First Week of 21st Century Skills Training

   1st Week of 21st Century Skills Training 

  On 6th of November, we had our first online course of 21st Century Skills Training. In the first session we discussed "Critical Thinking". Before the session, we were asked to read a text about critical thinking and consider the given 4 or 5 questions. So, in the session i, like all my friends in the project, already had an idea about critical thinking which made the tasks easier to do. At first, we were not given an explanation or definition. We played a little game where everyone gave an answer to given questions about 21st skills through our phones and we were able to see the word cloud, which also made it clear that our ideas  on 21st century skills as participants were similar. Then, we were separated into groups of 4 with different roles and asked to answer questions about critical thinkers. I think this was helpful because i could see the different perspectives in the group while explaining strong and weak critical thinkers. It also made the session more entertaining. Starting with a group task caught our attention and we were brainstorming before learning. After the task, every group shared their ideas and I could see that some of our friends taught completely different from me at some points. Then, the definitions of words that are about critical thinking were given. At the end, we played a game through a digital tool where we were asked about situations which would fit and not fit to the strong critical thinkers. With this game, I can tell that we understood strong critical thinkers better and we actually integrated a digital tool into our learning. Also, I didn't know about that website before so using it for the first time and seeing how it can be used in lessons were important to me. It definitely made me learn something new. 

  In second session, global language and English as global language were the topics we learnt about. Since we read an article about the topic, answered questions and watched a video about it before the lesson, we were familiar with it and better discussions were made. Everyone shared their ideas, some opposed to the others and some agreed with each other. But what is important for me is that everyone gave a proper reason behind their ideas. I also liked how the session was going. Instead of getting "correct, proper" answers and explanations from the beginning, we were asked to discuss so we made our own answers and this made me the learning process easier and better.

 

I can say that I expected less discussion time and more explanation from our teacher before the training started yet it was the exact opposite. I loved it and this approach made me literally so happy. So, in the end I learnt about a new digital tool to use in teaching, learnt new ways to look into the given topics thanks to the ideas from everyone and there was a change in my opinion as well. Before we discussed Standard English in training, I used to think that Standard English was necessary. But seeing the ideas about how standardizing something global was hard. I started thinking "Maybe the standard should only apply to formality and it shouldn't be necessary." See you after our second lesson.