{"id":204773,"date":"2014-06-04T09:08:46","date_gmt":"2014-06-04T13:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=204773"},"modified":"2023-09-18T09:10:23","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T13:10:23","slug":"faculty-lead-work-to-implement-21st-century-skills-in-classrooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/06\/faculty-lead-work-to-implement-21st-century-skills-in-classrooms\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty Lead Work to Implement 21st Century Skills in Classrooms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three Neag School of Education faculty members have received what Neag Endowed Professor Jonathan Plucker calls a $65,000 \u201cseed grant\u201d to develop a common language and applied understanding of the Partnership for 21st<\/sup>\u00a0Century Skill\u2019s (P21) \u201cFour Cs\u201d of creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication.\u00a0 These four Cs represent key skills identified by educational, business, and government leaders as essential to successfully tackling rigorous coursework, career challenges, fast-changing technology and a globally competitive workforce.<\/p>\n

\"Ron<\/a>The contract provides funding to support the development of research briefs and the writing of collaborative P21\/UConn research proposals. \u201cRight now, we\u2019re in phase 1 of the project, which I like to say is planting the seeds of possibility for establishing innovative and impactful research projects,\u201d said Educational Psychology Associate Professor Ron Beghetto, who along with Plucker and Educational Psychology Professor James C. Kaufman were awarded a competitive contract by the Washington, DC-based Partnership for 21st Century Skills.<\/p>\n

Known as leaders in the field the creativity, Plucker, Kaufman and Beghetto were three of 17 new Neag School professors hired last year as part of UConn\u2019s ambitious, multi-year hiring initiative to expand faculty in key research and teaching areas. Before coming to UConn, the three regularly collaborated on projects, but it was a challenge, because they taught at three different universities\u2014Beghetto at the University of Oregon, Kaufman at California State University at San Bernardino and Plucker, a UConn alumnus, at Indiana University.<\/p>\n

Now, however, they have the ability to share not just their own expertise in one physical location, but collaborate with the outstanding students and faculty on staff at the Neag School, Beghetto said.<\/p>\n

Plucker, Kaufman and Beghetto will spend the rest of this year compiling and completing the research briefs, which will include executive summaries and overviews of research related to P21\u2019s \u201cFour Cs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working on helping develop a practical understanding of creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication,\u201d Beghetto said, \u201cso educators and policymakers are receiving a real tool\u2014a Rosetta Stone of P21\u2019s core concepts, that way we\u2019re all speaking the same language and understanding the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThough often misunderstood, creativity is the cornerstone of P21\u2019s Four Cs,\u201d Beghetto said.<\/p>\n

\"Kaufman\"<\/a>Most people understand that to be creative, you need to be original. But the part of the definition that tends to get left out is that the original concept also has to be task appropriate,\u201d Kaufman added. \u201cWhen someone says to you \u2018Pave the driveway in a creative way,\u2019 and you say \u2018OK, I\u2019ll use salami slices rather than stones,\u2019 that\u2019s not being creative, because cold cuts won\u2019t hold up. When you\u2019re truly being creative, the product is original and it holds up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor today\u2019s student, content knowledge is not enough. Life and work environments are evolving so quickly, that both students and teachers need to be able to think not so much out of the box, but creatively within the box,\u201d Beghetto continued.\u00a0 \u201cCreativity can thrive within constraints, and the reality of our education system is that it is constrained. The length of a school day, and the scope of work a teacher can do, is constrained. Same for students. So we\u2019re working to help educators learn how to understand and apply P21\u2019s Four Cs to make teaching and learning better, deeper and more effective\u201d<\/p>\n

By December, they\u2019ll have made a blueprint of what is already known about P21\u2019s Four Cs and where future research is needed.\u00a0 This will include identifying ways the Four Cs can be applied to core academic areas like math, science and language, as well as to emerging and increasingly important interdisciplinary ones like global awareness, financial literacy and environmental sustainability.<\/p>\n

Because the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is a collaborative that includes leaders from forward-thinking organization like Apple, Crayola, the Ford Motor Company, Intel, the National Education Association, U.S. Fund for UNICEF and Walt Disney Company, Plucker, Kaufman and Beghetto will also be using these resources, and other supports, to identify potential research partners and funders. They\u2019ll also begin to assemble research teams to tackle projects that meet their specific interest and expertise areas, which for Plucker focuses on educational policy, for Kaufman the science and psychology of creativity as a whole, and for Beghetto how to best incorporate creativity in schools and classrooms.<\/p>\n

Another goal is to determine how the Four Cs are best measured, something that hasn\u2019t yet been achieved. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting work, because it has the potential to have a large and practical impact on the learning and lives of students,\u201d Beghetto continued. \u201cIt also puts UConn front and center, leading the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three Neag School of Education faculty members have received a $65,000 \u201cseed grant\u201d to develop a common language and applied understanding of the Partnership for 21st Century Skill\u2019s (P21) \u201cFour Cs\u201d of creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2424,1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2455],"class_list":["post-204773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neag-community-engagement","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 17:45:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204775,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204773\/revisions\/204775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204773"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=204773"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=204773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}