21st Century Skills
21st Century Skills
21st Century Skills
21st Century skills are 12 abilities that today’s students need to succeed in their
careers during the Information Age.
1. Critical thinking
2. Creativity
3. Collaboration
4. Communication
5. Information literacy
6. Media literacy
7. Technology literacy
8. Flexibility
9. Leadership
10.Initiative
11.Productivity
12.Social skills
These skills are intended to help students keep up with the lightning-pace of today’s
modern markets. Each skill is unique in how it helps students, but they all have one
quality in common.
1. Learning skills
2. Literacy skills
3. Life skills
Each of these categories pertains to a specific part of the digital experience.
Learning skills (the four C’s) teaches students about the mental processes required
to adapt and improve upon a modern work environment.
Literacy skills (IMT) focuses on how students can discern facts, publishing outlets,
and the technology behind them. There’s a strong focus on determining trustworthy
sources and factual information to separate it from the misinformation that floods the
Internet.
Altogether, these categories cover all 12 21st Century skills that contribute to a
student’s future career.
More educators know about these skills because they’re universal needs for any
career. They also vary in terms of importance, depending on an individual’s career
aspirations.
It’s what helps students figure stuff out for themselves when they don’t have a teacher
at their disposal.
In any field, innovation is key to the adaptability and overall success of a company.
Learning creativity as a skill requires someone to understand that “the way things
have always been done” may have been best 10 years ago — but someday, that has to
change.
Collaboration may be the most difficult concept in the four C’s. But once it’s
mastered, it can bring companies back from the brink of bankruptcy.
That means understanding the idea of a “greater good,” which in this case tends to be
company-wide success.
That has the potential to eliminate confusion in a workplace, which makes your
students valuable parts of their teams, departments, and companies.
Effective communication is also one of the most underrated soft skills in the United
States. For many, it’s viewed as a “given,” and some companies may even take good
communication for granted.
But when employees communicate poorly, whole projects fall apart. No one can
clearly see the objectives they want to achieve. No one can take responsibility because
nobody’s claimed it.
Without understanding proper communication, students in the 21st Century will lack a
pivotal skill to progress their careers.
But the four C’s are only the beginning. 21st Century skills also require students to
understand the information that’s around them.
They’re sometimes called IMT skills, and they’re each concerned with a different
element in digital comprehension.
In an age of chronic misinformation, finding truth online has become a job all on its
own. It’s crucial that students can identify honesty on their own.
Otherwise, they can fall prey to myths, misconceptions, and outright lies.
Media literacy is the practice of identifying publishing methods, outlets, and sources
while distinguishing between the ones that are credible and the ones that aren’t.
Just like the previous skill, media literacy is helpful for finding truth in a world that’s
saturated with information.
This is how students find trustworthy sources of information in their lives. Without it,
anything that looks credible becomes credible.
But with it, they can learn which media outlets or formats to ignore. They also learn
which ones to embrace, which is equally important.
As computers, cloud programming, and mobile devices become more important to the
world, the world needs more people to understand those concepts.
Technology literacy gives students the basic information they need to understand what
gadgets perform what tasks and why.
This understanding removes the intimidating feeling that technology tends to have.
After all, if you don’t understand how technology works, it might as well be magic.
But technology literacy unmasks the high-powered tools that run today’s world.
As a result, students can adapt to the world more effectively. They can play an
important role in its evolution.
But to truly round out a student’s 21st Century skills, they need to learn from a third
category.
This is one of the most challenging qualities to learn for students because it’s based on
two uncomfortable ideas:
That’s a struggle for a lot of students, especially in an age when you can know any bit
of information at the drop of a hat.
Flexibility requires them to show humility and accept that they’ll always have a lot to
learn — even when they’re experienced.
Leadership is someone’s penchant for setting goals, walking a team through the steps
required, and achieving those goals collaboratively.
Whether someone’s a seasoned entrepreneur or a fresh hire just starting their careers,
leadership applies to career.
Entry-level workers need leadership skills for several reasons. The most important is
that it helps them understand the decisions that managers and business leaders make.
It’s also where they get the real-world experience they need to lead entire companies.
As they lead individual departments, they can learn the ins and outs of their specific
careers. That gives ambitious students the expertise they need to grow professionally
and lead whole corporations.
This is one of the hardest skills to learn and practice. Initiative often means working
on projects outside of regular working hours.
The rewards for students with extreme initiative vary from person to person.
Sometimes they’re good grades. Other times they’re new business ventures.
That goes double when initiative is practiced with qualities like flexibility and
leadership.
Along with initiative, 21st Century skills require students to learn about productivity.
That’s a student’s ability to complete work in an appropriate amount of time.
In business terms, it’s called “efficiency.”
That equips them with the practical means to carry out the ideas they determine
through flexibility, leadership, and initiative.
Still, there’s one last skill that ties all other 21st Century skills together.
This concept of networking is more active in some industries than others, but proper
social skills are excellent tools for forging long-lasting relationships.
While these may have been implied in past generations, the rise of social media and
instant communications have changed the nature of human interaction.
As a result, today’s students possess a wide range of social skills. Some are more
socially adept than others. Some are far behind their peers. And some lucky few may
be far ahead, as socializing comes naturally to them.
But most students need a crash course in social skills at least. Etiquette, manners,
politeness, and small talk still play major roles in today’s world.
That means some students need to learn them in an educational setting instead of a
social setting.
Now that we’ve established what 21st Century skills are, let’s answer the next big
question.
While 21st Century skills have always been important, they’ve become essential in a
worldwide market that moves faster by the day.
Those industries that haven’t been disrupted aren’t immune though. They just haven’t
been disrupted yet.
With that in mind, the world has entered an era where nothing is guaranteed.
As a result, students need to learn to guide the change that’ll inundate their lives. At
the very least, they need to learn how to react to it.
This is especially true as customer demand accelerates in all industries along with
expectations for newer features, higher-level capabilities, and lower prices.
With 21st Century skills, your students will have the adaptive qualities they need to
keep up with a business environment that’s constantly evolving.