21st Century Education

I teach ESL, mathematics and beginning computer classes to adults in a very diverse and economically challenged area. I love my job because everyday I can see that I am making a difference in someone’s life. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t without its challenges. Adult school classes are voluntarily attended. This has its good and bad points. It means the people who are there are there because they want to learn. However, adults give you a very short time to prove to them that the class is worth their while. They have family and work responsibilities and need results quickly. As an educator, I know that building foundations in language and math, teaching critical thinking and learning to synthesize information takes time. Therefore, I focus on goal setting, showing students the progress they are making and providing them with non traditional learning opportunities that they can incorporate into their busy lives.

One of the things that my students continually remind me of is the need for varying my teaching methods and strategies. I have a large number of kinesthetic learners in my math classes that require hands on activities in order to stay engaged in the class. By incorporating computer assisted learning into my lessons, I have effectively lessened the number of behavior problems in class. In my ESL classes, my students need lots of visual aides as even auditory learners have difficulty learning when it is in a second language. Varying strategies keeps the classes interesting and benefits all types of learners.

As we progress into the future, we need to incorporate 21st century skills as we teach subject content. Placing an emphasis on high order thinking, reasoning, and communication in each content lesson increases the student’s knowledge and skill two fold. Teaching students to use technology to find content information and then teaching them the skills to evaluate, analyze and synthesize the information to be used in the context of their life is preparing students to be successful adults. I believe the learning needs of the 21st century are the following:

• Problem Solving
• Communication and interpersonal skills
• Critical and logical thinking
• Creativity and abstract thinking
• Technology skills for gathering and dispersing information
• Self Direction
• Personal accountability
• Ethics