as a 21 century skill critical thinking includes

Integrating 21st century skills into education systems: From rhetoric to reality

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, ramya vivekanandan rv ramya vivekanandan senior education specialist, learning assessment systems - gpe secretariat.

February 14, 2019

This is the third post in a series about  education systems alignment in teaching, learning, and assessing 21st century skills .

What does it mean to be a successful learner or graduate in today’s world? While in years past, a solid acquisition of the “three Rs” (reading, writing, and arithmetic) and mastery in the core academic subjects may have been the measure of attainment, the world of the 21 st century requires a radically different orientation. To participate effectively in the increasingly complex societies and globalized economy that characterize today’s world, students need to think critically, communicate effectively, collaborate with diverse peers, solve complex problems, adopt a global mindset, and engage with information and communications technologies, to name but just a few requirements. The new report from Brookings, “ Education system alignment for 21st century skills: Focus on assessment ,” illuminates this imperative in depth.

Recognizing that traditional education systems have generally not been preparing learners to face such challenges, the global education community has increasingly talked about and mobilized in favor of the changes required. This has resulted in a suite of initiatives and research around the broad area of “21st century skills,” which culminated most notably with the adoption of Sustainable Development Goal 4 and the Education 2030 agenda, including Target 4.7, which commits countries to ensure that learners acquire knowledge and skills in areas such as sustainable development, human rights, gender equality, global citizenship, and others.

In this landscape, Global Partnership for Education (GPE) has a core mandate of improving equity and learning by strengthening education systems. GPE supports developing countries, many of which are affected by fragility and conflict, to develop and implement robust education sector plans. Depending on the country, GPE implementation grants support a broad range of activities including teacher training, textbook provision, interventions to promote girls’ education, incentives for marginalized groups, the strengthening of data and learning assessment systems, early childhood education, and many other areas.

This work is buttressed by thematic work at the global level, including in the area of learning assessment. The strengthening of learning assessment systems is a strategic priority for GPE because of its relevance to both improving learning outcomes and ensuring effective and efficient education systems, which are two of the three key goals of the GPE strategic plan for the 2016-2020 period . The work on learning assessment includes the Assessment for Learning (A4L) initiative, which aims to strengthen learning assessment systems and to promote a holistic measurement of learning.

Under A4L, we are undertaking a landscape review on the measurement of 21st century skills, using a definition derived from Binkley et. al . and Scoular and Care :

“21st century skills are tools that can be universally applied to enhance ways of thinking, learning, working and living in the world. The skills include critical thinking/reasoning, creativity/creative thinking, problem solving, metacognition, collaboration, communication and global citizenship. 21st century skills also include literacies such as reading literacy, writing literacy, numeracy, information literacy, ICT [information and communications technologies] digital literacy, communication and can be described broadly as learning domains.”

Using this lens, the landscape review examines the research literature, the efforts of GPE partners that have been active in this space, and data collected from a sample of countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia in regard to the assessment of these skills. These research efforts were led by Brookings and coordinated by the UNESCO offices in Dakar and Bangkok. As another important piece of this work, we are also taking stock of the latest education sector plans and implementation grants of these same countries (nine in sub-Saharan Africa and six in Asia), to explore the extent to which the integration of 21st century skills is reflected in sector plans and, vitally, in their implementation.

Though the work is in progress, the initial findings provide food for thought. Reflecting the conclusions of the new report by Brookings, as well as its earlier breadth of work on skills mapping, a large majority of these 15 countries note ambitious objectives related to 21st century skills in their education sector plans, particularly in their vision or mission statements and/or statements of policy priorities. “Skills” such as creativity and innovation, critical thinking, problem-solving, decisionmaking, life and career skills, citizenship, personal and social responsibility, and information and communications technology literacy were strongly featured, as opposed to areas such as collaboration, communication, information literacy, and metacognition.

However, when we look at the planned interventions noted in these sector plans, there is not a strong indication that countries plan to operationalize their intentions to promote 21st century skills. Not surprisingly then, when we look at their implementation grants, which are one of the financing instruments through which education sector plans are implemented, only two of the 15 grants examined include activities aimed at promoting 21st century skills among their program components. Because the GPE model mandates that national governments determine the program components and allocation of resources for these within their grant, the bottom line seems to echo the findings of the Brookings report: vision and aspiration are rife, but action is scarce.

While the sample of countries studied in this exercise is small (and other countries’ education sector plans and grants may well include integration of 21st century skills), it’s the disconnect between the 15 countries’ policy orientation around these skills and their implementation that is telling. Why this gap? Why, if countries espouse the importance of 21st century skills in their sector plans, do they not concretely move to addressing them in their implementation? The reasons for this may be manifold, but the challenges highlighted by the Brookings report in terms of incorporating a 21 st century learning agenda in education systems are indeed telling. As a field, we still have much work to do to understand the nature of these skills, to develop learning progressions for them, and to design appropriate and authentic assessment of them. In other words, it may be that countries have difficulty in imagining how to move from rhetoric to reality.

However, in another perspective, there may be a challenge associated with how countries (and the broader education community) perceive 21st century skills in general. In contexts of limited resources, crowded curricula, inadequately trained teachers, fragility, weak governance, and other challenges that are characteristic of GPE partner countries, there is sometimes an unfortunate tendency to view 21st century skills and the “basics” as a tradeoff. In such settings, there can be a perception that 21st century skills are the concern of more advanced or higher-income countries. It is thus no wonder that, in the words of the Brookings report, “a global mobilization of efforts to respond to the 21CS [21st century skills] shift is non-existent, and individual countries struggle alone to plan the shift.”

This suggests that those who are committed to a holistic view of education have much work to do in terms of research, sharing of experience, capacity building, and advocacy around the potential and need for all countries, regardless of context, to move in this direction. The Brookings report makes a very valuable contribution in this regard. GPE’s landscape review, which will be published this spring, will inform how the partnership thinks about and approaches 21st century skills in its work and will thereby provide a complementary perspective.

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Instructing & Assessing 21st Century Skills: A Focus on Critical Thinking

Research and Best Practices: One in a Series on 21st Century Skills

For the full collection of related blog posts and literature reviews, see the Center for Assessment’s toolkit, Assessing 21 st Century Skills .

Educational philosophers from Plato and Socrates to John Dewey highlighted the importance of critical thinking and the intrinsic value of instruction that reaches beyond simple factual recall. However there is considerable dispute about how to define critical thinking, let alone instruct and assess students’ critical thinking over time. This post briefly defines critical thinking, explains what we know from the research about how critical thinking develops and is best instructed, and provides an overview of some major assessment issues. Our full literature review on critical thinking can be accessed  here .

Overall, findings from the literature suggest that critical thinking involves both cognitive skills  and  dispositions. These two aspects are captured in a consensus definition reached by a panel of leading critical thinking scholars and researchers and reported in the Delphi Report:

“purposeful, self-regulatory  judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation  of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgment is based”  ( Facione, 1990 , p. 3).

Debate continues about the extent to which critical thinking is generic or discipline-specific. If critical thinking is generic, then it arguably could be taught in separate courses, with the sole focus being on the development of critical thinking skills. However, if critical thinking is particular to a discipline, the instruction to develop it must be embedded within disciplinary content. Though debate exists, we argue that what constitutes critical thinking in science likely differs somewhat from what constitutes critical thinking in history or art. Therefore, critical thinking is best understood as discipline-specific with some transferable, generic commonalities.

Critical thinking is also intertwined with other cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal competencies. For example, many researchers have connected creativity and critical thinking. Furthermore, one’s ability to demonstrate critical thinking relies on effective communication, metacognition, self-direction, motivation, and other related competencies.

Development

Adults do not always employ critical thinking when it’s called for. Many find personal experience more compelling than logical thought or empirical evidence. That said, research suggests that even young children can demonstrate aspects of critical thinking.

However, little is known about how critical thinking skills and dispositions develop; there are no empirically-validated learning progressions of critical thinking skills and dispositions. Indeed, the Delphi Report cautioned that its framework for critical thinking should not be interpreted as implying a developmental progression or hierarchical taxonomy.

Instruction

Empirical research shows that critical thinking can be taught and that some specific instructional approaches and strategies promote more critical thinking. These instructional approaches include explicit teaching of disciplinary content within a course that also teaches critical thinking skills.

Instructional strategies that promote critical thinking include providing…

• Opportunities for students to solve problems with multiple solutions,
• Structure that allows students to respond to open-ended questions and formulate solutions to problems, and
• A variety of learning activities that allow students to choose and engage in solving authentic problems.

Implications of Research for Classroom Assessment Design

Critical thinking is typically assessed within content areas. For example, students analyze evidence, construct arguments, and evaluate the veracity of information and arguments in relation to disciplinary core ideas and content. Assessing students’ level of sophistication with critical thinking skills and dispositions requires close attention to the nature of the task used to elicit students’ critical thinking. Assessments must be thoughtfully designed and structured to (a) prompt complex judgments; (b) include open-ended tasks that allow for multiple, defensible solutions; and (c) make student reasoning visible to teachers. Each is discussed in detail below.

