Promoting 21st Century Research Articles

A second-order confirmatory factor analysis model of primary school administration promoting 21st century skills

The acquisition of skills amongst learners is integral for their survival. This is the reason why most of the pedagogies integrate them as part of the core learning objectives. However, the advent of technology has revolutionized teaching approaches as well as skills training. Many of the skills in 21st century education highlight ingenuity, critical analysis and IT literacy. Though it is understood that these prepare learners to be efficient in the future, there are significant underlying issues and challenges in how schools partake in the training process or how skills acquisition amongst learners are monitored and promoted in the schools’ advocacies. This research is aimed at evaluating primary school administration how 21st century skills should be reflected in the school system. Identified factors that help promote 21st century skills were analyzed using content analysis and focus group discussion of ten (10) experts and later on evaluated and confirmed statistically through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Four hundred respondents: two hundred (200) school directors and two hundred (200) academic headteachers from 322 schools in southern Thailand were considered as samples. A 5-rating scale questionnaire was used for data collection. Through second-order confirmatory factor analysis, the results confirmed eight (8) factors that promote 21st century skills in primary school administration. Arranged in descending order by goodness of fit, these factors were: 1) teacher quality development (0.97), 2) educational evaluation (0.92), 3) teaching and learning management (0.90), 4) learning environment (0.88), 5) curriculum, learning media, and technology (0.87), 6) budget for education (0.84), 7) community cooperation (0.66), and 8) volunteer supervision (0.64). The measurement of all factors (R2) also indicated positive reliability ranging between 0.41-0.94.

Mobile Application Smartphone: Does It Improve the 21st Century’s Competence of Vocational School Students?

Gadgets or smartphones have become primary needs for everyone, especially students and teachers during online learning. These devices provide helps in searching for unlimited learning resources. However, there are only few which provide vocational learning resources. As a solution to this problem, it is important to study and develop mobile application-based media to improve students’ competence. The product was developed using the ADDIE model and was tested on students and teachers at a vocational school in Yogyakarta. The results indicate that Android-based mobile media is very feasible. The empirical testing result also shows that the developed product can promote 21st century’s competence.

CLASSROOM DEBATE STRATEGY TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS IN ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING

World’s massive agenda of promoting 21st century skills is a concrete truth that cannot be denied by everyone, including Indonesian students from all across range, In contrast, based on communal justification and researcher’s personal justification, the lack of Indonesian students’ critical thinking skills does exist. It is proven by Indonesia’s latest PISA score and researcher’s preliminary research at private university in Sidoarjo. In an attempt of overcoming the lack, this research aims to investigate the new paradigm that was rarely initiated to be conducted (i.e. enacting two mutually exclusive realms to be one unity), namely classroom debate to enhance students’ critical thinking skills in argumentative writing. This research employs descriptive qualitative research. The data were collected through observation and documentation from 19 undergraduate students who were currently mastering argumentative writing field of study at a private university in Sidoarjo. The obtained findings show that the assumption of the researcher in bringing up a new paradigm of classroom debate can enhance students’ critical thinking skills through argumentative writing is conceptually and practically correct. The result of three meetings of implementation and its seven main steps of implementation indicate that 19 research subjects’ critical thinking skills were progressively enhanced.

Why the Optimism Misses? An Analysis on the Gaps and Lags of Teachers’ Perceptions of 21st Century Skills

The present century demands transformative competencies in all spheres of human life and this necessitated the evolution of a new civil right in the modern era. Inevitably, this demands for new sets of skills and competencies in the learners to meet the challenges and competitions of the knowledge economy, labor market and information settings. To build the 21st century skills and competencies in the learners, teachers need to have awareness and knowledge about these skills and apply them in their daily classroom activities. In order to execute the strategies for promoting 21st century skills among learners, a clear perception on the same is highly essential. It is interesting to analyze the perception of the teachers and the missing gaps. This study was conducted to examine the gap between the actual and ideal perception of 21st century skills among secondary school teachers of Kerala. It also examined to what extent their age, teaching experience and subjects have been related to perception level. Data has been collected from secondary school teachers (N=350) through survey method. The result of the study showed that there was gap between actual and ideal perceptions of 21st century skills among the secondary school teachers and also positive correlation between age, teaching experience and the actual perception of 21st century skills.

