Becoming a 21st century teacher

There are so many terms floating around in education currently, some have been around for many years and many are quite new concepts that have evolved. I'm trying to get to grips with all of them, to understand the different perspectives and frame my own thinking. It is important as educators in the 21st century that we are aware of them and how we can use different strategies or concepts for our students.

Here are just a few strategies or tools, but there are many more out there:

• Flipped Classrooms
• Project-based learning
• Flat classrooms
• Paperless classrooms
• Genius Hour
• 20% Time
• Blogging
• Twitter in the classroom
• Social Media
• Collaboration
• MOOC's
• Maker movement
• Gaming

My 1st attempt at a paperless class is nearing an end with the assessment pieces due next week. there have been a number of highlights, but also some negatives. I'll reflect and blog about these in a few weeks time. 

I'm really interested in the Project-based learning idea, and how I can integrate it into a sometimes rigid system that has many requirements that need to be met. Also the concept of flipped classrooms intrigues me, and this concept has challenges, but I can clearly see the benefits of it. It does require a lot of preparation, changing work habits of students, but tremendous possibilities for classroom and development of learning.

I would love to develop a strategy to integrate both of them, with a genius styled hour or 20% time. This with an idea of getting students involved in Twitter & Blogging, plus online collaboration. All of these concepts are exciting, and inspiring. Then the MOOC's concept I discussed in a previous blog post I find intriguing, and I plan on enrolling in a course in the coming weeks. This is to investigate it for myself, see if it could work for my students and to enhance my own skills.

I'll be spending the rest of the year exploring these concepts, and seeing how I can actually use them to benefit my students. That is the key, not just using them, but the reason why and to what ultimate goal. We are preparing students for a 21st century and as teachers we need to evolve into being 21st century educators and equipping them with 21st century skills.