21st
Century Education
is becoming a dominant topic of discussion among educators today, as it addresses
the need for a shifting educational paradigm in order to keep pace and respond
to an ever-changing global community. Alongside the mandate that every child
must be given adequate resources to support individual learning, as educators we
must also modify individual instruction in correspondence with the strengths
and needs of every student. This includes recognizing the diversity of each
student as well as the knowledge, skills, and perspectives they may already have.
Perhaps most importantly, both educators and students must work collaboratively
to construct a foundation that supports critical literacy so that students are
able to synthesize and interpret information.
My experiences as a fourth year
undergraduate student have shown me that ‘literacy’ is not a segregated and
shallow category that contains only written and/or oral communication skills,
but rather it is a multifarious grouping that contains multiple forms of
literacies with fluid and dynamic meanings. For example, media literacy, moral
literacy, environmental literacy, financial literacy, multicultural literacy,
and so on, are all considered subcategories within the evolving framework of ‘literacy’.
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Take Back Your Health Conference (2015) [Video file]
Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/130855607
@N05/16596216868/in/photolist-rhxX59
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As we take our next steps into the year
2016, I believe there will be a resurgence of interest around health, including
nutrition, and physiological, spiritual, and mental health. The New Year
provides an excellent opportunity for educators to jump on the proverbial ‘health
band wagon’, in order to improve and enrich our student’s understandings of
health literacy. I also believe that technological literacy will continue to
play a major role in the way we communicate and interact with one another. App
education is a booming area of interest, and apps such as Notability, See, Touch,
Learn, Kindle, and so on have proven to be useful and effective within
classrooms. Apps and other technological devices also provide the function of
serving as alternative and differentiated methods of instruction and assessment
which may assist some students.
As I have mentioned, 21st
century education is a framework that supports and encourages student’s
strengths and multiple literacies. Although 21st century makes
repeated references to the curriculum and accompanying expectations, there are
underlying principles that support a holistic educational framework, that
encourages learning and skills that can be transcendent beyond the classroom,
and further applied within a global network. As educators it is important that
we present material that is useful and relevant for our student’s today, and
that we build off of their innate strengths and potentials.