Learnings from a Lesson Study in Using Discovery Learning in Teaching the Mean of Grouped Data

This paper probes, through a Lesson Study, how discovery learning and contextualized problems can be employed in teaching the mean of grouped data. The research lesson was implemented Grade 7 students of a national high school in Calamba City, Laguna, Philippines. Through thematic analysis, three issues emerged from conducting the Lesson Study: (1) making meaning about the data in context fosters students’ mathematical understanding; (2) translating 21st century learning in the classroom with technical topics like the mean of group data can be done by shifting the focal point of the lesson on its importance and applications in life; and (3) identifying the critical points of a lesson is an indispensable process that teachers need to undergo in designing learning activities that promote 21st century learning and relevant to the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This study demonstrated how Lesson Study is an effective professional development intervention that allows teachers to view the learning process in a wider perspective, strengthen their skills in designing efficacious lessons, and bring forth change in their teaching practices via reflective stances on lessons.

Preparing Pre-service Teachers for 21st Century Skills Education

This study examines the efficiency of a model aimed at teaching 21st century skills to preservice teachers at Damascus university. Two fundamental aspects were explored, firstly, promoting the teaching of 21st century skills; and, secondly, incorporating 21st century skills in the educators’ pedagogical training. Quantitative data was collected from 106 student teachers, and 34 teacher educators through two survey questionnaires. Results from the teacher educator’s survey data showed that the model to promote all 21st century skills in student teachers was efficient. The student teachers felt that the pedagogical training of this model was efficient in terms of promoting cognitive skills, but only average when considering information literacy and problem-solving skills and performed poorly in fostering communication skills. Thus, even though the model is efficient in promoting 21st century skills for future teachers, it lacks a training framework that places equal emphasis on applying the skills during teacher training.

Oreos Versus Orangutans: The Need for Sustainability Transformations and Nonhierarchical Polycentric Governance in the Global Palm Oil Industry

While the myriad benefits of palm oil as a food, makeup, and cleaning product additive drive its demand, globally, the palm oil industry remains largely unsustainable and unregulated. The negative externalities of palm oil production are diverse and devastating to tropical ecosystem integrity and human livelihoods in palm oil nations. Given the current trend in increasing sustainability and transparency in global supply chains, we suggest that sustainability policy reforms are feasible and have the potential to promote 21st century U.S. and international sustainability standards. Polycentric governance may improve the attainment of sustainable global palm oil standards with a set of rules that interact across linear and nonlinear hierarchies and structures, thereby improving collaboration efforts, and increasing connectivity and learning across scales and cultures. Transformations towards sustainability in international palm oil governance has the potential to make valuable contributions to global sustainable development and improve the prosperity of poor rural communities in the tropics by providing a framework for achieving palm oil trade transparency and aligning the sustainability goals across a range of actors.

Taking 21st century skills from vision to classroom: What teachers highlight as supportive professional development in the light of new demands from educational reforms

The purpose of this paper is to accentuate teachers’ voice and examine what teachers consider as useful professional development for promoting 21st century skills as presented in educational reforms. The teachers participated in a professional development program designed to support teachers in bridging the gap between visionary reforms and classroom practice. Over a three-year period, 56 courses were conducted, reaching 1187 teachers. Results from this large-scale qualitative study show that teachers highlighted instructional strategies modelled during the course as supportive together with easy access to teaching resources and increased confidence. Implications for future professional development programs are discussed.

The Transformation from STEM to STREAM Education at Engineering and Technology Institutions of Higher Education

The scope of STEM based academic programs such as engineering and technology education should be widened to include Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STREAM) to enable future STEM graduates to be able to respond to the rapid changes of IR 4.0 and be ready for STEM based professions of the 21st century. A STREAM based curriculum for STEM focused programs will promote 21st century skills including collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking. STREAM has been gaining much popularity globally, given its ability to provide opportunities for learners to develop 21st century skills and the 4Cs necessary to strive in the future workplace. In this paper, we provide a succinct review of current debates surrounding this issue, drawing upon examples from across the globe, in Malaysia and Vietnam.

