21st Century Skills

Hello!

    For my graduate class, I had to read articles related to 21st century skills.  These are buzzwords that are heard often in the education field and ones in which teachers must implement in their classrooms in order for their students to be competent citizens and successful in their future workplaces.  When reading the article entitled "'21st-Century' Skills- Not New, but a Worthy Challenge" by Andrew J. Rotherham and Daniel T. Willingham from the periodical American Educator from the Spring 2010 issue, there were many concepts that authors discussed which should be given some reflection.  

• One of those concepts include the fact that many of these 21st century skills are not in fact new.  Critical thinking and problem solving have been around for centuries, from the time of sea exploration to the industrial revolution and further.  What is more meaningful now, is that our economy and the world or dependent upon these skills.
• Since knowledge is constantly changing and being discovered at a rapid pace, teachers cannot be expected to know it all.  Instead of content being the main focus, we need to teach students how to locate and know various ways to understand the information more than the actual information itself.
• Teacher training or professional development programs of the past have never focused on how to teach self-direction, collaboration, creativity, and innovation to students.  Instead, we learn how to teach long-division or the year that the Declaration of Independence was signed.  Students need to be given more opportunities to experience these 21st century skills but teachers also need to learn how to teach them to their students.
• Most teachers do not argue against project-based learning- they already believe that this is a great way to teach.  What teachers do not receive is training in this type of instruction, including lesson plans that deal with high cognitive demands and potential classroom management problems using student-centered methods.  Teachers need to practice these strategies and the chaos that could happen at the beginning of a project-based lesson with tools to help them overcome these challenges.  Otherwise, teachers may abandon these practices which are beneficial to our students' success in the future.

     In a second article, entitled "Comparing Frameworks for '21st Century Skills'" the author, Chris Dede from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, wrote in 2009 that many people and organizations have different views and definitions of 21st century skills.  Just like in the previous article, Dede mentions that the skill of collaboration is not new; society has been using this skill for centuries.  Instead, teachers need to instruct students on how to collaborate with others who they may never meet face-to-face and may be across the world using various forms of technology.

     Dede also mentioned various frameworks that are developing based on these 21st century skills.  One of the frameworks is called the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21).  In this framework, unlike others, there is a section for "life skills".  P21 explains that teachers need to incorporate these into their teaching because they are essential skills that need to be taught in schools.  These skills include:

• leadership
• ethics
• accountability
• adaptability
• personal productivity
• personal responsibility
• people skills
• self-direction
• social responsibility

     Comparing Dede's research to that of Rotherham and Willingham's, how do we teach these skills to students?  What practice and professional development opportunities do teachers need in order to instruct their students on these 21st century skills?  Educators are going to have to reach out to other professions in the field (counselors, psychologists, teachers of the gifted and talented, etc.) to seek their advice and expertise.  Through my own graduate studies and research, I hope to provide some answers.  In the meantime, please feel free to comment and provide insight of your own. 

     Enjoy pondering these thoughts just as I have!

Erica :)