21st Century Skills, Common Core and the Yearbook Class

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21st Century Skills, Common Core and the Yearbook Class

A special in-depth report for students, parents, teachers and administrators.

Two of the biggest trends in education today are “21st Century Skills” and “Common Core State Standards.” Both are impacting schools in general, and yearbook in particular, in enormous ways.

The Common Core State Standards, currently mandated in 45 states, is heavy on testable skills. “Sometimes administrators hear the term Common Core State Standards and they think the 3Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic. Then they think they need to cut out things like the arts, yearbook or band,” said Gary Lindsay, chair of Journalism Education Association P21 Study Sub-Committee. “Applied real-world skills make scholastic journalism really powerful.”

In many high schools today, principals ask for justification for offering yearbook production as an academic class. The information in this special report provides documentation and first-person accounts demonstrating how the yearbook class is a vibrant 21st century learning lab where students learn valuable life skills of critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration.

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21st Century Classrooms Evolve into Learning Labs The aim is to fully prepare students to compete in today’s global economy, where success depends upon an intricate melding of academic acumen and interpersonal life skills. Schools are moving from a teacher/student traditional classroom model to a learner/facilitator learning lab environment.

“Learning a Living” Students live in a technology-rich, information-laden, digitally connected world of instant access to social networks, videos, ideas, and digital resources from glocal (global + local) sources.

The skills and competencies they need to thrive in the 21st century are vastly different from those of their 20th century counterparts.

To succeed in the 21st century, students need 21st century skills to quickly, efficiently and effectively access, evaluate and apply ever-evolving technological resources and services and rapidly changing information.

Critical thinking, problem-solving, interpersonal communication, creativity, flexibility and teamwork have become prized tools in the Knowledge Age. These fuel what Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel, authors of 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times, refer to as “learning a living,” which, in turn, fosters lifelong learning.

And career success.

The good news is that yearbook staffs are already riding that surging wave. The skills they need to design, edit and promote a yearbook provide them with a real-life opportunity to apply critical thinking, creativity, teamwork and technological savvy — as well as a host of other key 21st century learning tools.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) In schools across the United States, many school districts, educators and organizations are championing efforts to implement 21st century readiness. Their aim is to fully prepare students to compete in today’s global economy, where success depends upon an intricate melding of academic acumen and interpersonal skills and life skills.

Educational stakeholders seek to create a paradigm shift in which student-centered learning leaps beyond rote memorization to invite questions and problem-solving out of which is born hands-on, useful knowledge, or what Trilling, Fadel and others refer to as “deep knowing” or “deep learning.”

Ultimately, advocates of 21st century learning want to foster an educational system in which learning to learn (and to apply that deep knowledge) is upheld as the most valued of all educational goals.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) is one such national organization that advocates for local, state and federal policies to support this shift in schools across the nation.

The P21 website (p21.org) notes that the organization strives to “provide tools and resources to help the U.S. education system keep up by fusing the 3Rs (reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic) and the 4Cs (critical thinking and problem-solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation).”

The organization’s 21st century framework focuses on blending content knowledge, specific skills and expertise with 21st century literacies (media literacy, financial literacy, environmental literacy and entrepreneurial literacy).

Leaping Beyond the 3Rs In this new 21st century paradigm, the 3Rs still form the basis of learning. But, while reading, writing and math will always be essential academic skills, they’re only part of the equation.

To capture and hold the net geners’ attention and interest, that more traditional content knowledge has to be applied to situations or projects that engage and inspire.

When this occurs, a deep understanding of the concepts can take root and creative problem-solving and innovation can blossom.

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21st century skills

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Key Elements essential to 21st Century learning The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) has identified the following six key elements as being essential to 21st century learning: A n emphasis on core subjects (the 3Rs) at more in-depth and interdisciplinary levels of understanding.

A n emphasis on learning skills, including information and technology skills, critical thinking and problem-solving skills, interpersonal communications skills and self-motivational skills.

U sing tools, like digital technology, to enable students to access, evaluate, create and apply their knowledge and learning skills, so they can effectively communicate with others and form productive teams.

C reating an educational and learning environment that offers students relevant and meaningful experiences and real-world applications of ideas.

