Chapter 11: Documenting Challenge: 21st Century Skills and the Now Literacies
This chapter does not have additional discussion questions, but we invite you to take action by applying the challenge in this chapter to your own teacher or professional learning environment.
Now that you have read through the vignette, consider these questions as you brainstorm your own challenge:
- What can I do to create a 21st century skills and now literacies documenting opportunity for my students (or teachers) that will cause them to meaningfully and purposefully capture evidence of learning related to specific learning focuses and goals?
- What will the discipline’s or cross-disciplines’ content and specific focuses and goals be for my challenge that will cultivate an engaging and authentic opportunity to apply the 21st century skills and now literacies?
- What will be the evidence of learning for my challenge’s focuses and goals that enable the learningflow routine to be visible, meaningful, shared, and amplified?
- How will I articulate how my challenge involves the documenting OF or AS learning characteristics? Explain why you believe it reflects those characteristics. Be certain to share your thoughts beyond yourself to ensure you are increasing your sharing amplification degree.
- What do I think I will need to do to plan through the three documentation phases: pre-documentation, during-documentation, and post-documentation?
Here are several more questions to spark your personal and collaborative thinking during your Pre-Documentation Phase’s planning time:
21st Century Skills and the Now Literacies
- Who do I think I may need to contact in my Orbits of Ability for my challenge that has expertise in one or more of the 21st century skills and the now literacies?
Note: Think out of the box. If you do not have anyone in your learning environment that meets the question criteria, try connecting with experts on Twitter using an appropriate hashtag, such as #21centuryskills, #nowliteracies, #contemporarylearning, and/or #documenting4learning.
- Who can help me make each of the learningflow routine steps happen successfully in relationship to the 21st century skills and now literacies coupled with my learners’ content learning focuses and goals?
- How will I extend my personal professional learning as a primary learner and/or secondary learner related to the 21st century skills and now literacies as I plan for and carry out my challenge?
Content-Specific Learning Focuses and Goals
Ask colleagues in-person or virtually to listen to your learners’ focuses and goals (e.g., standards-based learning, applying school mission/vision behaviors, improving a specific skill or habit). Explain how they will be authentically applied in the upcoming documenting opportunity. Ask them to provide you with feedback based on the question: Is this challenge truly an authentic way to improve my learners’ capabilities based on their need to ___________?
Next, brainstorm your colleagues to answer this question:
- How can I and my learners find and engage experts, eyewitnesses, or people of interest related to the challenge’s learning focuses and goals locally, as well as using social media to reach a global audience?
Now it is time to plan your challenge’s three documentation phases and five learningflow routine steps. Access a downloadable PDF. Once you download the PDF to your selected device, choose your preferred tool to annotate the file.
If you prefer to use a spreadsheet planner, access a Google Sheets document. Once you make a copy of the file, you will be able to edit the template to customize your plans filling in the various cells.