• Assessment tasks should prompt complex judgments.  While some students may exhibit critical thinking without being prompted, most student responses will rise or sink to what the task requires. Therefore, the materials (visual, texts, etc.) used to elicit students’ critical thinking are crucial and have a sizable impact on the extent to which critical thinking is elicited in any given assessment experience. If the task doesn’t ask students to think critically, they likely will not demonstrate evidence of critical thinking. The task, embedded in projects or other curriculum activities, must be designed and structured thoughtfully to elicit students’ critical thinking.
• Assessment tasks should include open-ended tasks.  Open-ended tasks are the opposite of traditional standardized assessments, which rely heavily on selected-response item types that assess limited aspects of critical thinking and other 21 st  century skills ( Ku, 2009 ;  Lai & Viering, 2012 ). Open-ended tasks allow students to decide what information is relevant, how to use the information, and how to demonstrate their understanding of the information; open-ended tasks also allow multiple solution pathways. In contrast, closed tasks typically have one correct solution, and the teacher indicates what information is relevant and how the information is to be presented.
• Assessment tasks should make student thinking visible to teachers.  To provide formative feedback regarding the quality of students’ critical thinking, teachers must administer assessment tasks that render student thinking visible. This can be accomplished in multiple ways, but their commonality is that all approaches likely will require students to provide written or verbal evidence that support their claims, judgments, assertions, and so on.

For a more complete discussion of the topics covered in this post, the full literature review on critical thinking is available  here .

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The ABCs of Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Matters

January 10, 2024 por Valentina Gimenez Leave a Comment

Thinking is a natural act for human beings. Every day, we have thousands of thoughts. However, just because we are thinking does not mean we are doing it well or that all our thoughts require critical reasoning because doing so would be too exhausting. Critical thinking becomes a core skill in a world that is changing so dynamically. Thinking critically not only helps with generating a well-founded personal opinion but also helps solve complex problems in many ways.

Given the importance of this skill, the good news is that critical thinking can be exercised and trained. In other words, this 21st-century skill can be intentionally taught. Below, we will explain how.

What Is Critical Thinking?

According to the publication of the brief series Life Skills. Fostering Critical Thinking by the 21st Century Skills Initiative, “critical thinking mainly aims at assessing the strength and appropriateness of a statement, theory, or idea through a questioning  and  perspective-taking  process, which  may  or  may  not  in  turn  result in a possibly novel statement or  theory.”

Furthermore, in this publication by Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin , it is argued that “critical thinking need not lead to an original position to a problem. The most conventional one may be the most appropriate. However, it typically involves examining and evaluating different possible positions”.

In other words, it is not limited to solving problems after a reflection. It is also about being able and willing to challenge the core assumptions of accepted theories, paradigms, or knowledge.

Critical thinking implies recognizing that other perspectives may also have merit and, therefore, evaluating each argument or theory’s possible strengths, weaknesses, and biases is possible, no matter how unaligned they are with what we think.

Critical thinking involves using logic, reasoning, and creativity to reach conclusions.

Why Is Critical Thinking Important?

Critical thinking is a skill that has applications in practically all aspects of daily life. It can help you make better decisions, improve employability, and better understand the world. In other words, critical thinking is a fundamental skill for being a 21st-century citizen.

What Is Critical Thinking Used For?

Critical thinking has various functionalities in everyday life, whether in fulfilling professional obligations or carrying out personal activities. Thinking critically is used to:

• Make good decisions : it is important as an exercise to analyze and evaluate sources of information based on their truthfulness, relevance, and reasoning, which leads to better decision-making. Ask or question before blindly accepting things as they appear, and form your judgment based on the facts, information, and knowledge available.
• Solve problems: use logic and reasoning to analyze and deconstruct problems and choose the best solutions considering the weaknesses and strengths of each alternative solution.
• Promote creativity : this is one of the main characteristics of critical thinking and is associated with the previous point, by questioning facts, theories, or concepts, space is also opened up which is very useful for developing new solutions to problems.
• Improve employability: especially in the digital age, where many jobs are being automated, there is consensus that critical thinking and creativity are two fundamental skills for improving people’s employment prospects.
• Digital and global citizenship : Critical thinking plays a role in individual well-being, but above all, it is considered an essential pillar of the functioning of modern democracies. The ability to voice an independent and well-founded opinion to vote and weigh the quality of arguments presented in the media and other sources of information. In addition, when misinformation, fallacies, and fake news can be a problem for democratic systems, critical thinking helps prevent the spread of false information. It contributes verified, respectful, and ethical content to digital communities and social networks.

4 Steps to Exercise Critical Thinking

According to the publication on critical thinking, there are four key cognitive processes involved in exercising critical thinking:

Determining and understanding the problem is an important first dimension of a critical thinking inquisitive process. This sometimes includes asking why the problem is posed in a certain way, examining whether associated solutions or claims can be based on inaccurate facts or reasoning, and identifying knowledge gaps. This inquiry process partly concerns rational thinking (checking facts, observing, and analyzing reasoning). Still, it includes a more ‘critical’ dimension when identifying possible limitations of the solution and questioning some of the underlying assumptions and interpretations, even when the facts are accurate.

In critical thinking, imagination plays an important role in the mental elaboration of an idea, but all thinking involves some level of imagination. At a higher level, imagination also consists of identifying and reviewing alternative or competing worldviews and theories with an open mind to consider the problem from multiple perspectives.

This allows for a better identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed evidence, arguments, and assumptions, although this evaluation also belongs to the inquisitive process.

The product of critical thinking is one’s position or solution to a problem or judgment about others’ positions or solutions. This mainly involves good inference, a balance between different ways of looking at the problem, and, therefore, recognition of its possible complexities.

As with good thinking, critical thinking involves the ability to argue and justify one’s position rationally, with relevant information, under existing perspectives and socially recognized forms of reasoning, or possibly some new ones.

4. Reflect or evaluate

Finally, although one may consider their stance or way of thinking to be superior to some alternatives, perhaps because it encompasses a broader view or is better supported by existing evidence, critical thinking involves some process of self-reflection on the perspective one espouses, It is possible limitations, and uncertainties. Therefore, this type of thinking implies a certain level of humility, as thinking critically also involves openness to competing ideas.

While one should not adopt ancient skepticism and suspend judgment in all cases, sometimes this may be the most appropriate position.

You may also be interested: 4 Benefits of Developing Listening Skills and the Steps to Achieve It

How to Be a Critical Thinker?

Being a critical thinker brings enormous benefits that go beyond the workplace. It is also good for personal development and daily life in the community. So how do you achieve it?

To be a critical thinker you have to exercise other habits and skills, such as fostering curiosity, questioning the established, improving analysis and communication skills, maintaining self-discipline and being alert to cognitive biases.

Let’s review some of the key skills acquired by great critical thinkers:

• Identify relationships between variables and hypothesis testing.
• Master systemic thinking and scientific reasoning.
• Understand the underlying social, natural, and technological relationships in a system.
• Exercise informational literacy, which includes understanding, finding, and obtaining data, reading, interpreting, evaluating, and handling data.
• Avoid cognitive biases; consider all available information, not just what aligns with your point of view.
• Create a strategy, theory, method, or argument based on evidence synthesis.
• Create an argument that goes beyond the available information.
• Computational thinking: for example, abstractions and generalizations of patterns, structured problem decomposition, and iterative thinking.
• Be able to criticize a work product regarding its credibility, relevance, and bias using a set of standards or a specific framework.

These activities to promote critical thinking can be driven at home, at school, or individually.

Teaching Critical Thinking

Although education systems do not usually have a subject specifically dedicated to developing critical thinking, this skill can be developed as part of other learning. Therefore, the publication “Life Skills: Fostering Critical Thinking” develops some strategies for teaching this skill in schools.

Including Critical Thinking in Education

• Use conceptual rubrics that clarify the skills involved.
• Include critical thinking as a learning objective in lesson plans.
• Provide students with tasks and problems that encourage them to question their cognitive abilities and assumptions and explore multiple perspectives.
• Generate an environment in which students feel safe to take risks expressing their thoughts and expressions that arise from their reasoning.
• Assess critical thinking by including it in exams and national assessments.

By fostering these strategies at all educational levels, students can be better prepared for the future with critical thinking skills and improve the quality of their education.

And you, do you consider yourself a critical thinker? How has exercising critical thinking helped you in your life? Check out our blog and discover more content to boost your critical thinking!

Valentina Gimenez

Valentina Giménez es coordinadora de comunicación de la División de Educación en el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Es uruguaya. Fue periodista y productora de contenidos, especializada en temas políticos. Ha trabajado para televisión y prensa escrita. Tiene un MBA por la UCU Business School y es Licenciada en Comunicación Social por la Universidad Católica del Uruguay. Fue consultora en asuntos públicos y comunicación estratégica en su país.

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Communication Skills | 21st Century Skills

What Are the 4 C's of 21st Century Skills?

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March 26th, 2024 | 9 min. read

Brad Hummel

Coming from a family of educators, Brad knows both the joys and challenges of teaching well. Through his own teaching background, he’s experienced both firsthand. As a writer for iCEV, Brad’s goal is to help teachers empower their students by listening to educators’ concerns and creating content that answers their most pressing questions about career and technical education.

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As a middle or high school career readiness teacher, you likely need to teach 21st century skills as part of your curriculum.

While all twelve of those skills are necessary to teach, the "four C's" are often considered to be the most important. 

The four C’s of 21st Century skills  are:

• Critical thinking
• Collaboration
• Communication

These four skills are essential for modern students to succeed in school and the workplace.

They often make the biggest impact in terms of setting your students apart when applying for positions and starting their careers.

In this article, you'll discover what each skill entails and why they are so important to teach.

