I ended my previous post by discussing how the big four skills of 21st-century learning often intermingle to create brand new skillsets, and I do believe that this is a useful direction to explore more practical ways that these skills can be broken down and taught in a school-context. I proposed a model which functionally worked fine – it successfully showed every possible combination of these skills simultaneously, even when three of the four skills are combined at once.
That said, upon further reflection, I wondered if there was a simpler graphical representation that would leave plenty of room for me to expand upon my thoughts and ideas regarding each combination. I will explore this and provide an update on it if and when a solution is found. For now, I have defined a series of roles that might be developed by looking at all possible combinations of these four skills. I am hoping that these roles can help in the creation of practical ways in which 21st century learning skills can be implemented and measured. CREATIVITY + COMMUNICATION = The Artist CREATIVITY + CRITICAL THINKING = The Reviewer CREATIVITY + COLLABORATION = The Performer COMMUNICATION + CRITICAL THINKING = The Debater COMMUNICATION + COLLABORATION = The Coordinator CRITICAL THINKING + COLLABORATION = The Brainstormer From putting all of these combinations, a couple of things seemed to stand out for me. The first one is that there is clearly a large difference between these different skills that was perhaps not as clear in my mind before. What I mean by this is that there is a big difference between, say, communication and collaboration, even though those two skills are both about giving and receiving messages. However, there is a big difference between a Performer and an Artist, or a Brainstormer versus a Debater, and for me, it shows how many professions tend to focus on two of the four big 21st century learning skills. Certainly adding those two other lagging skills could be an asset to those occupations, but they may not be wholly necessary. The second is that there is immediately an important skill missing from these four that jumps out for me, and interestingly it is not one that was included in the list that Stauffer (2020) provided. That skill is leadership, which is undoubtedly as important a skill as any of the ones previously mentioned in my mind. Without an intentional focus on what effective leadership looks like, there would be no one to direct any of the aforementioned roles that I mentioned, which is important if an organization of people are to have a focus. I would also state that leadership has the same level of flexibility that these other skills have, which fits in with the philosophy that "Students should be educated for jobs that have not yet been created, for new products that have not yet been invented..." (Lavonen & Korhonen, 2017 p. 13). I don't know that leadership would necessarily change the roles that I mentioned above, other than making the individual who possesses it a "Director of _____," but developing that skill in our students means that they will be more likely to take charge and take focus of a group of people when it is necessary. WORKS CITED Lavonen, J. & Korhonen, T. (2017). Towards Twenty-First Century Education: Success Factors, Challenges, and the Renewal of Finnish Education. In Choo, S., Sawch, D., Willanueva, A., Vinz, R. (Eds.), Educating for the 21st Century: Perspectives, Policies and Practicies from Around the World. (pp. 243-264). Singapore: Springer. Stauffer, B. (2020, March 19). What Are 21St Century Skills?. Applied Education Systems. https://www.aeseducation.com/blog/what-are-21st-century-skills
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As I investigated deeper into the discovery as to which skills are the ones that are considered 21st-century learning skills, I found that there were not a universally accepted set of skills or a comprehensive list of them. Rather, the idea of what constitutes 21st-century learning skills is largely still up for debate as it continues to evolve. In wanting to analyze these skills through the lens of how I can make them practical within my classroom setting, I found a blog which posits only four primary skills as opposed to the 12 I had discovered in my last post. I have adopted a depth-approach as opposed to a breadth-approach; the four skills that Timothy Mugabi (2019) puts forth as the keys to 21st-century learning (Communication, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, & Creativity) are by far the most complex skills that also appeared in the set discussed in my last post that Stauffer proposed (2020). These are also some of the most challenging to integrate effectively into a classroom. Communication, for me at least, comes across as a skill that is easy to underestimate in terms of its complexity as it's something that is performed nearly unconsciously every day by everyone. But what does effective communication look like? And does it look the same for every individual? Mugabi refers to communication simply as "a student's ability to deliver and receive messages" (2019), and from a purely empirical point of view, I agree. But what would it look like to deliver and receive messages well? What is the end goal or goals of effective conversation? Looking at my reasons for communicating effectively from a functional level, I know that do so to inform others of my needs or to be informed by their needs, to transmit or receive factual information, to inquire about things or provide expertise, to maintain relationships and for recreational purposes, among other things. Of course, function is not everything; when speaking effectively, I need to be aware of my volume and tone, I need to be considerate of the audience to whom I am speaking, and I need to have a pleasing cadence or rhythm that I follow to keep my listener's interested. As a good listener, it is important that I exhibit open body language, ask follow-up questions and steer the conversation in a way that is pleasing or beneficial to all parties involved. Needless to say, trying to pare all of this down into lessons that can be understood by students in the grade-level that I teach (grades 3 & 4) is a daunting task, eclipsed only by the difficulty in trying to assess the acquisition of these sub-skills effectively. It also appears that these four skills do not exist mutually exclusively from another. For example, coupling communication with critical thinking becomes the act of NOT giving or receiving messages that do not correspond with personal logic, which is a highly-prized skill - we often expect our students to use this approach to sift through news stories to determine which are merely sensational and which might be considered the "most true." Communication can also be combined effectively with collaboration, which becomes the act of communicating through the lens of a particular role that is beneficial to a team. For example, someone assigned to be the director of a group will communicate in a more exacting manner as opposed to someone assigned to be the mediator of a group. Finally, communication when paired with creativity becomes the realm of the actor, singer or performer. To become a successful wordsmith a degree of creativity must be woven in with good communication skills to create a silver tongue. To finish this post, I have created a draft of a potential model to describe the ways in which all of these different primary skills interact together in order to make more precise skills, which I have not labelled yet as this model still needs some refining. It allows for three skills to be paired together at once or even all four skills. The question that I posted at the end of my first post still rings true with the ideating of this model, however. Is taking these skills to this level of depth a pragmatic approach to using them in an educational setting? Works CitedMugabi, T. (2019, October 24). How to incorporate 21st-century skills into the classroom. Classcraft. https://www.classcraft.com/resources/blog/how-to-incorporate-21st-century-skills-into-the-classroom/
Stauffer, B. (2020, March 19). What Are 21St Century Skills?. Applied Education Systems. https://www.aeseducation.com/blog/what-are-21st-century-skills
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AuthorTim Raposo is a teacher of grades 3 & 4 at Cawston Primary School in BC. With a firm grasp of burgeoning technologies. he seeks to introduce students to new ideas and skills to produce a passion for 21st century learning as early as possible in their educational careers. ArchivesCategories |