Discuss how creating a professional learning community can increase the ways teachers seize opportunities for integrating 21st-century skills, tools, and teaching strategies into their classroom practice

 Guided Response: Respond to at least two peers. In your responses, ask a question about the 21st Century Professional Development framework with regard to professional learning communities and offer an additional resource for consideration that supports an alternative viewpoint.

 

Anthony 

Greetings Everyone,

Discuss how you could incorporate and implement the use of technology to create a blended professional learning community across districts within your state to share knowledge with fellow faculty on how a deeper understanding of subject matter can actually enhance problem solving, critical thinking, and other 21st-century skills.

I feel that the use of technology is crucial for 21st-century educators. With that being said, if we want our learners to be successful, then according to the Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21) we have to prepare learners for 21st-century learning and innovation skills. According to P21 “Learning and innovation skills increasingly are being recognized as those that separate students who are prepared for a more and more complex life and work environments in the 21st century, and those who are not. A focus on creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration is vital in preparing learners for the future.”( Framework for 21st Century Learning Definitions, 2019). If we looking to teach our learners 21st-century skills, we have to be willing to practice them ourselves.

According to Burnaford and Brown, education and educational leadership in the 21st century is “collaborative, shared, and team-oriented” (Burnaford, & Brown, 2014). Which leads me to this, the only way for others to know what is going on in our classrooms is for us to share it with others. The collaboration we do with other teachers can be done through our professional learning community where we share success and failures. This sharing helps us to think critically, and problem solve with each other in order for us to find ways to improve our teaching practices/techniques. Sharing can also be done digitally through the use of blogs, shared videos, shared lessons or materials. One school district who has been hugely successful with their approach of 21st-century teaching and collaboration is the Vail School District here in Arizona. This school district developed a way for educators to share their work with educators from all over the district and now to educators from other states through the use of their network of collaboration called Beyond Textbooks (What is BT?, 2019).

References:

Burnaford, G., & Brown, T. (2014). Teaching and learning in 21st century learning environments: A reader. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/  (Links to an external site.)

Framework for 21st Century Learning Definitions. (2019). Retrieved from
http://www.battelleforkids.org/learning-hub/learning-hub-item/framework-for-21st-century-learning-definitions

What is BT? (2019, March 25). Retrieved from https://www.beyondtextbooks.org/What_is_BT

 

Danelle 

• Discuss how creating a professional learning community can increase the ways teachers seize opportunities for integrating 21st-century skills, tools, and teaching strategies into their classroom practice – and help them identify what activities they can replace or de-emphasize.

Creating a professional learning community can increase the ways teachers seize opportunities for integrating 21st-century skills, tools, and teaching strategies into their classroom practice and help them identify what activities they can replace or de-emphasize in many ways. A professional learning community will give teachers more training and a way for teachers to collaborate relationship with each other. Teachers will be learning from each other and will gain knowledge from each other. Teachers will be able to determine what activities worked for another class and how to incorporate that activity in their learning environment. It is also a way for teachers to explore best right. A professional learning community is also a good way for teachers to build their professional toolbox for teaching and learning. Teachers can explore engagement strategies to meet student at many levels.