Preparing Secondary Teacher Candidates to

Teach 21st Century SkillsBy

Sam Stewart, Ed.D

International Christian Community for Teacher Education

March 25, 2012

Abilene Christian University's Teacher Education Program was selected as the exemplary program in the state of Texas for teaching teacher candidates how to incorporate technology into instruction.

http://www.powerontexas.com/?page_id=2580

Preparing Secondary Teacher Candidates toTeach 21st Century Skills

Secondary Program Components1. A study of research-based instructional practices.2. Exploring new and innovative models for delivering

instruction, i.e., Project-Based Learning and Standards-Based Learning.

3. Planning for instruction that incorporates technology and higher order thinking skills.

4. Practice teaching lessons where peers and instructors provide feedback for improvement and then re-teaching the lesson a second time.

5. Multiple opportunities for reflection the teacher candidate learning.

Preparing Secondary Teacher Candidates toTeach 21st Century Skills

Research-Based Instructional Practices1. Comparing and Contrasting2. Summarizing and Notetaking3. Differentiating Instruction4. Using Homework Effectively5. Non-linguistic Representations6. Cooperative Learning7. Hypothesizing8. Questions and Advance Organizers

Preparing Secondary Teacher Candidates toTeach 21st Century Skills

Instructional Planning

1. Teacher candidates evaluate their lessons with the HEAT scale. (http://loticonnection.cachefly.net/global_documents/HEAT_Framework_Poster.pdf)

2. Teacher candidates evaluate the level of technology of the lesson (http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS-S_Standards.sflb.ashx)

Preparing Secondary Teacher Candidates toTeach 21st Century Skills

Project-Based Learning1. Teacher candidates visit a project-based high school.2. Teacher candidates collaboratively plan a project-

based lesson using the tools available at http://www.bie.org.

3. Teacher candidates present there project to the class and receive feedback from peers and instructors.

4. Teacher candidate revise their project for final submission and assessment.

Preparing Secondary Teacher Candidates toTeach 21st Century Skills

Media-Lesson 1. Teacher candidates prepare and present a lesson that

incorporates technology in some type of meaningful way. (This means that the students participating in the lesson will have to engage with the technology.)

2. Teacher candidates present their lesson to the class and instructors and receive feedback on their lesson.

3. Based on the feedback, teacher candidates reteach their lessons which are also critiqued and scored.

Preparing Secondary Teacher Candidates toTeach 21st Century Skills