Promoting critical thinking skills of secondary school chemistry students’ through 7e-learning cycle model

The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of 7E-Learning Cycle Model (7ELCM) and Lecture Method (LEM) as well as gender influence in promoting secondary school students’ critical thinking skills in chemistry. Two research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. The study adopted a quasi-experimental research design with an overall sample of 146 (66 boys & 80 girls) Senior Secondary Two (SS2) chemistry students of public schools in Lagos State of Nigeria. Data were collected using Lesson Plan on 7ELCM and LEM (LP7L) and adapted Cornell Critical Thinking Test (CCTT). Validity of LP7L and CCTT were determined by two experts in chemistry education. KR 21 was used to determine the reliability of CCTT which gave a reliability coefficient of 0.87. Mean and ANCOVA were used in data analyses. The results showed that secondary school chemistry students exposed to 7E Learning Cycle Model (7ELCM) had higher mean score than students exposed to Lecture Method (LEM) in promoting critical thinking skills. Also, male students taught with 7ELCM and LEM had the highest mean scores than the females in promoting Critical Thinking Skills in chemistry. The study equally showed a significant interactive effect of 7ELCM and LEM on secondary school chemistry students but there was no significant interactive influence of male and female (gender) in promoting critical thinking skills among the secondary school chemistry students taught using 7ELCM and LEM respectively. The paper concludes that chemistry teachers should provide learning opportunities that would make students take ownership of their learning by compelling them to learn meaningfully, think critically, and criticize constructively as a team in solving problematic tasks through the application of 7ELCM irrespective of gender roles and recommends that Ministry of Education and school administrators should organize Train-the-Trainers workshop for all the secondary school chemistry teachers on how to incorporate 7ELCM pedagogy in promoting 21st century skills and improving chemistry students learning outcomes in Lagos State of Nigeria.

Teacher Readiness in Promoting 21st Century Skills in Teaching English as a Foreign Language at Primary Schools

Twenty-first-century skills have been long known and used to accelerate teachers' quality and education in Indonesia. The skills that include life and career skills, learning and innovation skills, media, technology, and information skills must be inserted into classroom practices to improve students' learning competencies and learning outcomes. Despite its importance and having been long introduced, there is still limited research conducted on the investigation of primary teachers' readiness to promote classroom skills. Therefore, this study aims to analyse the primary school teachers' readiness to promote 21st-century skills. The readiness was analysed in two dimensions: readiness in terms of 21st-century skills concepts as indicated by self-perception about 21st-century learning and indicated by their readiness in the actual implementation. Six primary school teachers from several schools in Bali were involved. The study used a mixed-method design, and the data were collected using questionnaires, interviews, and direct observation. The data were analysed using descriptive quantitative analysis and supported with qualitative description. The results show that the teachers perceived themselves as ready to implement the skills; however, direct observations show different findings. Some of the skills are not implemented. This finding implies that teachers need to improve their understanding and develop competencies in implementing 21st-century skills.

Families as a Cornerstone in 21st Century Public Health: Recommendations for Research, Education, Policy, and Practice.

Families are vastly overlooked in US initiatives to promote population health and health equity despite being the most proximal context for health across the life course. We urge the public health sector to take the lead in recognizing families as essential for promoting 21st century population health. We highlight ways families influence health by providing context, care, continuity, and connections. The dual private and public aspect of families has contributed to how they have been overlooked in the public health sector. We provide recommendations for better integrating families into population health initiatives through national health goals, research, education, policy, and practice.

Cross-Boundary Collaboration and Problem-Solving to Promote 21st Century Skills—Students’ Experiences

This study is part of an ongoing design-based research initiative, during which a new course on forest bioeconomics was designed and implemented in higher education context. The pedagogy of the new course was informed by the framework of 21st century skills, ideas of collaborative problem-solving and knowledge building, cross-boundary teaming, and online and blended learning. During the implementation of the pilot course, in-depth group interview data were collected and WhatsApp discussion threads were used as supplementary data. Participants included students (n=18) from Finnish universities and universities of applied sciences who enrolled in and completed the course. The data were analyzed qualitatively with the aim of finding out how 21st century skills were manifested in students’ experiences of collaborative problem-solving in cross-boundary teams in blended or online learning settings. It was also considered, if there were differences in the experiences of students from blended and online course options. The results of the qualitative analysis provide multiple implications for course development in upcoming design-based research cycles. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.18.13.3

Needs Analysis of Academic-English Speaking Material in Promoting 21st Century Skills

Needs Analysis of Academic-English Speaking Material in Promoting 21st Century Skills

Promoting 21st Century Skills in Problem-Based Learning Environments

Promoting 21st Century Skills in Problem-Based Learning Environments

Hiding in Plain Sight: Identifying Computational Thinking in the Ontario Elementary School Curriculum