You'll also be able to download a free guide on how you can teach the 4 C's of 21st Century skills in middle or high school courses.

1. Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the practice of solving problems, among other qualities.

In addition to working through problems , solving puzzles, and similar activities, critical thinking also includes an element of skepticism.

This is important in the 21st Century because it’s harder than ever to verify accurate information (mostly thanks to the internet).

Critical thinking empowers students to discover the truth in assertions, especially when it comes to separating fact from opinion.

With critical thinking, students don’t just learn a set of facts or figures. Instead, they learn how to discover the facts and figures for themselves.

Through asking questions, learners become engaged in the world around them. Then they can help spread their knowledge to their peers, helping others to think critically, too. Students sharing the knowledge they've mastered with others might be the most important aspect of developing critical thinking skills.

Whether they learn how to think critically from spending time online or simply asking “Why?” in everyday life, this skill prepares students for a life of independence and purposeful thought.

Still, critical thinking is just one of the four C’s in 21st Century skills.

It works just fine when students use it alone. But when students combine it with the   next   skill, the sky is the limit to what they can achieve. 

2. Creativity

Creativity is the practice of thinking outside the box.

While creativity is often treated like a you-have-it-or-you-don’t quality, students can   learn   how to be creative by solving problems, creating systems, or just trying something they haven’t tried before. 

That doesn’t mean every student will become an artist or a writer. Instead, it means they’ll be able to look at a problem from multiple perspectives — including those that others may not see.

Creativity allows students to embrace their inner strengths from big-picture planning to meticulous organization . As students learn about their creativity, they also learn how to express it in healthy and productive ways.

More importantly, they also become   motivated   to share that creativity with others. Just like with critical thinking, that makes creativity contagious.

When a student creates an interesting or innovative  solution to a problem , the next student can become inspired to try something similar.

That’s not to say every single creative endeavor will be a ringing success. Students will fail at some point, and some of their ideas simply won’t work. But that’s okay.

The point of creativity is to encourage students to think differently than convention demands. They don’t have to do things the way they’ve always been done. Instead, they can figure out a better way.

Students don’t have to embrace their creativity alone, either. In fact, creativity works best when combined with the next 21st Century skill .

3. Collaboration

Collaboration   is the practice of working together to achieve a common goal.

Collaboration   is important because whether students realize it or not, they’ll probably work with other people for the rest of their lives.

Virtually every job requires someone to work with another person at some point, even if it’s for something as simple as what to get for lunch.

Practicing collaboration and teamwork helps students understand how to address a problem, pitch solutions, and decide the best course of action.

It’s also helpful for them to learn that other people don’t always have the same ideas that they do. In fact, as students practice collaboration more and more, they’ll learn that they have almost   none   of the same ideas that others do.

This can affect students in one of two ways. First, it could discourage them since nobody seems to agree with them that often. Second, it could embolden them because they realize they’re bringing something unique to every conversation.

As a teacher, it’s crucial that you encourage students to look at themselves through that second lens. That way, students learn that they should speak up when they have an idea.

Even when their ideas aren't the best suited to the problem, speaking up and sharing their solutions can help them when collaborating with others.

4. Communication

Communication is the practice of conveying ideas quickly and clearly.

Communication   is often taken for granted in today’s society. After all, if you say something, that means you conveyed an idea, right?

But in the age of text-based communications — including texting, emails, and social media — it’s never been more important for students to learn how to convey their thoughts in a way that others can understand them.

That’s because text-based communications lack   tone , which is critical to understanding the context of someone’s words.

Still, even in situations where vocal tone is available, students need to learn how to communicate effectively. That includes minimizing tangents, speaking directly to an idea, and checking other participants to make sure they’re engaged.

Reading an audience — even if it’s just two other people in a group discussion — lets students determine whether they should keep expanding on an idea or wrap up their point. Their audience could even be their family at Thanksgiving dinner.

The point is that as students practice communication, they become better at efficiently conveying an idea without losing their point—or their audience.

When they master the art of effective communication, students can streamline their ideas and make a positive impression on those around them.

Still, it’s important to note that communication isn’t enough on its own to help students with 21st Century skills. To really succeed, students need to use all four of these skills together.

How Do the Four C’s Work Together?

The four C’s of 21st Century skills work together as a system to help students comprehensively understand subjects and navigate living and working in the 21st century.

Because each of the four C's are general skills that help students throughout their personal and professional lives, they are essential qualities that people need to succeed in a wide range of situations.

Each of the four C's cover interrelated concepts paramount to being an educated person:

• Critical thinking teaches students to question claims and seek truth.
• Creativity teaches students to think in a way that’s unique to them.
• Collaboration teaches students that groups can create something bigger and better than you can on your own.
• Communication teaches students how to efficiently convey ideas.

Combined, the four C’s empower students to be discerning people capable of expressing themselves and working with others to find insightful solutions to everyday challenges.

When working together, learners who have mastered the four C's of 21st century skills have ability to make a profound impact on both their professional workplaces and their communities.

How Do You Teach the Four C's of 21st Century Skills?

Now you know what the four C's of 21st Century skills are and why employers want new hires to have them.

So now you're probably wondering how to teach 21st Century skills in your daily middle and high school classes.

Click below to get your free guide on teaching  critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication!

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A Comprehensive Guide to 21st Century Skills

Jenna Buckle

The concept of "21st century skills" isn't new—skills like critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving have been taught in classrooms for decades. 

Yet, as the demands of our changing economy rise, many school districts are now including 21st century skills in strategic plans to better prepare students for college, career, and life.

What are 21st century skills, why do they matter, and how can your district implement 21st century learning strategies into curriculum, assessment, and instruction? This guide shares information, research, and examples to bring you up to speed.

Table of Contents

1. What Are 21st Century Skills?

2. The Importance of 21st Century Skills

3. Frameworks and Examples of 21st Century Skills

4. 21st Century Learning Strategies and Implementation

5. Additional Resources

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What Are 21st Century Skills?

Districts, schools, and organizations prioritize different 21st century skills depending on what is most important to their respective communities. Generally, however, educators agree that schools must weave these skills into learning experiences and common core instruction. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the most commonly cited 21st century skills.

• Critical thinking
• Communication skills
• Problem solving
• Perseverance
• Collaboration
• Information literacy
• Technology skills and digital literacy
• Media literacy
• Global awareness
• Self-direction
• Social skills
• Literacy skills
• Civic literacy
• Social responsibility
• Innovation skills
• Thinking skills

The Importance of 21st Century Skills

While the bar used to be high school graduation, the bar for today's students is now college, career, and real-world success. Let’s take a look at why 21st century skills matter.

• Higher-education and business leaders cite soft skills as being the most important driver of success in higher-level courses and in the workplace.
• In today’s world, our schools are preparing students for jobs that might not yet exist. Career readiness means equipping students with a nuanced set of skills that can prepare them for the unknown.
• Social media has changed human interaction and created new challenges in navigating social situations.
• The age of the Internet has dramatically increased access to knowledge. Students need to learn how to process and analyze large amounts of information.
• Content knowledge from core subjects can only go so far; students need to be taught how to apply facts and ideas towards complex problems.

We've reviewed the definition of 21st century skills and why they're important in a changing world. Now, let's review a few frameworks and how school districts are putting 21st century learning into practice.

Frameworks for 21st Century Skills

The framework for 21st century learning.

This popular framework was designed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) . Describing the skills, knowledge, and expertise students must master to succeed in work and life, the framework combines content knowledge, specific skills, expertise, and literacies. P21 believes that the "base" of 21st century learning is the acquisition of key academic subject knowledge, and that schools must build on that base with additional skills including Learning Skills, Life Skills, and Literacy Skills.

• Learning Skills: Also known as the "four Cs" of 21st century learning, these include critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.
• Life Skills: Flexibility, initiative, social skills, productivity, leadership
• Literacy Skills: Information literacy, media literacy, technology literacy

World Health Organization 

The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies the fundamental life skills as decision-making and problem solving, creative thinking and critical thinking, communication and interpersonal skills, self-awareness and empathy, and coping with emotions and stress. The WHO focuses on broad psychosocial skills that can be improved over time with conscious effort.

Redefining Ready! Initiative 

The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) Redefining Ready! initiative offers a framework that many districts use to define college, career, and life readiness. AASA provides readiness indicators to capture the educational landscape of the 21st century. Metrics include Advanced Placement courses, standardized testing, college credits, industry credentials, attendance, community service, and more. On the topic of life readiness, AASA argues:

School District Frameworks

21st century skills take hold in various ways for school districts. A " Portrait of a Graduate " is one common strategy for communicating what it means for students to be college, career, and future ready. To develop a profile of a graduate, districts often adapt existing 21st century skill frameworks to fit their needs. Input from stakeholders—such as the district board, teachers, parents, partner organizations, and students—ensures that the final "portrait" is authentic to their community. Here are some Portrait of a Graduate examples.

Everett Public Schools in Everett, Washington defines 21st century skills as citizenship, collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, and growth mindset. The district believes that graduates are college, career, and life ready when they have the academic knowledge, attitudes, and skills to transition to college level coursework, workforce training, and/or employment.

Gresham-Barlow School District (GBSD) in Gresham, Oregon has a mission to develop culturally responsive graduates who will thrive in an ever-changing global community. The district’s Portrait of a Graduate represents the GBSD community's collective vision of what their graduates should look like. The portrait consists of six learner profiles: Independent Lifelong Learner, Adaptable Collaborator, Compassionate Communicator, Responsible Creator, Open-Minded Critical Thinker, and Globally Aware Community Member.

Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District (SCUC ISD) in Schertz, Texas has a strategic goal around graduating college and/or career and/or military ready students. Within this vision, SCUC ISD has outlined five Traits of a Graduate: Dynamic Leader, Self-Motivated, Skilled Communicator, Service Oriented, and Future Ready.

Council Bluffs Community School District in Council Bluffs, Iowa, developed a Profile of a FutureReady Graduate that encompasses both academic and social-emotional indicators of success. The district’s social-emotional indicators—aligned to the CASEL framework—include Self-Management, Self Awareness, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills, and Responsible Decision Making.

North Kansas City Schools just north of Kansas City, Missouri, identified seven competencies that span time, space, jobs, and occupations, ensuring that students' life skills are highly transferable. The district's competencies—developed with input from students, community and business leaders, teachers, and administrators—include Adaptability, Communication, Collaboration, Empathy, Integrity, Learner's Mindset, and Problem Solving. 

Download our guide to developing your district's own vision for college, career, and life readiness

21st Century Learning Strategies & Implementation

Having a strong vision for 21st century learning is just the first step. Without an intentionally designed plan for implementation, it's unlikely that your students will acquire the skills outlined in your district's vision. Here are some best practices from Panorama's partner districts to set you up for success.

1. Build staff capacity to demonstrate 21st century skills in support of student learning.

It all starts with the adults in your building. Teachers and staff need to deeply understand and model the skills that you want your students to develop. Integrate 21st century skills into staff professional development as a precursor to growing these competencies in students. Download our Adult SEL Toolkit for ideas, worksheets, and activities to build adult SEL.

2. Develop strategies to support teachers with implementation of 21st century skills.

It can be helpful to create a playbook of recommended strategies and approaches that span across content areas. For instance, you might encourage teachers to add comments to report cards about students' 21st century skills.

3. Assess students’ 21st century learning skills.

What gets measured matters. Regularly collect data on how students are progressing in this area, whether the data is anecdotal, qualitative, or quantitative. For example, you might administer a biannual survey in which students reflect on their development of 21st century, social-emotional skills . Keep in mind that the data you gather should be formative rather than evaluative. Be transparent about the purpose.

4. Equip educators with data to proactively identify and support students who are off track.

Once you have data on students' 21st century skills, you'll want to ensure that the data is actionable for educators. Many districts opt to implement an early warning system with indicators across academics, attendance, behavior, and social-emotional learning/21st century skills. This helps educators make data-driven decisions about the best way to keep each student on track.

Additional Resources

Looking for more information on 21st century skills? Here are some other articles and resources to explore:

• "Why Social and Emotional Learning and Employability Skills Should Be Prioritized in Education" via CASEL and Committee for Children 
• "Teaching 21st Century Skills For 21st Century Success Requires An Ecosystem Approach" via Forbes
• "Bringing 21st Century Skill Development to the Forefront of K-12 Education" via Hanover Research
• "How Do You Define 21st-Century Learning?" via Education Week

Honing in on 21st century skills is essential to ensuring that students are prepared for college, career, and civic life . While there is no one "right" way to approach this work, we hope that the information in this guide inspires you to explore what 21st century learning could look like in your district!

Develop students' 21st century skills with Panorama's Social-Emotional Learning Survey

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Panorama social-emotional learning survey.

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Created by the Great Schools Partnership , the GLOSSARY OF EDUCATION REFORM is a comprehensive online resource that describes widely used school-improvement terms, concepts, and strategies for journalists, parents, and community members. | Learn more »

21st Century Skills

The term 21 st century skills refers to a broad set of knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits that are believed—by educators, school reformers, college professors, employers, and others—to be critically important to success in today’s world, particularly in collegiate programs and contemporary careers and workplaces. Generally speaking, 21 st century skills can be applied in all academic subject areas, and in all educational, career, and civic settings throughout a student’s life.

It should be noted that the “21 st century skills” concept encompasses a wide-ranging and amorphous body of knowledge and skills that is not easy to define and that has not been officially codified or categorized. While the term is widely used in education, it is not always defined consistently, which can lead to confusion and divergent interpretations. In addition, a number of related terms—including applied skills , cross-curricular skills , cross-disciplinary skills , interdisciplinary skills , transferable skills , transversal skills , noncognitive skills , and soft skills , among others—are also widely used in reference to the general forms of knowledge and skill commonly associated with 21 st  century skills. While these different terms may not be strictly synonymous, and they may have divergent or specialized meanings in certain technical contexts, these diverse sets of skills are being addressed in this one entry for the purposes of practicality and usefulness.

While the specific skills deemed to be “21 st century skills” may be defined, categorized, and determined differently from person to person, place to place, or school to school, the term does reflect a general—if somewhat loose and shifting—consensus. The following list provides a brief illustrative overview of the knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits commonly associated with 21 st century skills:

• Critical thinking, problem solving, reasoning, analysis, interpretation, synthesizing information
• Research skills and practices, interrogative questioning
• Creativity, artistry, curiosity, imagination, innovation, personal expression
• Perseverance, self-direction, planning, self-discipline, adaptability, initiative
• Oral and written communication, public speaking and presenting, listening
• Leadership, teamwork, collaboration, cooperation, facility in using virtual workspaces
• Information and communication technology (ICT) literacy, media and internet literacy, data interpretation and analysis, computer programming
• Civic, ethical, and social-justice literacy
• Economic and financial literacy, entrepreneurialism
• Global awareness, multicultural literacy, humanitarianism
• Scientific literacy and reasoning, the scientific method
• Environmental and conservation literacy, ecosystems understanding
• Health and wellness literacy, including nutrition, diet, exercise, and public health and safety

While many individuals and organizations have proposed definitions of 21 st century skills, and most states have adopted learning standards that include or address cross-disciplinary skills, the following are three popular models that can serve to illustrate the concept and its applications in education:

• Framework for 21 st Century Learning  (The Partnership for 21 st Century Skills)
• Four Keys to College and Career Readiness  (David T. Conley and the Educational Policy Improvement Center)
• Seven Survival Skills  (Tony Wagner and the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education)

For related discussions, see content knowledge and learning standards .

Generally speaking, the 21 st century skills concept is motivated by the belief that teaching students the most relevant, useful, in-demand, and universally applicable skills should be prioritized in today’s schools, and by the related belief that many schools may not sufficiently prioritize such skills or effectively teach them to students. The basic idea is that students, who will come of age in the 21 st century, need to be taught different skills than those learned by students in the 20 th century, and that the skills they learn should reflect the specific demands that will placed upon them in a complex, competitive, knowledge-based, information-age, technology-driven economy and society.

While 21 st century skills are relevant to all areas of schooling and academic study, and the skills may be taught in a wide variety of in-school and outside-of-school settings, there are a few primary ways in which 21 st century skills intersect with efforts to improve schools:

• Teachers may be more intentional about teaching cross-disciplinary skills in subject-area courses. For example, in a science course students might be required to learn research methods that can also be applied in other disciplines; articulate technical scientific concepts in verbal, written, and graphic forms; present lab results to a panel of working scientists; or use sophisticated technologies, software programs, and multimedia applications as an extension of an assigned project.
• States, accrediting organizations, and schools may require 21 st century skills to be taught and assessed in courses. For example, states can adopt learning standards that explicitly describe cross-disciplinary skills, and assessments may be designed or modified to evaluate whether students have acquired and mastered certain skills.
• Schools and teachers may use educational approaches that inherently encourage or facilitate the acquisition of cross-disciplinary skills. For example, educational strategies such as authentic learning , demonstrations of learning , or  project-based learning tend to be cross-disciplinary in nature, and students—in the process of completing a research project, for example—may have to use a variety of applied skills, multiple technologies, and new ways of analyzing and processing information, while also taking initiative, thinking creatively, planning out the process, and working collaboratively in teams with other students.
• Schools may allow students to pursue alternative learning pathways in which students earn academic credit and satisfy graduation requirements by completing an internship, apprenticeship, or volunteer experience, for example. In this case, students might acquire a variety of practical, job-related skills and work habits, while also completing academic coursework and meeting the same learning standards required of students in more traditional academic courses.

While there is broad agreement that today’s students need different skills than were perhaps taught to previous generations, and that cross-disciplinary skills such as writing, critical thinking, self-initiative, group collaboration, and technological literacy are essential to success in higher education, modern workplaces, and adult life, there is still a great deal of debate about 21 st century skills—from what skills are most important to how such skills should be taught to their appropriate role in public education. Given that there is no clear consensus on what skills specifically constitute “21 st century skills,” the concept tends to be interpreted and applied in different ways from state to state or school to school, which can lead to ambiguity, confusion, and inconsistency.

Calls for placing a greater emphasis on cross-disciplinary skills in public education are, generally speaking, a response to the perception that most public schools pay insufficient attention to the postsecondary preparation and success of students. In other words, the concept has become a touchstone in a larger debate about what public schools should be teaching and what the purpose of public education should be. For example: Is the purpose of public education to get students to pass a test and earn a high school diploma? Or is the purpose to prepare students for success in higher education and modern careers? The push to prioritize 21 st century skills is typically motivated by the belief that all students should be equipped with the knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits they will need to pursue continued education and challenging careers after graduation, and that a failure to adequately prepare students effectively denies them opportunities, with potentially significant consequences for our economy, democracy, and society.

