21st Century Wrap Up
The final couple weeks of class have been very informative and quite appealing. Seeing the progression of curricular expectations has been beneficial for my personal learning and an understanding that I can apply to my future practice. Students have a keen sense of learning when it comes to the world around them, so by incorporating the newly advancing influences, theories and impacts perceived globally; students can use this knowledge in order to develop themselves into citizens suitable in a critical and global sense. The course material proved to be easy to understand yet very protrusive in its manner. The topics and subjects of the various 21st century literacies proved to encounter issues and dilemmas in a present context but also provided necessary altruistic factors so that students had an intrinsic source. It is often quite difficult to get students wanting to learn at an implicit level without any extrinsic motivations. Allowing students to learn through meta-cognition is an apparent goal that educators attempt to attain, but takes time and effort which is why being critically literate is so important, for both student and teacher.
At the commencement of this course I did not realize what it meant to be existentially literate in a pedagogical sense. Children should have freedom of learning yet try to become holistically literate in most all of its forms. To be 21st century literate means many things; but the most important of said fundamentals is outlined by a single literacy. With the correct incorporation of material, understanding and reflective ideals, critical literacy can be used as a diagnostic literacy to improve and learn the any of the other eight literacies. Whether it is Global, Multicultural or Mental Health literacy's, each and every one of them can be interconnected and therefore provide necessary links or even dissimilarities relating the 21st century literacies to one another. As an example; the Global and Multicultural literacies can be ultimately joined together by its geographical importance. Traditions and ethnic origin is essential in customs that can be perceived on a Global scale... and when connecting the aspects of Mental Health literacy into the mix being critical is incredibly vital as reflecting on the various customs of treating Mental illness and stigmas are substantially different all over the world. Of course, there are many other examples that provide the same evident associations so the literacies are very flexible and should not be seen as restricting or limiting.
Involving personal experience and practice into theory is just as important. Many students learn in different respects and often students learn best when applying understanding in an applicable sense. Children like to do things to learn and not much changes when they grow older and mature. Of course, it becomes easier to connect, think and perceive thoughts more analytically, but by applying what is learned, many students find it becomes decisively easier to understand. Schooling revolves around this thought of links between theory and practice and so the ministry typically objectively adds either hidden curriculum into ministry expectations or ideals of what kind of global and critical citizens students should develop into. There are many goals and expectations depending on the grade level, and each builds off of the previously learned each progressing year. But it is the teachers job in order to steer the students in the direction that best suits their meta-cognitive development. By utilizing the Know, Do and Be fundamentally introduced by the ministry although re-integrated by educators it becomes easily integrated with the connecting literacies of the 21st century. If an educator can create a strong rapport through what is presently important or relevant as well as with their class, the teacher will find minimal difficulties with providing strong instructional methods. Each literacy connects and assimilates with different subject expectations and if they work in favour of each other, than they become progressively more important. Being 21st century literate makes an easier case for teachers to associate strongly with their classes, although by incorporating curriculum expectations into 21st century components, students will be able to learn, reflect and use higher level thinking skills in an easier fashion. An example is if a teacher is Digitally or Medially literate, they can then use and incorporate said literacy into lesson plans and instructional methods which not only relates to curricular expectations but relevant or popular concepts that students are already interested in.
Seeing as though not every student or teacher will be the same makes for a tough ordeal to use 21st century literacies. This means that certain instructional or teaching methods are becoming a past paradigm and that newly relevant techniques to teaching should become more predominant in the classroom. Much of the traditionalist approach is declining as the post-modernist, constructivist or progressive approaches are becoming much more feasible for student development. Making subjects unifiable or holistic, makes for an easier interconnection between cross-curricular expectations. This also helps provide various forms of relevant topics of discussion while also having it be uniformly educational. The ministry of education within Switzerland provides accessible education that conforms and adapts to each students curricular and individual ability yet treats the pupils at a uniformly equitable level. The incorporation of the 21st century literacies is promising and expressed easily through their educational expectations while different models are used per required for student types. Typically the integrated model of having all student types present is predominantly used, although two other models are used if students need either separate or cooperative instruction. Separate model's does not necessarily mean that students are behind, but means that they are intended to receive specific instruction to help strengthen the core fundamentals of a certain subject criteria. The cooperative model is focused on the same concept as the latter, although in a group based approach. Even though each model sounds different, the discrepancies are minimal and they all use a differentiated requirement based-level approach to learning making for a very individualistic educational experience.
In conclusion, the literacy of becoming a strong educator in the 21st century context is evaluated based off of the teachers ability to apply curricular expectations to their pedagogy. Not only that but educate the class while regarding their pedagogy in a form that's relevant and pertains to the individualistic learning initiatives and differentiated assessment. Modifications and accommodations should be implemented as well. Although this is quite essential as it reforms the traditional applications of teaching in order to keep it relevant to the 21st century. As a future educator, I have learned a large ordeal of knowledge and have totally commenced to apply it to my undergraduate studies. I am excited to continue this practice and initiate it into my profession. What a great year and course... As a sort of final piece of multifaceted Blogger media, I have added an animation/TEDtalk combo that highlights similar ideas of interests within education. Thanks for reading!
References:
Berger, M.J., Die, G.S., Forgette-Giroux, R. (2009).
Literacy, diversity, and education: Meeting the contemporary challenge.
Canadian and International Education, 38(1), 1-16.
Chambers, J. M., & Radbourne, C. L. (2015). Developing
critical literacy skills through using the environment as text. Language &
Literacy: A Canadian Educational E-Journal, 17(1), 1-20.
Drake, S. M., Reid, J. L. & Kolohon, W. (2014).
Interweaving curriculum and assessment: Engaging 21st Century Learners.
Toronto, ON: Oxford University Press.
Images:
Image 2 "Multicultural Literacy" Bellfork.nc.oce.schoolinsites.com
Image 3 "Digital Literacy - The Networked Teacher" - ccgteachersdlp.wikispaces.com
Image 4 "Think Swiss - Brainstorm the future." - thinkswiss.tumblr.com
YouTube Video:
TEDtalk - YouTube.com
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