Teacher Tips for the 21st Century Educator

“To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.”

-Winston Churchill

The way that today’s classrooms look and operate is very different from classrooms 30, 20, or even as recently as five years ago. Technology is developing and advancing at a rapid pace, affecting everyone’s day-to-day life. It’s inevitable that those changes make their way to the classroom and have an impact on both the tools available to educators and what effective teaching methods look like. What’s the best way for educators to handle all of these changes? Embrace them. Take advantage of all of the new resources and ideas circulating in the education community, and start experimenting in your classroom. To help you get started, we’ve put together this list of 15 tips, tricks, and ideas for 21st century teaching and learning.

15 Tips for the 21st Century Educator

1. Embrace virtual or blended learning through technology in your classroom. Check out 13 teaching best practices for virtual, bended, and classroom instruction.
   
2. Leverage new and exciting technology tools—such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT—to help students understand, critique, and leverage this disruptive technology, rather than ignoring, vilifying, or even banning these tools. Learn more about how to do this in your classroom with our article, Let’s Embrace the Potential of AI Tools in K-12 Education.
   
3. Go paperless for a week (or more). Not only does going paperless make communications easier, but it’s better for the environment.
   
4. Encourage your students to embrace a growth mindset by celebrating both successes and learning experiences.
   
5. Curate a class Facebook account to organize ideas, offer students additional learning resources, and keep parents in the loop. Connect with Edmentum for lots of free content.
   
6. Introduce your students (and maybe yourself) to coding. Don’t worry—it’s not nearly as intimidating as it sounds. The cross-curricular applications are endless, and there are lots of tools to help. Visit Code.org to get started.
   
7. Research how other educators, schools, and districts are finding success in their classrooms. Browse Edmentum’s Success Stories for real-world examples of educators and schools using technology to improve outcomes.
   
8. Keep track of all the memories from each school year by creating a unique class hashtag on social media. You can also use popular hashtags like #WhyITeach or #MovingEducationForward to share with the greater teacher community (and to see what other teachers are accomplishing in the classroom).
9. Motivate your students with a little friendly competition—hold a classroom contest. If you’re a Study Island user, you can check out our Study Island Contest Guide for ideas on how to build your own technology-backed contest.
   
10. Create a classroom blog, and engage your students with a “question of the week” post. Need some blogging inspiration? These top teacher blogs for all grades is a great place to start.
    
11. Embrace technology like smartphones and tablets that your students have access to, and try implementing a BYOD (bring your own device) program in your school or classroom.
    
12. Have a “no tech day” for nostalgia’s sake—download Edmentum’s math and ELA worksheet bundles to help make it happen.
    
13. Keep the learning going on inclement weather days by moving classwork online for at-home-learning days. Learn how Edmentum can help with unexpected school closure days.
    
14. Diversify your curriculum, and help your students gain critical skills for success in the workforce with Career and Technical Education courses. Check out Edmentum’s complete CTE library or our Career-Connected Learning Needs Analysis for ideas on how your school could improve their CTE program.
    
15. Take your professional development online—take part in an education-focused Twitter chat. These moderated, online discussions cover different education-related topics, as well as specific geographic locations. Get started by following #EdChat.
    

Interested in finding out more about Edmentum’s online programs to support teaching and learning, including core and elective courses, formative assessment tools, and real-time student progress monitoring? Check out all of our solutions for the 21st century classroom.