A related debate centers on the distinction between “knowledge” and “skills,” and how schools and teachers may interpret—or misinterpret—the concepts. Some educators argue that it’s not possible to teach cross-disciplinary skills separately from knowledge and conceptual understanding—for example, students can’t learn to write well if they don’t have ideas, facts, principles, and philosophies to write about. The basic idea is that “21 st century skills” is an artificial concept that can’t be separated out from subject-area knowledge and instruction. Other educators may argue that cross-disciplinary skills have historically been ignored or under-prioritized in schools, and the push to give more emphasis and attention to these skills is simply a commonsense response to a changing world.

The following list provides a few additional examples of representative arguments that may be made in support of teaching 21 st century skills:

• In today’s world, information and knowledge are increasing at such an astronomical rate that no one can learn everything about every subject, what may appear true today could be proven to be false tomorrow, and the jobs that students will get after they graduate may not yet exist. For this reason, students need to be taught how to process, parse, and use information, and they need adaptable skills they can apply in all areas of life—just teaching them ideas and facts, without teaching them how to use them in real-life settings, is no longer enough.
• Schools need to adapt and develop new ways of teaching and learning that reflect a changing world. The purpose of school should be to prepare students for success after graduation, and therefore schools need to prioritize the knowledge and skills that will be in the greatest demand, such as those skills deemed to be most important by college professors and employers. Only teaching students to perform well in school or on a test is no longer sufficient.
• Given the widespread availability of information today, students no longer need teachers to lecture to them on the causes of the Civil War, for example, because that information is readily available—and often in more engaging formats that a typical classroom lecture. For this reason, educators should use in-school time to teach students how to find, interpret, and use information, rather than using most or all of the time to present information.

The following list provides a few examples of representative arguments that may be made against the concept of 21 st century skills:

• Public schools and teachers have always taught, and will continue to teach, cross-disciplinary skills—they just never gave it a label. The debate over “content vs. skills” is not new—educators have been talking about and wrestling with these issues for a century—which makes the term “21 st century skills” somewhat misleading and inaccurate.
• Focusing too much on cross-disciplinary skills could water-down academic courses, and students may not get “the basics.” The more time teachers spend on skill-related instruction, the less time they will have for content-based instruction. And if schools privilege cross-disciplinary skills over content knowledge , students may be denied opportunities because they are insufficiently knowledgeable. Students need a broad knowledge base, which they won’t receive if teachers focus too much on skill-related instruction or “learning how to learn.”
• Cross-disciplinary skills are extremely difficult to assess reliably and consistently. There are no formal tests for 21 st century skills, so the public won’t know how well schools are doing in teaching these skills.

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21st Century Skills: Everything You Need to Know (2023)

Understanding 21st Century Skills

Our 21st-century world is vastly different. In the past two decades— even just the past two years— so much has changed. And that’s usually a problem in education, an institution rooted in tradition and historically struggling to keep up with the times. Our technology has changed everything. Covid-19 has hijacked our timelines, propelling change and calling for adaptability at an incredible rate and scale.

In education and in our world in general, the stakes are higher and time is of the essence. Not understanding the sciences and humanities can have farther-reaching effects than ever before. What we do, learn, think, say, post, and tweet on one side of the world does now affect people on the other side, too. Our education needs to reflect this new world and prepare our children with the skills needed to succeed within it.

What are 21st Century Skills?

The term “21st century skills” is generally used to refer to certain core competencies such as collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving that advocates believe schools need to teach to help students thrive in today’s world. In a broader sense, however, the idea of what learning in the 21st century should look like is open to interpretation—and controversy. (Richard Allington, Professor of Education, University of Tennessee; Early-Reading Expert)

What future-ready skills do our children need in this ever-shrinking, post-pandemic society? Working backwards from the objective, what is the end goal of a 21st-century education? What should it mean to be a high school graduate in the US education system? Although there are a variety of perspectives that span global and US societies, The Brookings Institution has found that, across these many cultures, “there is a common drive for individuals who are literate and numerate, with knowledge of global societies, who understand the scientific principles that underlie how the physical world operates, and who have the competencies and skills to function adaptively and effectively within their immediate environments, globally, and virtually” (2018). This latest, pervasively common 21st-century view favours a globally conscious and more diverse and inclusive scope of learning.

The Shift to 21st Century Skills

The Brookings Institution , known for its nonpartisan, in-depth research, has been following closely and speculating the best ways for educators to handle this shift to 21st Century Skills (21CS), which are based on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (2016). They derive their definition of 21CS from Binkley et. al . and Scoular and Care : “21st-century skills are tools that can be universally applied to enhance ways of thinking, learning, working and living in the world. The skills include critical thinking/reasoning, creativity/creative thinking, problem-solving, metacognition, collaboration, communication and global citizenship.” These 21st Century Skills also include the many literacies such as reading, writing, numeracy, information, technology, etc., but these are not severe shifts from previous models.

As Brookings Institution’s Esther Care, Helyn Kim, Alvin Vista, and Kate Anderson present in their paper (2018) on “Education System Alignment for 21st Century Skills,” there are a few big challenges in the implementation of these future-ready skills in an education system— requiring a clear understanding of the nature of 21CS, a strong perception of different competency levels, and a solid grasp on how to design appropriate and authentic assessments. “[I]t may be that countries have difficulty in imagining how to move from rhetoric to reality.”

What 21st Century Skills Are Employers Looking for?

In the 21st century, the way students learn, interact and prepare themselves for the world outside the classroom has changed. Teachers have kept up with these changes, and have readied themselves to understand what skills students need to know - however; they may not know how to teach those skills.

During the first season of the Competencies without a Classroom podcast , we interviewed business leaders, decision-makers, hiring managers and executives on what competencies they're looking for from their young employees, teammates and co-workers in order to succeed in today's competitive landscape.

What we heard from these leaders was that 'soft' skills like resilience, problem-solving, critical thinking and resourcefulness are among the most high-demand traits for young people making the shift from the classroom to the workplace. These were the skills that set apart applicants from other applicants, individual contributors from other contributors, and the good leaders from the great leaders.

Teachers and educators know this. Educators know that these skills, among others, are the traits that their students will require to thrive in the digital era.

The challenge?

Educators may not know  how  to instill these skills into their students in the classroom setting.

#21For21 was created to equip teachers with the tools, tactics, and resources they need to empower their students to develop the skills to succeed in our 21st century world.

We conducted 21 interviews with 21 teachers to hear how they implement 21st century skills in their classrooms.

If you had a magic wand and could change one thing about the education system as we know it today, what would you change? This is how some of our guests from season 2 of the Competencies without a Classroom podcast answered that question.

"As a teacher, you have tried to explain how the concepts you are teaching in the classroom will help to carry your students forward as they enter the "real world." The Competencies without a Classroom podcast provides classroom teachers with access to brilliant minds and hearts in the "real world" bringing alive the skills and competencies required to be successful in the 21st century." (Tanya Clift, District Career Facilitator)

21st Century Skills to Pay Attention To

Critical Thinking/Reasoning

Creativity/Creative Thinking

Problem Solving

Metacognition

Collaboration

Communication

Global Citizenship

Let’s join the conversation and move this talk “to reality.” Each of the seven 21st Century Skills, derived from The Brookings Institution’s chosen definition, and ideas for implementation in the classroom are listed below:

We hear about critical thinking skills often anymore, but what are they exactly? One single answer isn’t easy to nail down. “After a careful review of the mountainous body of literature,” the University of Louisville , decided to go with Michael Scriven and Richard Paul (2003) for the best, most comprehensive and concise definition: “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.” In other words, critical thinking is following a trail of internal questioning and deep thinking that leads to one's beliefs. A child who questions the existence of Santa Claus is building those critical thinking skills. An adult who refrains from opening a conspicuous email is practicing critical thinking skills and probably saving themself from hacking. Scriven and Paul continue to provide clarity in writing that it is based on “universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions,” meaning that all content areas can implement and practice this 21st Century Skill.

Rasmussen University conveniently boiled critical thinking down to the following 6 types, each of which can be a step in the process of a student-led research assignment across content areas and throughout K-12 education:

• Identification: Students can choose or be given a topic based on the unit of study. They then need to identify, based on the clearly outlined goal of the lesson, the problem or central question and the steps to achieve the goal.
• Research: students can choose or be given their resource materials and evaluate the sources of information for their assigned topic.
• Identifying Biases: During the research portion of the assignment, students can identify, verbally or in writing, the biases of their sources and any potential biases of their own.
• Inference: Giving the best guess, students can bridge gaps in information or even apply the newfound information to the central text. A possible question to build inference skills is “knowing what I know now, what can I best guess about this particular character or event in the text?”
• Determining Relevance: students decide what is relevant information to include on the assignment based on the unit as a whole and the explicit objective of the lesson.
• Curiosity: Students can create open-ended questions for their topic and answer those questions themselves or open it up to the class for discussion.

Paul Torrance , the “Father of Creativity” and creator of the widely used Torrance Test of Creative Thinking , described the four elements of creativity : Fluency (number of ideas), Flexibility (variety of ideas), Originality (uniqueness of ideas), and Elaboration (details of ideas). Using this approach, competency levels can be assessed relative to peers and progressively paced through the age groups.

