21st Century Skills
Most people think that 21st century skills are all computer related. That in order to be career ready you need to know how to use a computer.
Ask a teacher a teacher what makes a student career ready and I’d bet you get a very different answer. Probably involving the 4 C’s – Create, Collaborate, Communicate, and Critical Thinking.
As a kindergarten teacher, I want my students to be able to THINK. You know, by themselves. And then communicate their thinking to others. I feel those skills are SO important to their future success.
I give my students lots of opportunities to practice explaining their thinking in class. One way is with the use of open ended tasks. These task questions have multiple answers. Students can choose the strategy, solution, or response type. I model this type of activity MANY times as a whole group with different numbers/names and then let them go try. You can give them manipulatives, crayons, pencils, etc. No matter what this open ended format will really let you know how they think!
Here is one of the tasks included:
In this task, students are challenged to think of different number combinations that would equal 15 where one number is greater than the other. They could draw pictures, use tally marks, write equations, etc. I got to see some great thinking!
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As I walked around, I really got to see who was comfortable with decomposing numbers. Who preferred to draw pictures of basket balls? Who was using a system of letters to identify baskets? Who was using addition sentences?
This could be a great assessment for composing/decomposing numbers, but also for comparing numbers!
I could see right away who was thinking at a higher level, who was struggling to get their ideas onto the paper, and who was having difficulty with the content.
I know for many teachers (myself included!), thinking of math tasks can be challenging. So I hope you enjoy using these in your own classroom.
Check them out on TPT!
