A Teacher’s Thoughts

Whenever I pull out my science frameworks, I am always amazed at the amount of content and the apparent unrelatedness of it all. I have worked with standards in three states and it seems to be the same each time. Training and best practice say to dig deeper but the standards, so broad in coverage, do not allow this.
Jeff Utecht’s post on NETS refreshed listed the following suggestion adapted from David Jakes:

Students will:

Be able to create and innovate
Be able to communicate and collaborate
Be able to research and demonstrate information fluency
Be able to think critically
Be able to solve problems
Be able to make-decisions based on data
Be able to demonstrate responsibility

What if we look at the standards as a skill set that is completely removed from technology and just as skills we want students to have as they move through our school system?

Focusing on skills is, I think, the best move education can make but perhaps removing technology from a skill set is not the answer. Rather, how can this skill set be demonstrated through other disciplines?

So change the first sentence to read:

Using technology students will…
Using laboratory techniques students will…
Using the scientific method students will…
Using literary analysis students will…
Using number sense and estimations students will…
Using historical references students will…

The list here should go on to provide an entry to each subject area. Now as a teacher plans for instruction, content can be analyzed by asking, “how will this content help my students to”, “create and innovate” or “collaborate and communicate” or “solve problems with data“?

At this point I would like to suggest that the list I created could very quickly be expanded to look very much like a current set of standards, with such broad coverage as to stifle opportunity. There must be a balancing act here as content is still a necessity to provide something to think about. It is when the content is too broad and shallow that the learning necessary for the 21st century suffers.