Continuing with the research assignment example, this divergent-thinking skill set could be developed through an artistic activity in which students can create a visual, possibly within clearly defined parameters of time and/or materials. Each of the four elements can reveal different competency levels. Teaching the research behind creativity, such as that caffeine can hurt creative thinking and that the colour blue can help, can also be methods and processes that students can engage in during the creative portion of the research assignment.

According to MIT , “Problem-solving is the process of identifying a problem, developing possible solution paths, and taking the appropriate course of action,” and it is something we all do every day; there isn’t necessarily always a right or wrong answer, but there are many possible answers and some are better or worse than others. These skills are essential not only in our daily lives but also in our careers. If a student misbehaves in class, there are a myriad of ways that the teacher can respond, displaying their own problem-solving skills.

One way to improve students’ problem-solving skills is to lead them to the tools they need to strategize and solve problems. The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) created a review of problem-solving strategies that can work in math, such as looking for a pattern, guessing and checking, drawing a diagram, or working backwards. These same skills can be transferred into other content areas and for different age groups. Sticking with the research assignment model, students can use many of these skills after the identification portion of the assignment: so they have identified the problem or situation, and now they need to approach the assignment (deciding which resource to use and why), divide the labour (using a chart), and plan how to complete it on time (working backwards from the due date).

Metacognition, a term credited to developmental psychologist John Flavell (1979), is thinking about your own thinking. Sounds simple enough, but it is a high-level skill that helps improve every other skill. Paul R. Pintrich from The Ohio State University’s College of Education (2002) claims that “students who know about the different kinds of strategies for learning, thinking, and problem-solving will be more likely to use them.” This “level of awareness above the subject matter,” as Vanderbilt University’s Nancy Chick wrote in her essay on metacognition in teaching and learning, shows that this 21st Century Skill can, again, cross-content areas. But can we implement metacognition skills in all grade levels? In “ How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School ,” Bransford, Brown, and Cocking from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2000) assert that “children differ from adult learners in many ways, but there are also surprising commonalities across learners of all ages.”

Chick clues us in on the particulars of metacognition: “a key element is recognizing the limitations of one’s knowledge or ability and then figuring out how to expand that knowledge or extend the ability.” This skill is at the crux of being critically self-aware or suffering from the cognitively biased Dunning-Kruger effect (2013). Pintrich defends that these skills need to be taught explicitly: “We are continually surprised at the number of students who come to college having very little metacognitive knowledge; knowledge about different strategies, different cognitive tasks, and particularly, accurate knowledge about themselves.”  We, teachers, can help with that. Reflection is our game.

Reflective journals, pre-assessments, post-assessments, and everything in between should continue as part of good pedagogy, but explicitly teaching students the different strategies is crucial for metacognition. The Iris Center at the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University advises teachers to share with students the questions involved in planning, monitoring, and modifying their work, teaching students “how to consider the appropriateness of the problem-solving approach, make sure that all procedural steps are implemented, and check for accuracy or to confirm that their answers make sense.” This process of planning, self-monitoring and modifying and then reflecting can be implemented easily with unlimited types of activities, especially the aforementioned example of a research assignment. Modelling good questions and scaffolding student learning will be key in teaching metacognition.

“Collaboration occurs when meeting a goal requires more than what any one individual is able to manage alone and needs to pool resources with others” (E. Care, H. Kim, A.Vista, and K.Anderson, 2018). In the workforce and in education, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic, virtual collaboration has been crucial. The authors give examples of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for collaboration that could be shown through successful group work, such as knowing when it is appropriate to listen or to speak, introducing new ideas, compromising, sharing resources and responsibility, having meaningful conversations, and valuing others’ contributions. Modelling these skills explicitly for the students and then practicing them often will instill this highly important future-ready skill.

Often referred to as one of the “4 C’s of learning” in 21st century US education (creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication), this skill is more than just writing or speaking. Verbal, nonverbal, and technological communication is broad and ever-evolving, but the skills behind them all still involve one common element: empathy. Being able to understand how the audience will respond is a timeless skill with ever-increasing importance. Teachers can directly teach these communication skills for group work and presentations, but they also can teach the concept of empathy, especially through global literature with common themes.

Sometime this century, it is likely that being able to communicate in more than one language will be a necessity for success. Time Magazine reported that 21st-century education “is a story about … whether an entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can’t think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad, or speak a language other than [their own]” (2006). UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon advised us to “be a global citizen. Act with passion and compassion. Help us make this world safer and more sustainable today and for the generations that will follow us. That is our moral responsibility.” Students can learn this skill of how to be a global citizens by collaborating on projects with students from around the world. Today’s technology has made this possible. Let’s make the most of its potential for global education.

The Brookings Institution claims that “any major reform in an educational philosophy shift must ensure alignment across the areas of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment” and that “learning progression models are key to ensuring alignment through the education delivery system” (E. Care, H. Kim, A.Vista, and K.Anderson, 2019). Now that we know the 21st Century Skills, we must next design learning progression models and aligned assessments. It is time for action.

UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon looks forward with dark optimism, acknowledging our potential, but helping us feel the urgency: “Ours can be the first generation to end poverty- and the last generation to address climate change before it is too late.” Becoming a global citizen with these 21st Century Skills in this smaller, digital world isn’t much of an option anymore, it’s our vital necessity and responsibility.

21st Century Skills

• First Online: 09 September 2020

Cite this chapter

• Teresa J. Kennedy 3 &
• Cheryl W. Sundberg 4  

Part of the book series: Springer Texts in Education ((SPTE))

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“21st Century Skills” have become part of the lexicon in education. In 1997, the National Academy of Sciences in the United States released the report, Preparing for the 21st Century: The Education Imperative . The papers contained within the report examined challenges in education for the upcoming century. As we entered the 21st century, several new reports emerged over the next two decades that set out to define the 21st century skills needed to prepare students for success in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. Although the 21st century skills listed in these reports varied, there were a number of overlapping skills deemed essential. At the center of all the recommendations was a solid education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In addition to a strong STEM education, 21st century skills also include several soft skills and dispositions including cross-cultural skills, collaboration skills, critical thinking, and problem-solving. A central theme in the literature is the need for creativity and innovation, and one of the major recommendations truly unique to the 21st century is the need to prepare students for the digital age. Although there is general agreement that 21st century skills are essential for all students, there is much debate surrounding the role of K-12 education on how to help students learn these skills. This chapter highlights 21st century skills as presented in various international policy documents. The focus to date has been on the identification of 21st century skills. It may be time to move past identifying skills by refocusing research and policy efforts on better aligning standardized assessments to include 21st century skills, evaluating the level of implementation of 21st century skills in the classroom, and building expertise in the pedagogies that support their inclusion.

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Further Reading on Model 21CS STEM Schools

Denver School for Science and Technology, Colorado: https://www.greatschools.org/colorado/denver/2427-Denver-School-Of-Science-And-Technology-Stapleton-High-School/ .

High Tech High Charter School, San Diego, California: https://www.hightechhigh.org/ .

Manor New Technology High School, Texas: https://mnths.manorisd.net/Domain/22 .

University of Texas at Tyler University Academy: http://www.uttia.org/ .

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Kennedy, T.J., Sundberg, C.W. (2020). 21st Century Skills. In: Akpan, B., Kennedy, T.J. (eds) Science Education in Theory and Practice. Springer Texts in Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43620-9_32

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21st-Century Skills – What They Are and Why They’re Important

Credentialate

• 21st century skills , digital badges , durable skills , employability , graduate outcomes , micro-credentials , skills , soft skills , transferable skills , upskilling , workplace skills

We often hear the term, “21st-century skills.” However, it is not often clear exactly what that means and how it relates to things like employability, education, and hiring. As old jobs fall victim to automation and advancing technology, the need for transferrable skills and new knowledge and competencies has increased. In this information-rich Credentialate Guide, we examine the workplace needs of the global economy, 21st-century terms and definitions, what skills are important and how are they are taught and assessed.

Updated March 2024 – to include updated terms, impact of AI and more recent references

The Essentials: 21st-century skills

• What are the drivers behind the need for 21st-century skills? There is a skills gap across an entire generation of workers. If that gap isn’t addressed, it could have dire consequences for the new global economy. Additionally, the nature of work itself is undergoing rapid transformations, from too much specialisation, automation and the rapid rise of the digital age – particularly AI.
• What are the workforce requirements of the new global economy? The need for durable and transferable skills, new knowledge and competencies has increased exponentially. At the same time, employers struggle to find candidates with the skills their business needs. Recruiters find it hard to identify strengths, soft skills and transferrable skills that are not easily shared on a resume or through interviewing.
• Is there a difference between 21st-century, professional, workplace and soft skills? There are many terms used interchangeably to describe modern skills , including 21st-century skills, professional skills, workplace skills, durable skills, transferable skills and soft-skills. By and large, there is a common meaning across all terms to mean the same or very similar set of skills.
• What are the 21st-century skills? 21st-century skills are based primarily on “deeper learning” skills (like critical thinking, problem solving, and teamwork) and are comprised of a combination of soft-skills (such as interaction, collaboration, processing information, and managing people) and hard-skills (with a mainly IT focus. Dgital literacy, media literacy, etc.).
• How do 21st-century skills help to address the skills gap? 21st-century skills are those that hiring managers value most .  Displaced workers who upskill and reskill to learn these new skills have the opportunity to progress in their roles, transition to new roles or reenter the workforce in a meaningful way, along with providing for the means for them to support themselves and their economies.
• What are the issues with teaching 21st-century and career skills? Many curricula have become standardised since the identification of these core skills. The outdated “transmission” model of learning has been replaced by more creative and freestyle type of learning. Every student learns differently, and training must be personalised. In response to this, short-form learning, skills-based learning and micro-credentials , are on the rise, along with workplace-based and real world learning. 
• How do you assess attainment of 21st-century skills? Unlike traditional assessments, where there is a definitive right and wrong answer, soft- skills are far more intangible to measure against. Performance-based or authentic assessment has arisen in response and is open ended or task-based. Learners utilise their 21st-century skills and are scored against grading rubrics that allow educators to assess without bias.
• What is the role of micro-credentials in 21st-century skill development? Micro-credentials are based on small, well-designed courses that target specific skills or subsets of skills. They are “bite-sized” compared to traditional credentials – usually available over weeks or months, not years’ – and cost less as a result. Micro-credentials are increasingly compared on the same level as traditional degrees and are validated in digital format, such as a digital credential or digital badge .
• How Credentialate provides a new perspective Credentialate is the world’s first Credential Evidence Platform. It helps you discover and share evidence of workplace skills. Credentialate is the only Credential Evidence Platform that includes a personalised qualitative, quantitative and artefact evidence record that is verified and aligned to industry frameworks, available via links from the digital badge. Educators can map and manage their skills infrastructure and track skills attainment across the institution and against existing frameworks.

