching videos, and reading books on how to teach I concluded that the best motivation a student can receive is by caring about him or her development. This make my students feel more comfortable expressing their flaws in a proper manner, directing me to address those flaws in the limited personal time I had with everyone.
Example #2:
• Identify the problem – Lost in translation
• Propose solutions:
o Practice tenses by writing them repeatedly
o Put them a test and evaluate them
o Have them watch videos in Spanish and identify the tenses
• Select best solution – Practice tenses by writing them repeatedly
• Test and review: When teaching Spanish to children aged 6 and 7, they often asked me how to formulate sentences in the past tense. I originally thought of just giving them the answer, but that would not have helped in their future studies. Thus, I asked them to write three possible ways of writing what I asked. To my surprise, they wrote five sentences, where two of them were correct. Identifying the problem was difficult but finding the solution was harder. First, I needed to understand how to learn, which took me several days to identify. Then, test several teaching methods. At the end, I understood that putting the responsibility of doing well in my students, helped me understand how they felt about what their parents viewed as ‘dumb.’
Justification: Problem-solving is probably one of the most wanted skills in companies today.
Moreover, most of them do not test this skill believing entirely in what the candidate and his or her references say. However, identifying how someone will react to a certain problem is difficult
to identify in an interview or classroom. Commonly, when facing a new adversity the first human behavior is panic, but if problem-solving skills are trained properly, it will create people knowing how to react emotionally to any given situation.
References:
1. Anderson (2009) says that there are at least three ways to acquire new problem-solving operators: by discovery, by being told about them, or by observing someone else use them. Therefore, when my students struggled learning the future tenses in Spanish, I encouraged them to discover possible ways to formulate the sentences. At the end, they discovered that the best way to do it is by throwing several possibilities rather than over think one and be wrong.
2. Learning is a constructive process in which a student converts words and examples generated by the teacher or presented in a text, into usable skills, such as solving problems (Chi et al. 1989). In my example, as I spent more time with my students they got motivated and transformed my words by putting them in action.
How people should learn this skill:
Anderson (2009) says that there are at least three ways to acquire new problem-solving operators: by discovery, by being told about them, or by observing someone else use them. Therefore, I believe children should spend more time in complicated situations, of course to their level. For example, my nephew is 1 year and a half old and he is constantly playing with games that will greatly improve his cognitive skills. My sister is a musician and always plays drums with him. It is impressive how fast he learns and distinguishes sounds. When he is on a bad tempo, he waits until he feels the music and accordingly continues beating the drums.
References:
- Anderson, J. R. (2009). Cognitive Psychology and its Implications. WORTH.
- Chi, M., deLeeuw, N., Chiu, M., and LaVancher, C. (1989). Self-explanation: How Students Study and Use Examples in Learning to Solve Problems. Cognitive Science, 13, 145-182.
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