O ffering content in emerging areas, such as global awareness and financial, economic, business and civic literacy, to broaden and deepen the real-world relevancy of what students are learning.

U sing a variety of evaluations to measure 21st century skills in both standardized testing and classroom assessments.

4Cs

Maximizing Student Potential To foster a generation of learners who think creatively and collaborate to solve problems, the 3Rs need to team up with what P21 calls the 4Cs: critical thinking and problem-solving, creativity and innovation, communication, and collaboration.

1 C ritical Thinking and Problem-Solving When students engage in critical thinking, they learn to reason effectively and to select and apply the type of reasoning (inductive, deductive, etc.) that best fits the situation at hand.

Critical thinking empowers students to synthesize and interpret information and draw conclusions based on intellectual rigor. They’ll also be able to more astutely reflect on their learning experiences and the learning process in general.

2 C reativity and Innovation When students engage in creativity and innovation, they learn to strengthen their creativity muscle, use a wide range of techniques (such as brainstorming), develop new and ingenious ideas and concepts; and elaborate, refine, analyze and evaluate their own ideas (and the ideas of others).

They learn how to work with others to create original and inventive ideas. They learn what it takes to implement those innovations. They also learn that failure is not their enemy. It’s just a natural part of the cyclic creative process that offers an opportunity to learn and grow and refine ideas.

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Yearbook Class as a 21st Century Learning Lab

Y 3 Communication Communication is used to inform, instruct, motivate and persuade.

The ability to express thoughts and ideas in oral, written and nonverbal formats is the cornerstone of effective interpersonal communications.

Today, net geners can choose from many different forms of media and many types of technologies to communicate with others.

So, it’s critical that they know how to judge whether information is accurate, credible, useful and valuable and to assess its impact.

More and more, net geners also need a multicultural aptitude (and possibly multilingual abilities) to communicate across cultures within their own country and with people from other cultures around the world.

4 Collaboration Teamwork is a key player in any successful endeavor.

In the 21st century, the ability to work effectively and respectfully across diverse teams takes on exponential significance.

Flexibility and the willingness to adapt to rapidly changing situations and circumstances are essential attributes for effective team members.

Being ready, willing and able to compromise to accomplish shared goals is equally important.

Net geners must be able to share responsibility for collaborative work and contribute to a project as an independent individual, when needed.

earbook advisers and staffs are well-versed in the 4Cs. The design, production and distribution of a yearbook would be impossible without applying creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration.

The 21st century learning “mantra” that students learn best when they’re engaged in a project that captures their interest and successfully integrates academic content with lifelong work habits and skills across all content areas (3Rs and 4Cs) rings true in the yearbook classroom.

When yearbook staffs create a new yearbook every year, they’re learning how to use content in a fresh and meaningful way to communicate the story of the year.

As a 21st century learning lab, yearbook class integrates the skills that students need to succeed into all facets of instruction.

From initial brainstorming of concepts and themes to reporting, story writing, photography, design, production, promotion and distribution, yearbook students are “learning a living” and preparing for their future careers, no matter what field of work they enter.

Yearbook advisers model the 21st century role of teacher as facilitator/coach rather than just repositories of knowledge.

Under their guidance, students apply the 3Rs and 4Cs, strengthening and fine-tuning their 21st century work skills.

Yearbook advisers empower student-centered learning. As facilitators of the yearbook process, they engage their students, encouraging them to think creatively and critically, to manage their time, to problem-solve, to initiate, to collaborate, to innovate — and, ultimately, to define, plan, do and review — every step of the way.

They integrate into their lesson plans ample opportunities for students to access, use and manage a variety of technological resources.

And they create a learning environment in which students take responsibility for their work, become accountable for their assignments and reflect on how well they’ve applied the 3Rs and 4Cs to complete their project.

Yearbook classes may very well be the prototype for a 21st century life-skills educational learning lab.

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ideas and Insights from 21st Century advisers

Tom Gayda

The Northerner yearbook adviser North Central High School, Indianapolis, IN Development/Curriculum Chair, Journalism Education Association

At the core of the yearbook classroom With emphasis on the 4Cs, yearbook students will not only put out a strong product, they will also have a leg up on the expectations that teachers have of them in all of their classes.

