Development of 21st Century Skills - "Bon Voyage"

For my Development of 21st Century Skills project, I decided to use a performance assessment that I have used in the past but to present it this year with an emphasis on the 4 C's of 21st Century Skills.

The name of the assessment is Bon Voyage. My students were to act as travel agents. Given a choice of 3 different family scenarios, they were required to plan a cruise vacation, keeping in mind the budget for the family. They were also required to set up the itinerary and plan excursions and other activities to make the vacation as enjoyable as possible. After researcing and gathering data, they had to present it all to the class in their choice of electronic presentation.

With the use of computers to research, this project has always had the technology piece to it. But I was eager to see how much of a difference it would make with my students when I presented it to them with more emphasis on the 21st Century Skills.

Collaboration:
I re-arranged the desks in my class into pairs and placed students of different level of abilities together. If they needed, they were allowed to contact other "travel agents" in the classroom for information. We worked on this project on Thursday and Friday in class and then they had the weekend to put together ideas for the electronic presentation. When they returned to class on Monday, they had the class period to construct the presentation.

Communication:
The students were given detailed instructions and checklists to complete along the way. There were multiple requirements so dialogue was necessary between the partners in order to complete each task. Communicating with other "travel agents" was allowed.

Creativity:
The amount of creativity that went into the design of the electronic presentation was assesssmed as much as the research for the project. The project required the students to compete with other travel agents in win the business of the family they wanted to work for. The more creative the students were, the better chance of winning the families business.

Critical Thinking:
Research for this project required the students to use technology just as they would with other projects. This project, however, required them to think outside the box and act like travel agents representing a family. They needed to plan the family intineraries correctly, taking into account travel times, flight schedules, embarkment and disembarkment for the cruise ship, etc...

Reflection:
I am very happy with the way this performance assessment turned out for me and my students. The amount of work that my students did this year was about the same, but with my emphasis on the 4 C's, I feel that the quality of time that they put into it this year was much more productive than in the past. The electronic presentations (all of them were power point ...I'm working on them using other sources) were fantastic. They took pride in presenting them to their classmates, some of them actually dressed up as business men and women! I also found out that many of them either met up over the weekend to work on the project or at least discussed it over the phone. Breaking the project up into smaller parts was beneficial. The part I was impressed with most was their success with the itineraries. They didn't just research flights, cruises, cabs, etc... and put them down. They took the time to make sure that if the cruise left at 4:00 and their flight got the family into the airport at 3:30...they weren't going to make it!!!

Overall...VERY pleased with the outcome of the performance assessment and will definitely use it again next year and continue to emphasize the importance of using the 4 C's of the 21st Century Skills.

This assignment follows the guidelines set out in Common Core State Standards CC.7.NS.3.