21st Century Apprentice

The circle is now complete. When I left you (at my last blog post), I was but a learner...now I am the master!

Just kidding, I’m still an apprentice. But I’ve tried my hand at building a 21st Century lesson plan, and it went pretty well.

For those playing catch up, 21st century learning (which I discussed in my previous blog post, linked above...or if you’re lazy, right here) is how educators / administrators / legislators / researchers sometimes describe the "future of education." There isn’t complete agreement on what it looks like, but overarching ideas include:

1. Classrooms should be places where students can both work individually and collaboratively to learn any and all subjects, both independently and with the assistance of a teacher (Gee, 2018)

2. Lessons learned in the classroom should be applicable to “real world” scenarios, intentionally contextualized for application in various situations (Ito et al, 2013)

3. Both of the above points should lead to deeper understanding of subject matter, which in turn promotes self-learning and real-world application (Bransford et al, 2000)

4. Technology should play a big part in all of this (Rich, 2010)

All of this sounds awesome, right? I for one remember sitting through every level of math after pre-algebra thinking “what the heck am I learning this for?” If I had been provided context, real-life application, and opportunities for group discussion and personal discovery, I imagine arithmetic lessons would have seemed much more interesting.

But, what about point #4? It’s so...broad. And feels almost shoehorned in compared to the history and research that led to the first three elements of 21st Century Learning. This is where TPACK (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) works to inform educators on how best to incorporate technology in the classroom

Quick aside. I work in IT. Teachers and administrators are always looking for that magic tech bullet that will help students learn. One year, one of the deans had the idea to buy everyone iPads. Never mind that a number of the applications students need wouldn’t work on iOS, and disregard the fact that there was no infrastructure within IT to provision and manage that many mobile devices. Thankfully, the project never gained traction.

And so, to my personal application: in my lesson plan, I’ve attempted to incorporate all of the above ideas. During the lesson, I explain to users how best to incorporate SharePoint and OneDrive file sharing in their daily workflows. Students are encouraged to collaborate and discuss, problem solving potential solutions to file sharing use-cases. Students are encouraged to apply lessons learned to real world situations, and transfer to other file sharing platforms. Students are encouraged to reflect on possible use cases in the lesson, and to consider potential reasons NOT to use the tools described. Inherent to the lesson is a use of technology (OneDrive and SharePoint); but additional technologies such as video mini-lessons and group collaboration (using Miro.com) allow for increased understanding and providing a “sandbox” to play with ideas before applying them to the actual file share platforms.

One challenge regarding 21st century learning that I faced in particular when putting together my lesson plan was that, because this is not part of an actual unit or training program but rather intended as a one-off training, I do not have a sense of the users' background knowledge. This is significant because I want to make sure information I am sharing is understandable and applicable. To try to provide some level-setting, I incorporated a training video available on YouTube which covers some basic information regarding OneDrive and SharePoint, how they are similar and how they differ. Additionally, I hope to foster an “affinity space”-like discussion (Gee, 2018) which allows users to apply reasoning skills and teach within the group, all without requiring technical knowledge.

Take a look at my lesson plan here. And then, think about what spaces you spend time in that most resemble the 21st century classroom - did they make you into better learners, and did they prepare you for real life?

References:

420broom (2011). Now I am the Master [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRkKbdIFZGM

Bransford, J., Brown, A.L. & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience and school. National Academy Press. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368.

Elmer, S. (2021). What have we learned? [Blog post]. Wix. https://elmerst2.wixsite.com/theitguy/post/what-have-we-learned

Elmer, S. (2021). 21st Century Learning lesson plan draft, rev1 [lesson plan]. Google Docs. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1leuntKCHHpqp-ZcQ9eAD4icRcKVsmV2U0NOYby_wtBU/edit?usp=sharing

Gee, J.P. (2018, February 26). Affinity spaces: How young people live and learn online and out of school. Phi Delta Kappan. http://www.kappanonline.org/gee-affinity-spaces-young-people-live-learn-online-school/

Ito, M., Gutiérrez, K., Livingstone, S., Penuel, B., Rhodes, J., Salen, K., Schor, J., Sefton-Green, J. & Watkins, S. C. (2013). Connected learning: An agenda for research and design. Digital Media and Learning Research Hub. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/48114/1/__lse.ac.uk_storage_LIBRARY_Secondary_libfile_shared_repository_Content_Livingstone%2C%20S_Livingstone_Connected_learning_agenda_2010_Livingstone_Connected_learning_agenda_2013.pdf

Rich, E. (2010, October 11). How Do You Define 21st-Century Learning? Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/how-do-you-define-21st-century-learning/2010/10