21st Century Core Subjects & Themes

Core Subjects Embed 21st Century Themes

A central component of preparation for life in the 21st century is a comprehensive understanding of the core content areas that have replaced the 3 R’s of reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic. P21 has identified these key subjects as:

21st Century Core Subjects

As a first step in creating a curriculum that teaches 21st century skills, identify the desired outcomes of units of study in these key subject areas. Do the work of prioritizing content standards and articulating the concepts that are essential for students to understand. This work of content area experts can be completed by individual classroom teachers, PLC or department teams, or by curriculum designers at an administrative level. There is no one prescriptive method that will meet the needs of every school or school network, but only once this work is done can you begin to integrate 21st century skills into the outcomes of these courses.

Teachers

Use this opportunity to reflect and refine your curriculum for the upcoming year. Review your subject area standards and make any necessary updates to your unit plans across your courses.

If this is your first time mapping out your curriculum, start slow. Consider using a UbD strategy for mapping out your individual units, and set a goal for completing Stage 1: establishing desired outcomes. Once you have completed this stage, you should have the information about standards, content, skills, enduring understandings, essential questions (or any other unique components of unit plans your district includes) to be able to move on to integrating other 21st Century Skills into your maps as you gradually revise them.

Leaders

Embedded in this step is the chance to distribute leadership and to engage the content area experts among your teaching staff.

Whether curriculum in your school is designed by individual teachers or by a core team, use the opportunity to review your curriculum with your teams (or map it out for the first time).

Not only will this be a key first step to creating a curriculum that teaches 21st Century Skills, but it will serve as an opportunity to align your curriculum to your most updated standards.

Once the curriculum maps for these core subjects are completed enough to begin integrating 21st century themes, open the floor for a cross curricular conversation about where they fit the most organically in your curriculum. 21st century themes are the multiple literacies that help deepen the understanding of the core subjects and draw connections between them. Each core subject area (and courses that may not have made this list) has unique opportunities to address these individual themes. How exactly each theme is addressed within each subject, course, and unit of study is subject to the expertise, resources, and creativity of the individual curriculum writer (which may or may not be the teacher of the course).

21st Century Themes

While it may be tempting for each curriculum writer or teacher of each course to integrate these things individually in their courses, without any coordination with the writers of other courses. But to support the building of transfer skills and to help the creation of connections across subject areas and into the real lives of our students, consider working together across subject areas and as well as across grade levels to create cross curricular and scaffolded opportunities to tackle these themes. This does not mean that teachers must create lock-step units and lessons with teachers of other subjects, but it does present an opportunity for common essential questions, enduring understandings, or common assessments, which when utilized across these teams, can deepen student learning.

Lastly, do not exclude teams in subject areas not defined as core subjects in the discussion. A key component of teaching 21st century skills is practice with real life application of knowledge and skills learned within subject areas, which is not limited to core subject areas. Many students will make careers from the knowledge and skills that they learn in elective courses. Even if they do not pursue a career that taps into those concepts, part of teaching 21st century skills is an openness to the unknown possibilities of how knowledge will create opportunities for students long after their time in our classrooms. Weaving 21st century skills throughout more niche courses is a future-ready strategy that will help students develop a well-rounded education.