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The Full Story: What 21st-century skills are, why they are important, how they are taught and assessed

What are the drivers behind the need for 21st-century skills, what are the workforce requirements of the new global economy, is there a difference between 21st-century, professional, workplace and soft skills, what are the 21st-century skills, how do 21st-century skills help to address the skills gap, what are the issues with teaching 21st-century and career skills, how do you assess attainment of 21st-century skills, what is the role of micro-credentials in 21st-century skill development, how credentialate provides a new perspective.

We often hear the term, “21st-century skills.” However, it is not often clear exactly what that means and how it relates to things like employability, education and hiring. The expression does legitimately refer to a discrete body of specific competencies. The value of these competencies came to light in a recent discovery about our global workforce: there is a skills gap across an entire generation of workers. If that gap isn’t addressed, it could have dire consequences for global economies in the first half of the 21st century.

Recent studies have shown that some professionals over the age of thirty-five follow an outdated paradigm. They learn one trade and become increasingly good at it until at some point they reach a “skills plateau.”

This specialisation isn’t necessarily negative. In fact, humankind has needed it in one form or another since the dawn of the industrial age. We’re now living in a rapidly progressing digital age. Jobs and skills have emerged in the last ten years that didn’t exist before. Rapid technological advancements have been increasingly changing the workplace, particularly since the rise in the proliferation of AI  enabled technologies, such as ChatGPT and the need for AI skills . However, job training and education in general haven’t changed enough to keep up.

Governments, employers, and educators began noticing the need for these changes in the 1980s. In 1991, a movement to address these issues emerged, even though at the time the reality of the need appeared to be long-term.

The US Secretary of Labor issued a report called What Work Requires of Schools . This report identified key fundamental skills required to survive in a modern, high-performance workplace that required more flexible and nimble workers, who could transfer skills from one position to another. They came to three primary conclusions:

• All American high school students must develop a new set of competencies and foundation skills if they are to enjoy a productive, full, and satisfying life. Whether they go next to work, apprenticeship, the armed services, or college, all young Americans should leave high school with the know-how they need to make their way in the world.
• The qualities of high performance that today characterise our most competitive companies must become the standard for the vast majority of our companies, large and small, local, and global. “High performance” means work settings relentlessly committed to excellence, product quality, and customer satisfaction. These goals are pursued by combining technology and people in new ways.
• The nation’s schools must be transformed into high-performance organisations in their own right. Transforming schools in the US into high- performance organisations, means being relentlessly committed to producing skilled graduates as the norm, not the exception.

That flexibility and willingness to take on new or additional roles underscores the skills gap possessed by previous generations. Work goals have changed significantly over the decades. The Baby Boomers sought job stability. Subsequent generations wanted less of that and focused more on finding happiness and fulfillment in their careers. This is important given, one’s career no longer means a few decades with one company, but perhaps a variety of positions that changes frequently.

Today’s generation craves job mobility ahead of job stability. Now, students and young professionals expect to change job roles and fields at least a dozen times in their careers – with a mean of 4.6 years for many workers . Professionals with more specialisation and less flexibility have trouble adapting to the dizzying pace of workplace changes. The good news is that even these workers can be retrained and transfer the skills they do possess . But they must be taught how in order to do so.

As old jobs fall victim to automation, advancing technology and AI, demand for many job skills and areas of expertise has diminished. The need for transferrable skills, with new knowledge and changing competencies has increased . Employees have long embraced the need for professional development and lifelong learning , but even those with core capability and the potential to learn skills or apply those they already possess struggle to prove their worth to employers.

Likewise, employers struggle to identify strengths and the durable and transferrable soft skills that are not easily shared on a resume or through interviewing and testing. Employees are missing out on opportunities and employers are missing potential superstar employees to fill key roles.

Practices like remote monitoring, automation and the use of AI to aid in decision making, analysis, and other tasks, have rendered many employees obsolete and further shaped the future of work . New jobs and opportunities abound, but it means a shift in thinking about job training, job seeking, human resources and hiring, and certifications like the use of micro-credentials to highlight capabilities, durable and transferable skills and competency.

The COVID pandemic saw record levels of unemployment, with many workers taking early retirement when offered rather than learning new skills or upskilling to start over in new positions.

What have we been doing wrong? Workplace reskilling and upskilling has traditionally focused on getting better at specific job tasks and meeting performance standards. This made more sense when jobs and roles were clearly defined. However, this focus on outcome-based learning rather than skills-based learning that in turn creates new competencies has missed the mark. This has resulted in a sizeable part of the workforce, an entire generation, becoming overspecialised and ill-equipped to meet new labour demands. These professionals now have no choice. They must adapt to the demands of change or go the way of the dodo.

There are many terms used interchangeably to describe 21-century skills, including:

21st-century skills – The term “21st-century skills” is generally used to refer to certain core competencies such as collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving that advocates believe educators need to teach to help students thrive in today’s world .

Professional skills – Professional skills are career competencies that often are not taught (or acquired) as part of traditional coursework. Professional skills such as leadership, mentoring, project management, and conflict resolution are value-added skills essential to any career.

Workplace skills – Workplace skills are the basic skills a person must have to succeed in any workplace. They are the core knowledge, skills and attitudes that allow workers to understand instructions, solve problems and get along with co-workers and customers.

Employability skills – Employability skills refer to a set of transferable skills and key personal attributes which are highly valued by employers and essential for effective performance in the workplace. Employability skills include things like good communication, motivation and initiative.

Durable skills – Durable skills include a combination of how you use what you know – skills like critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity – as well as character skills like fortitude, growth mindset, and leadership.

Transferable skills – Transferable skills, sometimes called portable skills, are the skills you have developed that can be transferred from one job to another, like communication or time management skills.

Soft-skills – Soft skills are a combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character or personality traits, attitudes, career attributes, social intelligence and emotional intelligence quotients, among others, that enable people to navigate their environment, work well with others, perform well, and achieve their goals with complementing hard skills.

As you can see, there’s a lot of commonality across all of the definitions used to describe these skill sets. As such, the term selected is usually determined by the market segment using it.

So what are these 21st-century skills? They are a set of knowledge, skills, and learning dispositions that prepare learners to succeed in a rapidly changing, digital world. Educators, business leaders and academics worldwide have contributed to identifying, categorising, and developing lists of these workspace skills. They aren’t primarily based on content knowledge, but on “deeper learning” skills like critical thinking, problem solving, and teamwork.

Whatever term you choose to use, these skills are a combination of “soft skills” and “hard skills”. The hard skill component focuses on digital literacy, which is in increasingly high demand. Soft skills are people skills that involve interaction, collaboration, processing information, and managing people. The latter is known as “enablement skills” or “power skills” because they are transferable to different roles and positions and durable in that they are used in a variety of employment environments.

According to EdGlossary , while the specific skills deemed to be “21st century skills” may be defined differently, the following identifies the knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits commonly associated with 21st century skills:

• Critical thinking, problem solving, reasoning, analysis, interpretation, synthesizing information
• Research skills and practices, interrogative questioning
• Creativity, artistry, curiosity, imagination, innovation, personal expression
• Perseverance, self-direction, planning, self-discipline, adaptability, initiative
• Oral and written communication, public speaking and presenting, listening
• Leadership, teamwork, collaboration, cooperation, facility in using virtual workspaces
• Information and communication technology (ICT) literacy, media and internet literacy, data interpretation and analysis, computer programming
• Civic, ethical, and social-justice literacy
• Economic and financial literacy, entrepreneurialism
• Global awareness, multicultural literacy, humanitarianism
• Scientific literacy and reasoning, the scientific method
• Environmental and conservation literacy, ecosystems understanding
• Health and wellness literacy, including nutrition, diet, exercise, and public health and safety

Using a popular framework , these can be further categorised into:

The American Association of Colleges and Universities recognised some of these 21st-century skills in existing programs and, over time, recommended other goals to form part of essential learning outcomes for students.

Essential college and career skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, and written communication are the skills that hiring managers value most above and beyond specific content knowledge.