Teaching 21st Century Skills To make the successful transition from classroom to workplace, 21st century learners need the support of 21st century teachers.

Trilling and Fadel write: “For a teacher to be an effective learning coach during a project (and not just a lecturer), learning activities must be designed so that the students own much of the learning and teaching.”

To teach 21st century skills, educators must invest time and energy in upfront planning for each student-directed assignment, activity, project or task. Ultimately, teachers and students both benefit from that initial effort.

When educators are in tune with the bigger picture and communicate the steps needed to attain projectrelated goals, they’re free to offer more individualized attention and support to each learner or learning team.

The goal is to create a classroom environment in which teachers “teach less” by modeling the 4Cs and students “learn more” because they are motivated to become selfdirected learners.

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ore and more, it seems the initiatives that policymakers are coming up with mirror what happens in any successful yearbook classroom. What we’ve said for years is becoming more and more true — being on a publications staff is a great activity to prepare a student for the future.

The 4Cs — creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration — couldn’t be more ideal. I’m almost certain that if you asked a group of yearbook advisers to come up with their own list of 4Cs, it would include at least three of these every time.

Creativity takes place at every stage of yearbook planning and making. The theme, quite obviously, can become the most creative part of the book, from spin-offs to design, any book with a theme or unifying element is creative.

Critical thinking can take place on many levels. An editor may have an issue to resolve among the staff internally, or decide how to best cover an event this year so that it doesn’t look just like last year’s.

If there is one C we are masters at, it is communication. In both practice and product, we are communicating with our staff and our readers. Like the critical thinking piece, this takes place on several levels each and every day.

Any editor needs to be an effective communicator to be a good leader.

Any book needs to be well thought-out so the message the staff is trying to deliver is communicated well to the readers.

Finally, collaboration regularly takes place in a yearbook classroom.

Many staffs work in teams where a designer might conceptualize a layout with the photo editor or a copy editor coaches a writer on how to make her copy sparkle. In essence, collaboration, along with the other three Cs, must take place for a yearbook to be produced.

With these four concepts at the core of a yearbook classroom, a staff is not only going to put out a strong product, but yearbook students will have a leg up on the expectations that teachers have of them in all of their classes.

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Teaching critical thinking and problem-solving

Mark Newton, MJE

The ability to ask questions and probe for useful answers is the cornerstone of critical thinking and problem-solving.

Before students can select the best solution, it’s important for them to accurately frame the problem, analyze and evaluate the situation, determine if the information they have is credible, explore possible solutions, evaluate the consequences of those solutions and determine the best way to implement their ideas.

Teachers initiate this process by asking questions that ignite student-generated inquiry. When teachers ask students to employ multiple perspectives and encourage them to trust their instincts and judgment, they provide opportunities for students to think critically and develop the self-confidence.

Aerie yearbook adviser, Mountain Vista High School, Highlands Ranch, CO President, Journalism Education Association

Problems require student solutions My students, particularly the editors, know that it’s their yearbook. They own the problems and they will own the solutions. My job is to help them see the ramifications.

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here are probably few classes as suited to teaching students to think critically and solve problems as yearbook and other student media production classes.

Yearbook staff members face problems every day as they move through the production cycle and often, if not nearly all the time, those problems require unique solutions. Just think about the task. For instance, next year’s book is 340 pages of nothing, absolutely nothing. But, in less than a year, it will transform into something that people treasure.

There is no way that something that complex can be created without thinking critically and solving problems. And, the problems that arise are all over the place: everything from which verb to choose in the story, to which picture to select as the dominant, to how thick a line should be. Then, there is the staff member who can’t make it to the game to take pictures, the coach who won’t return the group photo list, the adviser out with the flu for a week. Like I said, all those problems — big and small — require solutions.

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ersonally, I’m not sure that there are specific lesson plans or assignments that model and teach the 21st century skills of critical thinking and problem-solving. For me, at least, it’s the entire process that addresses 21st century skills.

As an adviser, it’s my job to help my students address the problem with the resources — and by that I mean personnel, financial, time — available.

My students, particularly the editors, know that it’s their yearbook.

They own the problems and they will own the solutions.

My job is to help them see all the ramifications of the problem and their proposed solutions; I must help them make a decision and then celebrate and move on when that decision works.

