Life Skills

Today, most people will tell you that no longer are just raw knowledge enough. I think it was the head of Google who said that no longer is class ranking and GPA a good measure of someone who will be successful in the workforce today.

The term 21st Century Skills has been used to describe this shift and these new skills 

While I agree with the importance of this shift away from just raw knowledge and facts I don't like the term 21st Century Skills.  We are more than half way through 2014 and we are almost two decades into the 21st century. I would rather call these skills, life skills. 

What are these life skills ?

Here is my list

* Creativity

* Critical Thinking 

* Communication 

* Collaboration 

* Innovation 

* Questioning 

* Risk Taking

* Learning from Mistakes

* Having a Growth Mindset 

I would love to hear your thoughts on the life skills we need to  instill in our students. 

Post Disclaimer

The pervious post was written sitting in the ER(thank G-D everything is ok)from an app on my windows phone. The problem is after you write the post you only have two options to post or clear. You can't check or edit what you wrote.

Why and What

After blogging now for a number of years and consistently as of late I think it is important to understand why and what we blog. One of the amazing things I have learned from the blog challenge is that blogging is personal each person has their own style and reasons but we can learn and share from everyone. For me I write what am passionate about which includes my faith, my beliefs, education,friends and family and leadership.

A Grading Scale That Reflects Effort

This post is some what of a follow up to my post yesterday on effort. 

Editors Note: I have not really looked at this post in almost four years a lot may have changed but I think the idea is still important. 

Originally posted in November 2010 

I have yet to understand what an “A” means or a 99 if you give a number. Does that mean that you don’t need to learn anymore? Or as I tweeted earlier this week “we grade our meat but we should teach our students.” 

Therefore I would like to propose a different type of grading scale. 

Editors Note: I know it may not be realistic given parent perception and the way colleges work but we need to stop defining our students based on grades. 

There are two scales and each student gets a letter and a number 

E- Excels and exceeds grade level benchmarks
G- Meets grade level benchmarks 
A- Approaches grade level benchmarks 
B- Is working below grade level 

1- Is an enthusiastic learner and works out of his comfort zone
2- Has shown academic growth
3- Is willing to try and has started to make progress
4- Hasn’t shown any growth and only does what he needs to do 

When using this system a student who is naturally smart but doesn’t do anything more could get a G-4 or an E-4 but a student who is not doing well academically but shows growth will receive a grade that reflects that. 

I applaud schools that have a similar system. I would love for you to share what you are doing. 

Growth Requires Effort

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of adjusting and assessing what you are doing. In other words,one needs to be willing to change and thereby grow. I know personally I have grown from the blog challenge I lost count of how many days in a row,I have blogged but I think it's close to 50.

You can't talk about growth without talking about a growth mindset. I recently RT the following:

@Akevy613: RT @anobleSPPS: Fixed mindset vs Growth mindset. http://t.co/99YHIYOlLS #edchat #edtech #sunchat

Here is the picture the accompanied that tweet 

I think the picture says it all. I think it is clear that we all need to have a growth mindset and more importantly, we need to instill that in our students. 

I do want to focus on one thing. This isn't the place to discuss grades,which I feel very strongly about. Not in a positive way I don't think a letter or a number mean anything and I would like to get rid of them. I think most teachers will tell you that, of course, students need to have a growth mindset, but how many of them reward effort how many of them instill a culture that effort means something and that it's ok to fail. 

So as we look towards our own personal growth and the growth of our students this year lets remember that effort counts and the path we take means something. 

Assessing and Adjusting

Picture: www.wellcounseling.org

I have written a lot about the importance of being open and transparent and about be willing to learn and grow from your mistakes. This post is written with those two ideas in mind.

One of the key ideas in learning and growing is to be able to assess the situation in an open minded way and then adjust or tweak as necessary.

About five weeks ago I began for myself a 30 day blog challenge which I completed a while ago.During that time others have joined and we have 20 people participating at some level or another.

My first assessment: Given the time of this challenge many people were busy getting ready for the new school year and possibly a blog a day was too much ( to date  one other person completed the challenge)

Therefore, how can I/we adjust. Well, I first asked myself what was the goal or the purpose of the challenge. First of all it was personal. So each person got what he or she wanted from the challenge. Second of all it brought people together that may not have connected and fostered a sense of collaboration and learning.

So overall a success, but I felt an adjustment was/is needed. So we are still working out the details,but the prevailing idea to keep up the momentum and the collaboration and sharing is to blog at least once a week with the hashtag #weeklyblog and to set up a monthly chat to share ideas and offer support.

Three years ago I with two other friends started JEDCHAT a twitter chat for Jewish educators. It gained a lot of momentum that first year, however over the years for various reasons it has lost some that momentum and appeal. Based on that assessment, we changed the date and time, however, that still hasn't done the trick. One person commented that they prefer a real conversation which does exist on FB where you are not restricted in characters. 

We have made some assessments and adjustments, but at this time those haven't helped. 

So right now I question is chat format still viable? Do people want it? And if yes,what can be done to restore  the excitement about it?

Stay tuned for what adjustments are coming

Sometimes We Need to Stand Alone

Picture: www.flickr.com

Earlier today I tweeted the following " STAND UP FOR WHAT IS RIGHT EVEN IF YOU STAND ALONE" unkown.

This tweet was RT'd a number of times and few people made it a favorite.

However I asked myself today how can  we make this more than just lip service?, How do we teach this to ourselves and to our students

How can  we create a culture where it's ok to stand up against  what's popular ?

I don't have the answers.

I am not sure we can answer it until we are faced with that situation and I ask again when faced with it how many of us will stand alone for what is right?

I invite you to share your thoughts and comments