Adobe Youth Voices Literature Review

Vague but somewhat interesting information
Posted by: Research_Reviewer on Mon, 26 Jan 09 19:16:53 +0000
The Literature Review mostly tells what things are in a broad sense rather than in a deeper meaning and critical thinking kind of way.

Beginning of the paper, its nice that starting the year, it is nicely written of the events done prior to the start of the program and how it sees it to improve. On page eight, the last sentence of the first paragraph illustrates a very good point about the influence on young people’s lives. Along the bullet points on that page, I am curious as to what kind of programs have reported changes in adults’ attitudes toward the youth. Page 10 is kind of vague and confusing to understand. The model graphic shown is a good way to see what concerns the media and youth but it does not portray or perhaps illustrate how the youth has progressed or improved post the programs and activities. Are there any examples or comments?

On page 11, Youth development, what are the principles that are recognized for helping young people reach their goals? The examples illustrated are a good point in portraying the institutions and programs they convey to the youth. As for page 12, one sentence tells of a “school based programs where the youth development portion tends to occur during non-school hours” which is vague to understand whether the programs are voluntary or not.  Page 13 illustrates participants in programs conveyed to gain an understanding that can help them deal with some of the negative issues young adults face. Though, it is hard to conclude what it really means, progress? As in the academics, what percentage did not result in better grades or test scores? As to the last sentence of that same paragraph, you have illustrated a good point about the way a greater asset number of young adults and the influential of it to progress to a higher GPA results.

The note about after-school programs on page 15 does not really address in what program they are before engaging into any research findings. How do these programs correlate to youth voices? Which of these is the best evaluator towards the youth?

On the topic of 21st century skills in education, what are the traditional educational approaches? Aren’t basic skills the foundation to a young persons education, such as basic math and reading, rather than knowing computer skills first?

Also, on all the pages of the report, I saw National Research Council as the sole source of the information here. I mean, there are many other sources out there, why is it that this source is the most important one or the most trusted one among other sources? The rest of the paper is good evaluator of the approaches and programs conveyed.

Great findings, unsure about conclusions
Posted by: cassidy on Wed, 11 Jun 08 22:38:55 +0000

I think these are very interesting, although not terribly surprising findings.

One thing that I wonder about is the conclusion that teachers need more professional development in order to support students' acquisition of 21st Century Skills (http://www.21stcenturyskills.org). In the context of NCLB, teachers have quite a bit to attend to as it is, so to me it seems unreasonable to expect more considering that they are already asked to attend to content, habits of mind, study skills, leadership skills, etc., etc. And, they are horribly underpaid to boot [*stepping off soapbox*]

Instead, why not train students as facilitators? If the whole point is to develop students' 21st Century Skills, then that would be a perfect way to do it. (Note: There are youth organizations already doing exactly this, such as the MOUSE squad. Perhaps more funding ought to be provided for these types of programs...?)