Personal+Reflections+and+Investigations

Throughout our research we examined our own educational philosophy and took a fresh look at what we are doing in our classrooms. Here are some of our reflections and investigations:

An investigation with high school students
Much of the discussion on essential skills for success in the workplace is focused on the secondary classroom. One of our team members is a high school teacher, so a two-part survey was given to over 80 of his students to get a sense of what skills are perceived as important and how Wagner's Seven Essential Skills rank among basic skills in the minds of these high school juniors and seniors. The first part asked students to discuss in groups of three to five the skills they believed were most important for success in today's workplace. A listing of open-ended responses can be found here: The second part asked students to work alone. They were given a list of ten skills, the Seven Survival Skills and three others, and then asked to rank them from 1 (most important) to 10 (least important). The summary their responses appears below.

It is worth noting that //Curiosity & Imagination// (in red) was the only skill from Wagner's list that did not make the top seven among these students' rankings. The graph also reveals that the top three skills form a cluster separate from the rest of the skills. The distribution of rankings for each skill is provided in this document:

An investigation with middle school students
Anxious to find the opinion of her middle schoolers, another group member surveyed a handful of 7th and 8th graders. It was interesting to note that students took the initiative to discuss the different skills after ranking them. The first column of numbers shows the ranking. The second column shows the number of students ranking the skill with the first rating number, and the third column shows the percentage of respondents who ranked a skill with that particular rating.



These are some other videos and sites found in our investigations that we found interesting.

Auguste, B. (Writer). (2011, September 21). // How the achievement gap in US schools affects the economy // [Video]. Retrieved November 10, 2011, from []

Fusaro, M. (n.d.). Usable knowledge: measure for measures: what do standardized tests really tell us about students and schools? // Usable Knowledge from Harvard Graduate School of Education - Research for Education Leaders, Teachers, Principals, School Policy Makers //. Retrieved November 10, 2011, from []

Hancock, B. (Writer). (2011, September 21). // How the achievement gap in US schools affects the economy // [Video]. Retrieved November 10, 2011, from []

Johnson, J. (2010, December 8). International education rankings suggest reform can lift U.S. [Web log post]. Retrieved November 11, 2011, from []

Kohn, A. (2000, September 27). Standardized testing and its victims. // Alfie Kohn Author Teacher Lecturer Www.alfiekohn.org //. Retrieved November 09, 2011, from []

Lohr, S. (2007, July 05). At I.B.M., a smarter way to outsource. // The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia //. Retrieved November 09, 2011, from []