Given a growing digital economy with complex problems, demands are being made for education to addresscomputational thinking (CT) – an approach to problem solving that draws on the tenets of computer science. Weconducted a comprehensive content analysis of the Ontario elementary school curriculum documents for 44 CT-relatedterms to examine the extent to which CT may already be considered within the curriculum. The quantitative analysisstrategy provided frequencies of terms, and a qualitative analysis provided information about how and where termswere being used. As predicted, results showed that while CT terms appeared mostly in Mathematics, and concepts andperspectives were more frequently cited than practices, related terms appeared across almost all disciplines and grades.Findings suggest that CT is already a relevant consideration for educators in terms of concepts and perspectives;however, CT practices should be more widely incorporated to promote 21st century skills across disciplines. Futureresearch would benefit from continued examination of the implementation and assessment of CT and its relatedconcepts, practices, and perspectives.

Potential of one-to-one technologies in the classroom: teachers and students weigh in

Increased efforts to promote 21st century learning emphasize the central role of technology in instructional delivery in order to advance the multifaceted abilities and skills required for student success in an increasingly technology-rich learning and work environment. A qualitative study was conducted in a large, economically diverse, mid-Atlantic school district to examine the implementation of six technology devices in 18 elementary, middle, and high school classrooms. The purpose was to understand teachers’ and students’ experiences related to the instructional implications of each device to inform long term, one-to-one implementation of an appropriate technology device to meet the district’s strategic goals for a 21st century learning environment. Teacher interviews and student focus groups revealed several themes related to technology integration, factors influencing implementation, impact on instruction, and impact on student motivation and engagement. Findings are discussed in relation to the district infrastructure and other considerations to support a one-to-one teaching and learning environment and how each of the six devices support the establishment of 21st century learning environments.

The case of middle and high school chemistry teachers implementing technology: using the concerns-based adoption model to assess change processes

An ongoing process of reforming chemical education in middle and high schools in our country introduced the technology-enhanced learning environment (TELE) to chemistry classes. Teachers are encouraged to integrate technology into pedagogical practices in meaningful ways to promote 21st century skills; however, this effort is often hindered by teacher concerns and resistance to change. We applied the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) to examine whether and how it could be used to identify chemistry teachers' concerns, and to characterize the process of change they experience when integrating TELE. An analysis of two kinds of participants, one of high school chemistry teachers and the other of middle school chemistry teachers, helped us to obtain an in-depth understanding of the way these teachers adopted the innovation. Results revealed that after ten years of implementation, the concerns of high school teachers remained multi-focal, and the impact and personal concerns increased and were predominant. Examining three case studies of middle school teachers showed that one teacher remained in the early stages of concerns during one year of implementation, while the other two exhibited a process of change, moving forward to advances stages of concerns. Our study can shed light on how CBAM might serve as a diagnostic tool for differentiating between teachers with different qualifications, experiences, and concerns in diverse teaching situations in middle school and high school. Such diagnosis can help stakeholders in the education system to develop specific interventions and activities for different groups of teachers based on specific concerns while implementing TELE.

RESEARCH NOTEBOOKS Developing Students' Critical Thinking Skills in KAETSU ARIAKE Junior & Senior High School library

We, Kaetsu Ariake, regard 21st century skills as one of the most important factors for our students to acquire. Especially, critical thinking (CT) and its skills are indispensable. Thus, we offer special classes for the 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students to become better thinkers. Teachers from a variety of subjects teach the classes, which are held in our school library with the help of its librarian. The librarian teaches the students library skills, supports the teachers, and edits the Research Notebooks. The Research Notebooks are the key to managing the three-year course. We refer to the six-step learning program and Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy in order to develop the Research Notebooks. Using the Notebooks, the students can develop good insights and skills to do research. By making use of the library, getting the help of the librarian, and using the Research Notebooks, we promote 21st century skills throughout our school.

Pedagogical Decision Making through the Lens of Teacher Preparation Program

Pedagogical decision making is very important for professional teachers, it concerns belief, self-efficacy, and actions that teachers expose to classroom. This paper employed theoretical lens and education policy in Thailand to examine the preservice teachers’ views about pedagogical decision making. Discussion helps school mentors understand preservice teacher to pedagogical decisions during the teacher. The implications of study can be used for science teacher education to promote 21st century instruction.