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The League for Innovation has documented the need for 21st century job skills. They also discovered that colleges must assess and document student acquisition of these skills in a useful and meaningful way. This project responds to both of these challenges.
In the fall of 1999, Manatee Community College (MCC) invited business and community leaders to share their needs and expectations for a 21st century workforce. The recurring concerns at the local level mirrored the national theme: each graduate, regardless of career choice or field of study, must demonstrate and document proficiency in a broad range of contemporary skills.
The 21st century skills include the following: collaboration and teamwork; strong written and oral communication skills; creativity and critical thinking skills; mathematical problem solving; cultural/global/diversity studies; information management; learning skills; personal responsibility and management skills; and technological literacy.
Under the leadership of Dr. Angela Rapkin, a professor in the English department, faculty teams have been collaborating with business partners to identify the specific skills needed for success in the 21st century world of work. The faculty is designing opportunities for students to see the connection between the worlds of business and education. They are interviewing and conducting focus groups with members of the business community, and students are visiting their target workplace, interacting with employers, and conducting interviews to better comprehend real-life applications of 21st century skills.
This project targets several subject areas for these activities and the infusion of the identified 21st century workforce skills. The first areas we studied were written communication and the humanities. In the second year we added science and mathematics. In year three we added speech, psychology, American history, and African American literature.
The professors on the team have identified specific skills that they will focus on next semester, the last semester of the grant program. They have already posted much of their work on their websites. They have engaged in their work with enthusiasm because they believe in the grant mission, but enthusiasm is also high because the new faculty team members are part of a mentoring system that has created opportunities to have their questions answered, to brainstorm with colleagues, and to test out their ideas. Meetings between the different year teams have been productive, particularly the final meeting of the semester, an evaluation meeting. It seems logical to make the connections between traditional curricular requirements and how academic skills are used in different areas of the work world, but, in fact, it is new at this level of detail.
The faculty development component of the grant program’s growth has been significant. MCC's FIPSE grant sponsored keynote speakers at the yearly opening faculty meetings and at the faculty development day opening meetings and breakout sessions. In addition, the grant program supported separate sessions established for adjunct faculty and full-time faculty throughout each year. We have focused on the following areas: making MCC a learning-centered college; using active learning in the classroom; teaching critical thinking across the curriculum; and reinforcing skills identified by the League as necessary for success in the world of work. These include listening skills, problem-solving skills, business writing skills, teamwork skills, technology skills, employability skills and information management skills. These skills can be reinforced across the curriculum. Integrating 21st century skills across the general education curriculum will add value to MCC’s associate in arts degree.
ONLINE REFERENCES:
Center for 21st Century Teaching Excellence
http://www.cte.usf.edu
CLAST Home Page
http://www.firn.edu/doe/sas/clsthome.htm
Critical Thinking Consortium
http://www.criticalthinking.org
Educational Testing Services
http://www.ets.org/index.html
Florida Educational Technology Conference
http://www.fetc.org
League for Innovation
http://www.league.org/welcome.htm
MCC FIPSE Web Site
http://www.mccfl.edu/FIPSE/index.htm
Organizational Development
http://www.nisod.org
Professional Development for Technology
http://www.metiri.com
SCANS Report
http://academicinnovations.com/report.html
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