When the decision doesn’t work, my job is to support and encourage them in making a new one.

I work hard to model good decisionmaking by always sharing my own thinking as they engage in their own thought process. When they ask me to, I always share my thought process when facing a problem and I share how I chose to solve it. But, sometimes they don’t ask.

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urvey after survey shows that employers want workers who can connect, communicate, collaborate and create. They cry for workers who can critically think and solve problems, employees who can do what it takes to get the job done. I’m pretty sure I just described working on a yearbook (or news magazine, or news website, or literary magazine, or broadcast).

The skills and talents used to create scholastic media are exactly what a 21st century workplace demands.

For me at least, it’s easy to argue that students who participate in scholastic media are all the more prepared for that workplace. They get what it’s like to connect all the skills they have learned in school and communicate up, down and across the staff to meet a deadline.

They get what it’s like to work in maestro teams to create a spread or finalize the index.

They get what it’s like to put together pieces of work and create a book.

Simply put, they get it. And, when given the opportunity to use those skills in a job, they will “get it” again. I am absolutely confident of that.

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IDEAS AND INSIGHTS FROM 21ST CENTURY ADVISERS

Sarah Nichols

Details yearbook adviser Whitney High School, Rocklin, CA Vice President, Journalism Education Association

Constantly creating, innovating As a classroom teacher, it’s my job to embed creativity and innovation into each aspect of the curriculum rather than allocate designated days and times toward its practice.

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Teaching Creativity and Innovation Creativity and innovation are grounded in content.

“Students cannot create from nothing,” Sue Beers notes in the book Teaching 21st Century Skills.

As facilitators and coaches, teachers can help students become creative thinkers and innovators by ensuring that they obtain a good grasp of the content or subject.

Creativity and innovation blossom when students learn how to articulate a clear understanding of the need, problem or situation they’re trying to solve; look at each situation from multiple perspectives; do research to deepen their knowledge of the content and the problem; and generate ideas and create solutions and communicate their results to their peers and their teacher.

reativity and innovation are perhaps the biggest factors contributing to a successful yearbook program. Without them, students would be producing the same publication each year. It takes creativity and innovation to find the right frame through which to tell this year’s stories, both verbally and visually, and to find the significant details that uncover how each year is different.

At the start of each year, we have a clear destination but no real path.

I aim to push the staff toward excellence and to outdo past performance, but what that looks like is left entirely to their vision and whatever strategies they put in place to execute it. From finding new ways to cover the same topics to selecting a fresh concept and visual identity, students explore unique approaches and act as innovators every step of the way.

Although solid reporting principles remain unchanged, the ways yearbook staffers gather and deliver content has evolved. They use social media on a daily basis, invite students to serve as

collaborative storytellers, host focus groups, log information stored virtually and operate in a variety of new ways each year based on their desire to improve both the process and the publication.

They don’t want to create the same book, or make the same mistakes, so they work together to refine each step.

Creativity comes into play during every photo shoot to capture a variety of storytelling shots from multiple angles and distances, then back in the classroom as staffers decide what arrangement of elements will best capture each story and invite readers to the page. They find creative ways to balance the competing requests for “more photos” and “bigger photos” that continue to dominate each survey we conduct. Their constant brainstorms for headline packages and layered theme elements show creative wordplay.

With a staff culture of excellence, staffers also aim to be innovators, pushing past tried-and-true ideas to explore areas we haven’t yet pursued.

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s a classroom teacher, it’s my job to embed creativity and innovation into each aspect of the curriculum rather than allocate designated days and times toward its practice. With that in mind, each day I try to model creative approaches and engage students in problem-solving scenarios that value innovation and positive risk-taking.

We can learn a great deal from what’s happening around us, even if it seems completely unrelated to yearbook.

Using TED talks and articles from Fast Company, GOOD, Forbes and Wired, I showcase examples of creative problemsolving to get kids thinking, talking and asking questions.

Journalism advisers generally do a great job of showing their students examples of excellent writing or visual storytelling, but they forget to cast the net a bit wider and incorporate examples of problem-solving and innovation —

especially outside the realm of student media.

