To Know, To Value, To Act - A well rounded 21st Century HCS student

21st century Learning component graphic

Mahalo to the folks at Educational Technology and Mobile Learning for finding this link! If you have not signed up for their free link, I strongly suggest it!  They provide resources in short, chewable chunks that are easy to digest! (I am making no apologies for the food reference as I am hungry while I am typing this!)

I found this graphic to be particularly intriguing.  We have spent exhaustive hours on the topic of 21st Century Learning.  I have personally come and spoken with a few of our HCS schools on the topic (and will gladly come to visit more of your campuses!) as we move more purposefully into raising the rigor of our academic programs while at the same time engaging our students on a more personal level and deciding on just which tech tools will best help us accomplish this!  Foe me, this visual connected as an educator and also as a Catholic.

Academically, I thought this graphic separated the idea of 21st Century skills into easily comprehensible parts.  Teaching our student the Foundational pieces is critical in the current century, yet some people are hearing that these foundational pieces are going away with the move to 21st Century instruction.  In my understanding, that could not be further from the truth.  In fact Foundational Knowledge has become crucial to truly actuate the other parts of the learning equation.  Digital Literacy, core content knowledge and the inter relational understanding of  content taught in schools serves as the launching pad for the other two forms of knowledge.  Meta Knowledge is best applied when a strong foundation is in place.  Being aware or the global setting and our role in the big picture (Humanistic Knowledge) is so important in our interconnected world as more and more our ability to collaborate and connect becomes easier, faster and more wide spread.

What struck me about this graphic was how nicely it tied to our mission as Catholic education institutions.  Our Foundational Knowledge is our belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.  This is where we begin.  From there, we move to what we value as Catholics and then to our belief that we must act to complete our faith.  It is not enough to take just one part of this trio.  We need all three.  For too long in education, we have remained in the Foundational Knowledge circle because it was easier.  We are compelled to move out of that circle and connect with the Humanistic Knowledge and Meta Knowledge in order to give our students the rigorous and well rounded education they deserve! 

Changing Paradigms, Keeping the Faith

For those of you who have been in any of my workshops or spoken with me, you know what a huge fan I am of Ken Robinson.  I am such a fan of everything he says and jealous of how he delivers it!
This animation,  Ken Robinson - Animation - Changing Education Paradigms , addresses the origins of our educations system and challenges us to change how we are delivering education for our students! It is so compelling on so many levels.  I encourage everyone to view it and find their personal connection to the message!  After viewing this vignette,  comment on our HCS Blog about how you are changing, or are going to change, the education paradigms at your school in order to provide a higher quality education for our students in Hawaii Catholic Schools.  Let's begin 2013-14 with a dialogue that engages us and respects professional conversation as a collaborative tool!  I want to hear from parents, classroom teachers, administrators, pastors, even our students!  The work we are doing impacts all of us both directly and indirectly and for us to grow as a network of schools serving students in a Catholic education then we need to model the 21st Century skills we want our students to master!  We need to change our paradigm!

Speaking of 21st Century and paradigm shifts, last school year we published a flower looking diagram that had our HCS 21st Century skills (mahalo to Tony Wagner and the P21 organization for their contributions!) organized around a central theme of Catholic Identity!  In looking at this, some ideas and questions began to be raised about what is at the center and what might encapsulate our mission.  Through collaborative dialogue and constructive feedback, some education minds got together this summer (via the Internet) and came up with a newer model that we feel more clearly and accurately reflects our mission as Hawaii Catholic Schools.

We took the skills and wrapped them around a center of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment and encapsulated all of this in our Catholic Identity!  Please let us know what you think of this!  Feedback is a good thing!  I made it larger so that those of us with weak eyesight can read it easily!

Also, please sign up to be a follower of the HCS blog.  We want to get as many of our school personnel, parents, and even students to get involved in educational dialogue regarding current trends in education and in particular our Hawaii Catholic Schools.  Every two weeks there will be another opportunity to join in the conversation!