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Archived Tips for Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills
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Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills
Robert J. Marzano and Tammy Heflebower
The following tips from this book are designed to assist you in applying the latest research in tangible ways in your classroom, your school or your district. Below each tip, you will find the book excerpt on which the tip is based. Click on the book title above to learn more about this resource. |
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When students create mental images, they do not create anything tangible, but these are more than just mental pictures. They can also include smell, taste, touch, sound, kinesthetic sensations, and even emotions.
Creating mental images requires more mental energy and therefore leads to deeper processing than creating graphic representations, drawing or sketching. When students create mental images, they must hold them in their working memory while elaborating on them, questioning them, and drawing conclusion from them. The effort required to visualize and manipulate mental images creates a more permanent and more deeply processed record in the brain of the content being studied.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills
(p. 109, 196). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
Conative skills refer to one’s ability to analyze situations in light of what one knows and how one feels and select appropriate actions.
Three types of strategies that are useful in understanding and controlling oneself are: (1) becoming aware of the power of interpretations, (2) cultivating useful ways of thinking, and (3) avoiding negative ways of thinking.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 10, 121). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
Discussions that develop the awareness that perceptions are not necessarily reality are powerful foundations for understanding and controlling oneself (a conative skill). Optical illusions are a good way to stimulate discussion about perceptions.
Because optical illusions are usually morally neutral, they allow students to easily acknowledge the truth of a perception different from their own. This allows them to freely discuss both their own and others’ perceptions, and it visually illustrates the idea that two people can hold different perspectives and both be right (or wrong).
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 121, 197). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
Self-efficacy is the disposition that an individual has control over his or her life. Developing this disposition is at the core of understanding and controlling oneself.
Helping students cultivate self-efficacy involves teaching them optimal ways of thinking, including resiliency. As the teacher presents examples of resiliency, whether from literature, a well-known person in their field, or a local personality, they can lead a discussion of its characteristics. Ultimately, students must examine their own resiliency (see resiliency survey in figure 6.7).
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 24, 133–34). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
Students process information more deeply when they engage in both linguistic and nonlinguistic ways (see chapter 2).
One way to create a mental model is to use sketching. For example, a science teacher could help students explore the inner workings of a nuclear reactor by sketching the various structures involved and tracking the flow of water and energy.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 104–05). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
The act of consciously choosing one's own interpretation of events at any point in time might be the most powerful and useful skill regarding understanding and controlling oneself.
Choosing an interpretation can be practiced using literature and art. Students might select a character from a story and consciously interpret his actions in different ways. They might also view a painting and then describe both their initial interpretation along with an alternative interpretation.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 125–26). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
One element that appears to be central to the effective employment of problem-solving strategies is focus.
Focus is the process of directing one's attention to a specific issue for an extended period of time, and is addressed in much of the literature as attention. Teachers can provide guidelines to students to help them control and increase their attention, such as "Be conscious of a wandering mind, and refocus it on the task at hand."
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 15, 71). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
Visualization is a tool that teachers can use to help students create patterns.
Visualization involves creating mental images or sequences. Some assert that when we visualize doing something, we stimulate exactly the same brain regions that are stimulated when we actually perform the action.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 20–21). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
Perspective taking is one of three skills that are important to one's ability to understand and interact with others.
Understanding and interacting with others is the second category of conative skills essential for the 21st century. Perspective taking involves understanding how a situation appears to another person and the reasons for his or her cognitive and emotional reactions. One way for students to understand perspective is by making connections to the community or local environment. These connections promote collaboration, but they also promote a deeper and increased understanding of the issues and people around them.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 31, 159). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
You can assist students in divergent thinking by making connections.
Making connections involves piggybacking off other work, comments, or ideas. As a group, people can work together and build off each other to create a larger and more original idea than they would have been able to alone.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 83). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
Self-efficacy can be cultivated by creating positive possible selves.
Possible selves are the ways students picture themselves in the future. If students have positive images of themselves, they tend to work to actualize positive possible selves. If students do not have positive images of themselves in the future, they tend to be less goal oriented and less enthusiastic about their future possibilities. To introduce the concept of future possible selves, it is useful to provide examples of people who have followed a dream they had at a very early age.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 135). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
To obtain a sense of the power or perspective, teachers can provide students with a number of activities, including “draw what you see”.
In this activity, a teacher begins by writing a word such as ocean on the board and asking students to imagine being there and then to write about or draw what they see. After they have done so, the students compare their descriptions….Each student’s picture and description, and therefore perspective, will be slightly different.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 153-154). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
If, at the beginning stages of the 21st century, we are able to identify a small but important set of skills and teach them well, students will be prepared to adapt to the changing conditions of the 21st century.
If, at the beginning stages of the 21st century, we are able to identify a small but important set of skills and teach them well, students will be prepared to adapt to the changing conditions of the 21st century. Consequently, we have identified five categories of 21st century skills, divided into two sets: cognitive skills and conative skills.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 9). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
We believe there are five categories of well-researched skills developed in the 20th century that will have great application throughout the 21st century.
We believe there are five categories of well-researched skills developed in the 20th century that will have great application throughout the 21st century. They are: (1) analyzing and utilizing information, (2) addressing complex problems and issues, (3) creating patterns and mental models, (4) understand-ing and controlling oneself, and (5) understanding and interacting with others.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 9). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.
The intrapersonal and interpersonal skills of understanding and controlling oneself and understanding and interacting with others in the 21st century will require students to combine their factual knowledge about topics.
The intrapersonal and interpersonal skills of understanding and controlling oneself and understanding and interacting with others in the 21st century will require students to combine their factual knowledge about topics, such as effective communication techniques, with their assessment of how they are feeling (their emotional responses, for example) and choose the most appropriate course of action.
Marzano, R. J., & Heflebower, T., (2011). Teaching & Assessing 21st Century Skills (p. 10). Bloomington, IN: Marzano Research Laboratory.