Aside from finding creative solutions to annual challenges, playing together also has a big role in the Details staff culture. With deadline stress and a steady stream of obligations, students need a way to unwind and celebrate smaller accomplishments along the way.

When I plan team-building activities and diversions, I try to incorporate additional opportunities for creativity and innovation rather than offering a “free day” or unrelated reward. During winter deadline season, for example, partner teams competed in a five-minute cookie decorating contest based on themes they planned ahead of time. In the fall they competed in groups, building towers using only gummy bears and toothpicks.

Each weekly activity brings a new challenge, mixing staff members in a chance to create, build or solve. The games generate laughter and friendly

competition in addition to the necessary stress relief, but they also give students a chance to see what works and what doesn’t. They need safe, positive opportunities to experiment as often as possible while the stakes are low.

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hile staff members see yearbook as a fun and challenging high school activity, they rarely consider it to be a career pathway. It’s time we shift that mindset (and their parents’ mindsets too), because few classes provide such solid preparation for the 21st century workplace.

It’s not that they’ll be doing yearbook after high school — it’s that they’ll be doing everything else. Regardless of the job they pursue, graduates will be asked to plan, create and execute things in a way better, faster and cheaper than their predecessors could ever do.

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ideas and Insights from 21st Century advisers

Linda Drake, MJE

The Chase yearbook adviser, Chase County Junior-Senior High School, Cottonwood Falls, KS

Communication drives learning Regardless of the day, staff members are constantly relying on their ability to communicate ideas with others and collaborate to create the best yearbook possible.

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Teaching communication Clear and consistent communication drives the learning process. Without it, it’s challenging to fully identify or implement even the best of ideas.

For a project to be successful, students must understand its purpose or goal, share their ideas, disseminate information obtained from researching the content, talk about possible roadblocks and challenges, address and resolve interpersonal conflicts, and evaluate and discuss probable solutions.

They must select the communication mode that best fits the message they’re trying to deliver by using traditiona­l forms of communication — such as one-on-one conversations, oral presentations and written memos — and digital forms of communication — such as emails, texting, online videos, tweets and blogs.

Teachers can model these skills every day by how they communicate and interact with their students and by reinforcing the importance of clear and consistent messaging.

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he entire production of a yearbook is based on clear and consistent communication skills, whether it be between the staff members themselves or between staff members and the yearbook readers.

The whole premise of a yearbook is to communicate both verbally and visually.

We begin our process with good communication skills between the staff members and me. If I have done a good job as a teacher, my students should know how to communicate with one another using the vocabulary specific to yearbook production. They will model the communication strategies I have given them.

Staff members must communicate with one another and their editors daily about the stories they are working on, with the photographers on what photos are needed and with the designers to make sure that all the materials will work together. Team meetings are crucial to ensure that the pages are done correctly and on time.

Regardless of the day, staff members are constantly relying on their ability to communicate ideas with others and collaborate to create the best yearbook possible.

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e begin the year with the idea that everyone must express ideas when we critique our previous yearbook to determine what we did well and what could be improved.

Our goal is to always improve on what we tried last year, so setting staff goals and a mission statement are also a priority. The students then set those goals, so they must work together to develop them and agree to work toward them. I have my own goals for the staff, but I make sure they are aware of what I will be doing to make them better journalists.

We approach the production of our yearbook as a business, thus requiring all the same professional skills needed in running a successful business.

Before new staff members go out to sell ads, students must model the correct procedure for meeting with a prospective client and how they will handle the situation, whether it is an easy sale or one with a more difficult client.

The students must learn to handle any situation in a professional manner.

I spend a great deal of one-on-one time to ensure that my editors are ready to take on that responsibility.

Staff meetings, led by the editors, rely on the journalists listening to one another, respecting one another’s ideas, expressing their own opinions, but always in the end, making a decision that all members will live by.

Critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration and communication are all intertwined in this process, making it a perfect learning situation.

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When students team up, they’re more apt to generate innovative ideas, think critically and creatively about a situation or problem and find better solutions.

Engaging in teamwork enables students to see the value of their individual contributions and to recognize that multiple perspectives enhance their ability to analyze and evaluate a situation and identify usable solutions.

When teachers provide 21st century learners with opportunities to contribute to student-directed projects, students learn to share their ideas and opinions, listen to input from others, compromise and resolve conflicts and find answers that address real-life situations.

