NCPTS and their Importance

In the pursuit and goal of this blog being to analyze what it means to be a "meaningful, powerful, and purposeful" social studies teacher, I want to examine the actual guidelines for developing into this type of effective teacher in my blog post this week. The North Carolina State Board of Education has developed a set of six teaching standards that all teachers should adhere to and follow in order to become proficient or accomplished teachers in the 21st century. These standards reflect teacher leadership, the establishment of a respectful environment for a diverse groups of students, teacher knowledge of the content they teach, the pedagogy that the teacher uses, teacher reflection on their practice, and the contribution that the teacher makes toward student academic success.

These standards can be tedious to read through and some can seem of little importance to certain teachers, but essentially, they are all of equal importance and they are all aimed at accomplishing the same goal- producing successful and effective 21st century teachers. Why are these standards so important to teachers teaching in today's school system? According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the NCPTS are: "...the basis for teacher preparation, teacher evaluation, and professional development." These standards: "...include the skills and knowledge needed for 21st century teaching and learning." (http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/effectiveness-model/ncees/instruments/teach-eval-manual.pdf) The NCPTS are in place to promote and create successful 21st century teachers with the skills and knowledge to create successful 21st century students.

The NCPTS reflect the North Carolina Department of Education's "New Vision of Teaching." This "New Vision of Teaching" lists out what 21st century teachers should know and be able to do in order to ensure meaningful and purposeful teaching and learning. This "New Vision of Teaching" can be found on the pdf site http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/effectiveness-model/ncees/instruments/teach-eval-manual.pdf and I strongly encourage everyone to look at it, as it reflects the NCPTS and describes what teachers should be able to teach, which is not just the core subjects, as there are also 21st century themes and skills incorporated into these subjects.

Using the NCPTS and the "New Vision of Teaching" as the basis, the North Carolina Department of Education has created a diagram that describes the framework for 21st century learning:

This diagram illustrates all the essential tasks that a teacher needs to accomplish/teach in order to foster 21st century learning. As you can see, there are not just core subjects in this diagram that need to be taught, but there are 21st century themes (global awareness, financial, economic, and civic literacy), learning and innovation skills (critical thinking, problem solving, creativity communication and collaboration), information, media, and technology skills (information and media literacy), and life and career skills (flexibility and adaptability, productivity and accountability, and responsibility and leadership). Teachers must teach all of these skills and knowledge in order to produce 21st century citizens in the students. Underneath the content that teachers must be able to teach rests the platform that builds this content up and makes it stand effectively. Assessments, instruction, professional development, and learning environments are all essential in order to promote this 21st century learning. This diagram, "The New Vision of Teaching," and the NCPTS all reflect each other and are all centered on the same goal- creating meaningful, powerful, and purposeful 21st century teachers.

 

If we, as teachers, want to succeed and be great 21st century teachers, we must know and uphold the NCPTS, as they are the guidelines for producing the teachers that we need in today's digital society. Their importance is great, as they are the basis for teacher preparation, teacher evaluation, and professional development. Future teachers need to be able to accomplish all of the tasks that the NCPTS lay out and become proficient in each standard. If teachers are not providing 21st century teaching, how can we expect students to provide the world with 21st century citizenship?