21st century skills

On this blog I feel like I am a broken record (that can be a bad thing OR maybe you can see that I REALLY value the topic :) )  I value critical thinking over many of the other 21st century skills.   It is something that I tell my students on a regular basis, "I don't care if you remember photosynthesis, what I want you to learn is HOW to think and solve problems."  Communication is also very important and can definitely tie for having equal importance with critical thinking.  

Critical thinking is important for obvious reasons, if there is a problem in the workplace how do you solve it? Critical thinking!!! Need to do some creative budgeting to make it through the month to pay bills and save a little too...critical thinking again!  However, being able to communicate a solution or for that matter, get feed back also requires a solid background in communication.

In my class I do laboratories and a large movie making project over evolution.  Students must communicate with one another but they also need to use critical thinking skills to solve their problems, designate roles to group members, and to apply what they have learned in class combined with new information they discover.  They need to discuss their strengths and weaknesses, something that they are not very good at doing ( no one wants to be inferior or seen as "stupid"). They also need to be able to discern credible vs. non-creditable sources on the internet.  Its a happy relationship between thinking and communicating.

I asses all projects based on rubrics for each project or lab ( I love rubrics). Students also get to grade themselves but of course as others have said, I have the final say in the grade.  What I find most often with high school aged students is that they do not want to cause confrontation, even if a group member does not pull their weight they still give them a high grade (a C when it should be a D or F).  Their rational “I got it done anyway didn't I”.  So, nothing is really perfect but this way they can see what is important and what is needed to succeed in class.