Ray Westbrook

Marksmen yearbook adviser, St. Mark’s School of Texas, Dallas, TX President, Columbia Scholastic Press Advisers Association

Collaboration is critical To be successful in yearbook and just about any profession, someone must be able to work with people — with groups, individuals, large committees — to get work done and tasks accomplished.

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y its very being, a yearbook must be a collaborative effort. Our school’s course, which produces the yearbook, is entitled “Graphic Design and Editing,” but, in reality, its name could be “Yearbook Production” because that is what students do: they produce a yearbook. That means it is a team effort, every step of the way — from initial concept brainstorming, theme selection and development, and page design to index completion, shipping final pages, and distributing the books on campus — done in a team work environment (and that includes the adviser’s work, as well).

From an instructional standpoint, the most collaborative relationship I have in any given year is with the editorin-chief. Long before the new staff is selected and positions are handed out, the newly selected editor and I begin a long collaborative process, the first of which is personnel assessment for the coming year. Do we have enough staff members, enough photographers, enough graphics specialists, and so on?

We work together to determine if we have the people we need to produce our 384-page publication.

The editor and I are also among the first to start the process of the book’s concept and theme development.

Long before the staff is named, I have the editor start attempting to answer questions relevant to “his” book (we’re

an all-boys’ school): What do you hope students will say about your book? What do you want it to feel like? Can you describe in one word what you hope it will be like?

Once the other staff members are involved, we work together to refine the editor’s initial thoughts, come up with a verbal theme phrase, and begin working on the many areas in the book in which the theme will be carried out.

This is truly a collaborative effort, and students regularly bounce ideas to me; I act as more of a “devil’s advocate” in trying to get them to think beyond the practical applications to something that goes “beyond the obvious.” In other words, I don’t let them settle for their first ideas; instead, I try to inspire them to dig deeper, take from their initial ideas, and produce work that is elegant, sophisticated and appropriate for our school community.

Once production actually begins (usually as the school year begins), our work cannot be anything but collaborative. We start the year with most of our designs intact, their having been created over the summer months. Our production work (thus, my collaboration with the students) at that point becomes one of advising on picture selection, working with them on story angles, appropriate headline packages, and the like. Much give and take goes on and, again, we rarely settle

Teaching collaboration

for the first writing of a story, or just an average photograph. I always push my students to give the best work possible and to never settle for anything that does not possess a high degree of excellence.

Yes, most of our work in the classroom involves, obviously, the production of pages.

There’s no way we could complete a spread without working together as a mini-team to make sure all the elements of the spread (visuals, copy, headline package, captions, and infographics) are done to our exact specifications.

Rarely does a single student do all the work for a spread. Depending on the staff structure, we may have as many as six students involved in producing a spread.

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o be successful in just about any profession, someone must be able to work with people — with groups, individuals, large committees — to get work done and tasks accomplished.

Learning how to do this early in one’s life will make the transition from school to work one that is not foreign, strange or uncomfortable. Rather, it will be a natural work environment — one that allows for meaningful, collaborative work with colleagues, one that focuses on the desired results, and one that allows creativity and ingenuity to flourish.

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Common core state standardS initiative

National Standards of Excellence The Common Core State Standards Initiative provides consistent and clear guidelines about the educational skills students need to succeed in college and in their careers.

WHY STANDARDS MATTER In the 21st century, preparing students to be college-ready and work-ready is a necessity, not a luxury.

The Common Core State Standards prime students for success in a global marketplace.

These standards help educators and parents ensure that students will be prepared to read, write, research and communicate complex concepts when they graduate.

They’ll be able to apply problemsolving skills to address real-world challenges. And, they’ll be able to use the ever-evolving multimedia tools they will, inevitably, encounter along the way.

Best of all, while these standards delineate what students need to learn, they don’t dictate how that content should be taught.

Ultimately, it’s the schools and the teachers that decide what works best for their students.

Similar to Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), the Common Core State Standards Initiative focuses on helping students acquire and apply real-world skills, so that they’ll be able to successfully compete in the global economy where critical thinking, effective written and verbal communication, creative problemsolving and multimedia acumen are the gold standards of employee excellence.

