Literature Review and my Problem Statement

Since my last post, I have been working on integrating more and more technology in my classroom. I have worked in Edmodo and a flipped classroom in one controlled groups and more traditional classroom to create a wide sample size. My literature review would push my classroom more towards a 21st century learning style. These are the skills that will create the global learner and worker. But how does this prepare my students now? My problem statement is as follows:

How does the infusion of 21st century learning skills and emerging technology affect the student’s ability to pass and or perform well on local and state-wide standardized assessments?

The infusion of the 21st century learning skills, first introduces a definition problem. How do you define these skills and to what point are they used? How can you know that these are the skills that would be needed in the future with a world that changes on a daily basis? This question can lead and will lead to years of research. Given that this will only be done in a few weeks, a small sample size will be used and data analysis will have to be conducted on pre and post tests questions.

To help sort some of this out, this article has a chart does a great job explaining the differences between 20th and 21st century learning.

Chart describing the differences between 20th and 21st Century Learning

Looking at this chart and identifying what 21st century skills that are needed, you can begin to identity what technology tools to use. For example, I use Edmodo as a great collaborative tool. Good docs to maintain online portfolio of work, quizlet to help study and other Web 2.0 tools that are being developed to fuse skills and technology.

To futhur infuse these skills, the common core and PAARC tests are being written to these skill sets.  Therefore, it stands to reason, that if teachers and students can master these skills and infusing technology, test scores will go up.

Looking ahead: As I dive deeper into my research, I plan on incorporating these skills and more technology into test taking abilities and study skills to prepare for upcoming tests.