However, these skills are often not explicitly taught as part of college curricula, nor are they reflected on a college transcript . While content knowledge is a requisite part of a student’s education, it alone is insufficient for a student to thrive academically and professionally.

On a global scale, 21st-century skills have gained recognition and adoption into traditional education models.

Half of all available jobs today remain unfilled because people don’t have the needed skills for them. Many businesses can’t grow because they can’t get the workforce needed to grow. The skill gap remains, and it is preventing economies from developing. The old adage of “location, location, location” now refers to the local availability of talent and appropriately educated and skilled workers as anything else, and many companies offer incentives to employees to move in order to join their teams.

Many workers are able to adapt to working remotely have been able to thrive, and companies who seek to take advantage of that have expanded their workforce far beyond any geographic location. This requires a certain “digital literacy” and those able to take advantage of this development have found new freedom from the ability to work from anywhere.

How do we impart those skills to those who don’t have them, though? How do we close the skills gap and enable displaced workers to upskill, retrain, and re-enter the workforce in a meaningful way?

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We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented in order to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems yet.

Education in 21st-century skills has been a work in progress in many countries. The methods of instruction vary as personalised teaching methods dictate how learners achieve competencies in the classroom. Thankfully, many curricula have become standardised since the identification of these core skills. Modern teachers replaced the outdated “transmission” model of learning. But teaching these skills is a challenge, because every student learns differently, and training must be personalised to their needs and learning style .

Success using these teaching methods has varied. Educators can facilitate effective learning as long as they follow some key precepts. Students are empowered to guide their own learning. Learners flourish in an inquiry-based classroom environment. They’re encouraged to collaborate, and they’re given the opportunity to develop critical thinking skills. Each course is designed to bring out the learners’ creativity.

The sticking point is that much of this effective learning focuses on K-12 education. There are fewer options for adult learners seeking to develop 21st-century skills. Many professionals cannot put their lives and jobs on hold so that they can return to classroom learning. Soft skills and digital literacy need to become a part of ongoing personal development, but there are challenges to overcome.

Adult learners need upskilling that does not take a full two years to complete. The valuable competencies are needed now, not 24 months from now. They need learning methods that won’t cut into their normal job hours and won’t tie them down to a physical classroom location. Adult students need to benefit from the methods that have made achievement successful for secondary and post-secondary students.

One solution is a new kind of job training, based on frameworks that highlight capability, transferable skills, and result in new competencies. Since this kind of training does not result in a “degree” or “certification” in the traditional sense, learners must also be able to “prove” their skills and validate their learning through another means, one that is more robust, specific, and verifiable and verifiable in modern formats, such as micro-credentials or digital badges.

And as the shift towards shorter, skills-based and employment-focused micro-credentials builds momentum, education providers must strategically evolve their credentials and curriculum to meet demand.

Interest is shifting towards shorter, skills-based and employment-focused micro-credentials. Businesses know this, and some are bypassing degrees and developing their own micro-credentials to create a talent pool with the precise skills needed to fill designated roles. Further, most adult learners are primarily motivated to acquire a credential, micro or macro, in order to secure meaningful paid employment, or more broadly, career advantage. But if credentials of all sizes are a bridge between education and work, then providers need to consider that if work has changed, then so has employability, and so must credentials and curriculum.

Employability, however defined, must be related to empirically observable employment outcomes . Future research is needed to determine:

• The factors that affect a graduate’s likelihood of success in finding, creating and retaining work over a lifetime;
• Whether those factors can be influenced and if so, how; and
• Which factors can be influenced during a learner’s enrolment, regardless or age or stage?

Rethinking employability in higher education has the potential to bridge across the intersection between the need for development of durable and transferable skills such as 21st-century skills, to deliver better employment outcomes .

Given that the need for 21 st -century skills is clear, the question of how to assess a learners’ attainment of these essential skills becomes the next challenge. Unlike traditional multiple choice assessments, where there is a definitive right and wrong answer, performance tasks allow an opportunity for a much more authentic experience.

In a five-year study into using performance-based assessment to measure “those skills our students need to thrive as 21st century learners, workers, and citizens”, it was discovered that measuring outcomes such as critical and creative thinking was somewhat of a tall order.

• Creating performance tasks to measure students’ critical-thinking, problem solving, and written communication skills
• Generating rubrics to score the responses, and
• Developing and implementing a viable scoring process

After refinement and pilot testing, they were able to validate that  performance tasks could be used to make valid inferences about their students’ 21 st century skills and abilities.

A mission-driven, non-profit organisation, CAE develops performance-based and custom assessments that authentically measure students’ essential skills and identify opportunities for growth. CAE’s flagship assessments – CLA+, CWRA+ and SSA+ – evaluate the skills educational institutions and employers demand most and which are predictive of positive college and career outcomes: critical thinking, problem-solving and written communication.

Micro-credentials are based on small, well-designed courses that target specific skills or subsets of skills. They are “bite-sized” compared to traditional credentials like university degrees. You would expect to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and 2-4 years of your life on a college education. A micro-credential can be earned in weeks or months for a fraction of the cost of college – or in some cases the costs of a single college course.

This method of learning has found favour with employees and employers in recent years. It addresses specific needs brought by the rapidly changing times. More employers are removing degree requirements , and some have developed their own internal frameworks for establishing and verifying micro-credentials. They have shifted to hiring practices that target specific, transferable skills, or skill sets. These qualities make it an excellent vehicle for earning 21st-century skills.

Innumerable work veterans need inexpensive, time-flexible ways of learning new skills that will get them new jobs. Alternatively, they need a reliable method of surfacing evidence of those skills if they already have them. A LinkedIn survey of global talent trends validated what these skills were.

It revealed that companies struggle to assess those skills without a formal process, and this is really where micro-credentials and the frameworks being developed around them shine.

Credentialate is a secure, configurable platform that assesses and tracks attainment of competencies and issues micro-credentials to students backed by personalised evidence at scale. By automatically extracting data from existing platforms and using an organization’s own assessment rubrics, we can objectively measure awarding criteria and validate its evidence.

By this same method we can automate the assessment, monitoring, promotion and validation of evidence-backed skills. For an institution, we provide the data and insights required to track skills and competencies across courses and entire programs.

Finally, we have decades of collective experience in educational technology and long-standing ties with global educational powerhouses. These solidify our ability to produce credible digital badges.

Credentialate assesses, monitors, promotes and validates learners’ attainment of evidence-backed skills, supporting the transition from learner to earner. It is a secure, configurable platform that assesses and tracks attainment of competencies and issues micro-credentials to students. If you’d like to learn more About Us and how we can work together, contact us or Schedule a Demo and let’s discuss!

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Credentials just got personal – Unleash the power of your skills data and personal credentials

Credentialate is the world’s first Credential Evidence Platform that helps discover and share evidence of workplace skills. Launched In 2019, it was initially developed in close collaboration with leading design partner, UNSW Sydney, in support of a multi-year, cross-faculty community of practice and micro-credential research project. Credentialate has continued to evolve at an accelerated pace, informed in partnership with educators and industry leaders from around the world. Credentialate provides a Skills Core that creates order from chaotic data, provides meaningful insight through framework alignment and equips learners with rich personal industry-aligned evidence of their skills and competencies.

Find out more at:  edalex.com/credentialate

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What are 21st century skills?

The 21st century skills are a set of abilities that students need to develop in order to succeed in the information age. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills lists three types:

Learning Skills

• Critical Thinking
• Creative Thinking
• Collaborating
• Communicating

Literacy Skills

• Information Literacy
• Media Literacy
• Technology Literacy

Life Skills

• Flexibility
• Social Skills
• Productivity

New Skills for New Jobs

These skills have always been important for students, though they are particularly important in our information-based economy. When most workers held jobs in industry, the key skills were knowing a trade, following directions, getting along with others, working hard, and being professional—efficient, prompt, honest, and fair. Schools have done an excellent job of teaching these skills, and students still need them.

To hold information-age jobs, though, students also need to think deeply about issues, solve problems creatively, work in teams, communicate clearly in many media, learn ever-changing technologies, and deal with a flood of information. The rapid changes in our world require students to be flexible, to take the initiative and lead when necessary, and to produce something new and useful.

Demand in the Workplace

These are not just anecdotal observations. The following quotations come from Up to the Challenge , a report by the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE), Career Technical Education (CTE), and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21):

• The employment titan Manpower reports that despite the recession, 31 percent of employers throughout the world struggle to find qualified workers because of “a talent mismatch between workers’ qualifications and the specific skill sets and combinations of skills employers want.”
• The American Management Corporation reports that employers want workers who can think critically, solve problems creatively, innovate, collaborate, and communicate.
• The National Association of Manufacturers reports, “Today’s skill shortages are extremely broad and deep, cutting across industry sectors and impacting more than 80 percent of companies surveyed. This human capital performance gap threatens our nation’s ability to compete . . . [and] is emerging as our nation’s most critical business issue."
• The National Academies indicate that “The danger exists that Americans may not know enough about science, technology, or mathematics to contribute significantly to, or fully benefit from, the knowledge-based economy that is already taking shape around us.”
• The New York Times reports that low-skilled workers are being laid off and "turned away at the factory door and increasingly becoming the long-term unemployed . . .” This issue results from a disparity between the skills that worker have and those that employers need.

We want to hear from you! How critically and creatively do your students think? How well do they collaborate and communicate? Share your insights below.

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