Teacher Association, the Core Knowledge Foundation, the Coalition for Student Achievement, ACT, Inc., the U.S. Department of Education, the American Federation of Teachers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The final Common Core State Standards were released in June 2010. To date, 45 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories have all adopted these standards for use in their schools.

One Vision, Many Voices

The Knowledge and Skills to Succeed

This state-led initiative is coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). The key components of the standards are based on the successful educational models used throughout the United States and in countries around the world. Ultimately, the key standards for both English Language Arts and Mathematics were developed with input from teachers, school administrators, education experts, parents and communities.

The standards have been endorsed by a wide range of local, state and federal organizations, both private and public, including the National Education Association, American Council of Education, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the National Parent

The Common Core State Standards Initiative website (corestandards.org) notes that the standards are studentfocused and teacher-friendly.

They don’t mandate how teachers should teach; instead, they help educators identify the knowledge and skills their students need to succeed so they can establish clear goals for learning.

Educators benefit from the opportunity to share their experiences and best practices in order to create a learning environment in which students can reap the rewards of hands-on lesson plans and impactful curricula.

The resulting educational standards are consistent from school to school and from state to state. The aim is for students to receive a high-quality education — no matter where they live.

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Conveying Core Concepts and Ideas The standards identify the knowledge and skills that are expected of students at each grade level: K-5, middle school and high school.

These benchmarks are individualized to address the specific needs of students as teachers help them understand the core concepts of reading, writing, language skills, media and technology, and math.

This enables educators to take the time they need to effectively teach the curriculum and it gives students the time they need to grasp and master the information being presented and apply it to real-world situations.

These evidence-based standards balance rigorous content with applied knowledge. As such, they mirror the expectations that students are sure to encounter in college and in the world of work.

The standards for both English Language Arts and Mathematics require students to master progressively complex levels of subject matter

comprehension and apply those concepts and ideas to real-world situations.

English Language Arts Standards The English Language Arts Standards focus on reading, writing, speaking and listening, language and media and technology.

While the reading standards cover a diverse array of classic and contemporary literature as well as informational texts covering a range of topics, educators and school districts are free to decide on the curriculum content that’s most appropriate for their schools and their students. So, no reading list is mandated.

The writing standards focus on learning how to write arguments based on relevant evidence, sound logic and reasoning. Students also learn how to conduct research and present a written analysis of their findings.

Students learn how to speak and listen effectively so they can evaluate and present complex ideas and

information. The language standards emphasize the need for a strong and varied vocabulary as well as an appreciation for the definitions and connotations of words.

Media and technology play a critical role in the 21st century and these standards guide students in learning how to critically analyze, use and produce a variety of media.

Mathematics Standards The Mathematics Standards are grade-level specific. K-5 students receive a solid foundation in whole numbers, addition, subtraction, etc., which prepares them to advance to more complex math problems, concepts and applications as they advance to higher grade levels.

In middle school, students practice applying mathematical concepts to real-world problems, helping them fine-tune their ability to think and reason mathematically.

In high school, students use mathematical models and statistics to analyze and understand empirical situations and solve problems.

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Common core state standardS initiative

A Common Vision Journalism Education Association committee chairs answer questions about how scholastic journalism integrates the educational vision heralded by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and Common Core State Standards Initiative.

Candace Perkins Bowen Associate professor, Kent State University, Kent, OH Chair, Educational Initiative Committee, Journalism Education Association

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What are three key ways that yearbook advisers can integrate the Common Core State Standards and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills into their yearbook programs?

READ MORE ABOUT IT To learn more about the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, including tools and resources for policymakers, parents and communications, visit:

P21.org To learn more about the Common Core State Standards Initiative, including PDF files, PowerPoint presentations and other materials, visit:

corestandards.org

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Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have only been developed officially for English/ Language Arts and Math. They also are not used in five states (Alaska, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia), but some states have modifications of their own.

That means there are some variations.

It also means some of the things yearbook does well — and are truly important — won’t be covered by CCSS. Some of the challenge for yearbook advisers is to find the jargon that describes what they already do in yearbook.

For instance, plenty of connections can be found in the CCSS College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards.

The Anchor Standards for Writing #2 states: “Write informative/ explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.”

