Last week MJDS hosted a visit from Rachel Morello, WUWM’s education reporter and a Nicolet alum. Rachel was writing a story about jobs of the future and the skill set that those jobs will require. She chose, out of all schools in the Milwaukee area, to visit MJDS because we are helping students build those skills everyday. Check out her story in the link below.

http://wuwm.com/post/how-can-wisconsin-schools-prepare-foxconn-other-jobs-future#stream/0

You may have heard the term ’21st Century Skills’, a popular phrase both in the ed world and beyond. These skills include reflection, problem solving, collaboration, technology integration and the ability to justify answers. Together, these skills will allow the next generation to improve our world and take care of those of us entering retirement. Building and developing these competencies looks, sounds and feels different than what many of us experienced throughout our educational journeys. Information is no longer the gold standard, rather learning must be focused on identifying problems, asking the right questions, and then working together to find the best information to help create viable solutions to those problems.

Think for a moment about how much your daily life has changed over the last ten years, how you access information, communicate, collaborate and problem solve both at home and work. That pace of change is only accelerating and at MJDS we are focused on preparing every student for a life of success, leadership and engagement with the world so that they will hit the ground running in high school and beyond. This is possible because we are facilitating experiences that promote wonder, empathy and an expectation that every child continuously refines how they learn. We do this through our learning guardrails; Documentation, Reflection, Questioning, Peer feedback, Self-monitoring and Assessment. You will see students learning out loud through their blogs, through their utilization of our Innovation Hub and through the phenomenal facilitation of learning that our teachers provide every day. Our students will graduate with 21st century skills and they will be prepared to lead us into the future.