21st Century Skills

East Stroudsburg University's teacher preparation program has done a good job of preparing me for my teaching career by both developing my 21st century skills and supporting my efforts as a future teacher to foster 21st century skills in the classroom. In my education courses, there is a pattern to prepare us as future teachers for a classroom environment that enhances students' problem solving skills, promotes incorporation of technology and empowers the diverse learners.

Not only do we learn how to important it is to teach students these skills, but the professors have also led by example. In a math modeling course, the second half of the semester was dedicated to a service-learning project where the entire class was working toward a common goal of discovering and predicting solutions to the campus' carbon footprint, specifically carbon emissions from transportation associated with the campus. The service learning project was extremely beneficial not only to apply our math skills but to encourage us and provide real-life examples of ways to incorporate technology, environmental issues, and current global trends into the curriculum. The service learning project has been by far one of the most useful courses I've ever had in college.

This example is one way that ESU has provided me as a student in the teacher preparation program with an environment that fosters the development of my 21st century skills and also has given me good ideas to carry to the classroom. The media communications and technology courses are obviously another good example of ESU's dedication to promoting 21st century skills. Every education major is required to take at least one of these core courses and most content areas also have a Teaching of [subject] with Technology. This course was designed to help future teachers build a portfolio of ways to teach the content while focusing on developing the students 21st century skills.

I think that it would be beneficial to all students to have to take a class that requires a service-learning project similar to the math modeling experience I had. It was a good opportunity for the students to utilize our own skills and collaborate with others to reach a common goal. As a graduate student that has had a career before returning, in my opinion this project was the most useful and applicable learning experience I've had. It closely reflected the issues and successes you experience on a daily and long-term basis. I think that the skills developed while working on such a large project is invaluable for any college student! Kudos to the school for allowing professors this opportunity; however, I think that this would be an extremely beneficial requirement to have for every major.