From a yearbook adviser’s perspective, that definitely covers parts of yearbook copywriting.

The Anchor Standards for Writing

#2 states: “Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details and well-structured event sequences.”

If you remove the phrase, “or imagined,” from that statement, it’s completely about telling the story of the year.

These are just some examples. It’s a matter of working your way through the CCSS descriptors.

The Anchor Standards for Writing #6 addresses skills related to the production and distribution of writing: “Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.”

What “regular” English class does that?

Q

What would you say are the most important applied real-life skills that yearbook students acquire and fine-tune by participating in a yearbook program?

A

Real-life skills are more the bailiwick of P21, although much of CCSS works, too. P21 is working on changing the terminology from assessment of 21st century skills to evaluation of 21st century skills.

The private sector consortium working on assessment (including Cisco, Microsoft and Intel) is building

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the instruments based on performance of 21st century skills.

Here’s how they describe this on the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills (ATC21S) website: What are 21st century skills?

Learning to collaborate with others and connect through technology are essential skills in a knowledge-based economy.

ATC21S started with a group of more than 250 researchers across 60 institutions worldwide who categorized 21st century skills internationally into four broad categories: • Ways of thinking. Creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and learning • Ways of working.

Communication and collaboration • Tools for working.

Information and communications technology (ICT) and information literacy • Skills for living in the world. Citizenship, life and career, and personal and social responsibility You can see how yearbook is definitely all about those first three categories, for sure.

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What advice do you offer yearbook teachers/advisers?

Teachers who really care want to have enough academic freedom to make choices in materials, timing and methodology.

No lock-step program is effective because it doesn’t take into account teaching styles, learning styles in various classes, etc.

Of course, this is a huge topic.

Some of it just means teachers have to sit down, together if possible, and work their way through whatever list their district wants them to follow and put it into whatever format works best for their specific situation.

Behind the scenes, teaching is all about fitting the square pegs you know are effective teaching approaches into the round holes this year’s education gurus say is the way to do it.

Gary Lindsay, MJE Chair, P21 Study Sub-Committee, Journalism Education Association

Q

There’s a lot of talk about Common Core State Standards and Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

What advice can you offer yearbook advisers who want to more fully integrate these practices into their yearbook programs?

How can yearbook students benefit from the focus on integrating content-based knowledge with applied real-world skills?

kind of writing and designing that is rooted in the real world.

Sometimes administrators hear the term Common Core State Standards and they think the 3Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic. Then they think they need to cut out things like the arts, yearbook or band.

But, there are any number of outstanding scholastic journalism programs across the country that can serve as models for how to integrate critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, communication and media and technology skills — skills that are also key components of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills initiative.

For the past 13 to 14 years, school districts have been chasing test scores.

While scholastic journalism places an emphasis on skills acquisition and learning, it also emphasizes the process of learning. One of the positive things about the Common Core State Standards and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is that both initiatives recognize the need to engage students in the learning process.

In yearbook, students are more engaged because they are learning things they want to learn, which raises the bar across the board.

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First, it’s important for yearbook advisers to know that Common Core State Standards (CCSS) need to be adopted by the state they teach in.

They should check to see what their state has done about that so they can see if it’s going to apply to their program.

If their state has adopted this initiative, it’s also a good idea to check to see if their school district has developed a curriculum that they can use.

That said, the Common Core State Standards and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills are nothing new for journalism educators.

We’ve been doing things like creativity, collaboration and critical thinking forever.

Q

Applied real-world skills make scholastic journalism really powerful. Addressing the needs of an audience is something that continually drives a yearbook class.

You start with the ladder to determine how best to cover the year, tell the story of the life of the school.

That requires objectivity and fairness, but it also requires a level of marketing awareness that separates scholastic journalism from other language arts classes.

Yearbook and newspaper staffs are communicating something to an audience and selling it to them. It’s the

One key thing that sets these standards apart from other educational initiatives is that educators are free to decide how they will teach the standards-identified content to their students. Why is this flexibility important to a yearbook adviser?

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While yearbook advisers still teach specific skills, they are less directly involved in telling students what they need to know or how to learn.

The students learn by doing and that results in a sense of ownership that really works.

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