Week 4

 21st Century Skills

Living in today fast track ICT era one need to really have a grasp on the their surrounding in achieving targeted goals or objectives in their lives.

Definitions :

In general we can define 21st Century Skills as ‘developing skills and habits of mind that allow people to actively participate in society using all forms of media available. It stems from the need to teach people how to think and reflect critically on what is happening around them and to develop creative solutions that serve personal and social needs’.

These skills have been adopted in various part of knowledge to sharpen up the community mainly in education as these would help a lot to the nation building. Within learning itself these skills are divided into various categories as there have become essential and for some part as a crucial part to develop one learning. Such categories are :

    1. Critical Thinking & Problem Solving
    2. Creativity & Innovation
    3. Communication & Collaboration
    4. Visual Literacy
    5. Scientific & Numerical Literacy
    6. Cross-Disciplinary Thinking
    7. Basic Literacy

Now just have a quick go on the points shall we.

---- 1. CRITICAL THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING ----

a) Reason Effectively

• Use various types of reasoning (e.g., inductive, deductive, etc.) as appropriate to the situation

b) Use Systems Thinking

• Analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce overall outcomes in complex systems

c) Make Judgments and Decisions

• Effectively analyze and evaluate evidence, arguments, claims and beliefs
• Analyze and evaluate major alternative points of view
• Synthesize and make connections between information and arguments
• Interpret information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis
• Reflect critically on learning experiences and processes

d) Solve Problems

• Solve different kinds of non-familiar problems in both conventional and innovative ways
• Identify and ask significant questions that clarify various points of view and lead to better solutions

 --------------- 2. CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION ---------------

a) Think Creatively

• Use a wide range of idea creation techniques (such as brainstorming)
• Create new and worthwhile ideas (both incremental and radical concepts)
• Elaborate, refine, analyze, and evaluate ideas in order to improve and maximize creative efforts
• Demonstrate imagination and curiosity

b) Work Creatively with Others

• Develop, implement, and communicate new ideas to others effectively
• Be open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives
• Demonstrate originality and inventiveness in work and understand the real world limits to adopting new ideas
• View failure as an opportunity to learn; understand that creativity and innovation is a long-term, cyclical process of small successes and frequent mistakes

c) Implement Innovations

• Act on creative ideas to make a tangible and useful contribution to the field in which the innovation will occur

------- 3. COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION ------

a) Communicate Clearly

• Articulate thoughts and ideas effectively using oral, written, and nonverbal communication skills in a variety of forms and contexts
• Listen effectively to decipher meaning, including knowledge, values, attitudes, and intentions
• Utilize multiple media and technologies, and know how to judge their effectiveness a priori as well as assess their impact

b) Collaborate with Others

• Demonstrate ability to work effectively and respectfully with diverse teams
• Exercise flexibility and willingness to be helpful in making necessary compromises to accomplish a common goal
• Assume shared responsibility for collaborative work, and value the individual contributions made by each team member

------------------------- 4. VISUAL LITERACY ------------------------

• Demonstrate the ability to interpret, recognize, appreciate, and understand information presented through visible actions, objects and symbols, natural or man-made

-------- 5. SCIENTIFIC AND NUMERICAL LITERACY -------

• Demonstrate the ability to evaluate the quality of scientific and numerical information on the basis of its sources and the methods used to generate it
• Demonstrate the capacity to pose and evaluate scientific arguments based on evidence and to apply conclusions from such arguments appropriately
• Demonstrate ability to reason with numbers and other mathematical concepts

------------- 6. CROSS-DISCIPLINARY THINKING ------------

• Apply knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and skills across disciplines in appropriate and effective ways

-------------------------- 7. BASIC LITERACY -------------------------

• Demonstrate the ability to use language to read, write, listen, and speak