De Jesus, Leomel M.

BSED 3-A4

21ST CENTURY SKILLS

1. Describe the categories of 21st century skills.
The followings are the categories of 21st century skills.
a. Learning skills are habits that can be used throughout your life to complete
projects and communicate effectively. They can continuously be developed
and improved to help you accomplish daily tasks or achieve your career
milestones.
There are a variety of learning skills that can be beneficial for you to have,
whether you are a student or a seasoned professional in the workforce. It is
important to note that many of the below skills could be applied to one or
more skill categories, but for simplicity, the following section will separate
these skills into five distinct categories:

Organizational skills
 Organization
 Time management
 Multitasking
 Strategy development
 Information management
 Notetaking
 Cleaning workspace
 Schedule planning
 Event coordination
 Productivity
Communication skills
 Active listening
 Situation analysis
 Technological competency
 Media literacy
 Empathy
 Persuasive argumentation
 Clarification
 Respect
 Public speaking
 Writing
Collaboration skills
 Leadership
 Team-oriented
 Conflict resolution
 Compromising
  Engagement
 Reliability
 Resource allocation
 Project management
 Task delegation
 Goal setting
Critical-thinking skills
 Critical-thinking
 Attention to detail
 Evaluation
 Analytical-thinking
 Inferencing
 Self-regulation
 Annotative reading
 Text interpretation
 Decision-making
 Comparing and contrasting
Creative skills
 Problem-solving
 Adaptability
 Overturning
 Curiosity
 Innovation
 Brainstorming
 Entertaining
 Open-mindedness
 Repurposing
 Creative writing
b. Literacy skills help students gain knowledge through reading as well as
using media and technology. These skills also help students create
knowledge through writing as well as developing media and technology.
Information Literacy
Students need to be able to work effectively with information, using it
at all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy (remembering, understanding,
applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating). Information literacy
involves traditional skills such as reading, researching, and writing;
but new ways to read and write have also introduced new skills:

 Consuming information: The current excess of information

requires students to gain new skills in handling it. When most
information came through official publications like books,
newspapers, magazines, and television shows, students
encountered data that had been prepared by professionals.
Now, much information is prepared by amateurs. Some of that
work is reliable, but much is not. Students must take on the
 role of the editor, checking and cross-checking information,
watching for signs of bias, datedness, and errors. Students
need to look at all information as the product of a
communication situation, with a sender, subject, purpose,
medium, receiver, and context.

 Producing information: In the past, students were mostly

consumers of information. When they produced information, it
was largely for a single reader—the teacher—and was
produced for a grade. It was therefore not an authentic
communication situation, and students felt that writing was a
purely academic activity. Now writing is one of the main ways
students communicate. It has real-world applications and
consequences. Students need to understand that what they
write can do great good or great harm in the real world, and
that how they write determines how powerful their words are.
Students need to take on the role of professional writers,
learning to be effective and ethical producers of information.
Media Literacy
Media literacy involves understanding the many ways that information
is produced and distributed. The forms of media have exploded in the
last decade and new media arrive every day:

Students' use of media has far outstripped educational use, and

students will continue to adopt new media long before teachers can
create curricula about it. It is no longer enough to teach students how
books, periodicals, and TV shows work. Students need to learn how
to critically analyze and evaluate messages coming to them through
any medium.

As with information literacy, the key is to recognize the elements of

the communication situation—sender, message (subject and
purpose), medium, receiver, and context. These elements are
constant regardless of the medium used. By broadening the student's
perspective to see all media as part of a larger communication
situation, we can equip students to effectively receive and send
information in any medium. Students must learn to recognize the
strengths and weaknesses of each medium and to analyze each
message they receive and send.

Technology Literacy
We are living through a technological revolution, with huge changes
taking place over brief spans of time. A decade ago, Facebook didn't
exist, but now many people could not live without it. The average
cellphone is now more powerful than computers from several years
ago. We are surrounded by technology, and most of it performs
multiple functions. In Growing Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is
 Changing Your World, Don Tapscott outlines the following eight
expectations that students have of technology.

 Freedom to express their views, personalities, and identities

 Ability to customize and personalize technology to their own tastes
 Ability to dig deeper, finding whatever information they want
 Honesty in interactions with others and with organizations
 Fun to be part of learning, work, and socialization as well as
entertainment
 Connecting to others and collaborating in everything
 Speed and responsiveness in communication and searching for
answers
 Innovation and change, not settling for familiar technologies but
seeking and using what is new and better

As you can see, students expect a great deal out of their

technologies. You can help them use technology wisely:

 reading Web sites;

 using search engines;
 using map searches;
 accessing videos, podcasts, and feeds;
 evaluating Web resources;
 researching on the Internet;
 e-mailing, chatting, texting, microblogging;
 using social sites;
 visiting virtual worlds;
 blogging and using wikis; and
 using message boards, newsgroups, and VOIP (Skype).
By understanding how to evaluate this new information and how to use
these new tools to create effective, well-grounded communication, students can
harness the power of new technology and be inspired to learn.
c. With Life Skills, one is able to explore alternatives, weigh pros and cons and
make rational decisions in solving each problem or issue as it arises. It also
entails being able to establish productive interpersonal relationships with
others. T U Module 7: Life Skills 7-3 Life skills enable effective
communication, for example, being able to differentiate between hearing and
listening and ensuring that messages are transmitted accurately to avoid
miscommunication and misinterpretations.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) categorizes life skills into the
following three components:
a. Critical thinking skills/Decision-making skills – include decision-
making/problem solving skills and information gathering skills. The
 individual must also be skilled at evaluating the future consequences
of their present actions and the actions of others. They need to be
able to determine alternative solutions and to analyze the influence of
their own values and the values of those around them.
b. Interpersonal/Communication skills – include verbal and non-
verbal communication, active listening, and the ability to express
feelings and give feed back. Also in this category, are
negotiation/refusal skills and assertiveness skills that directly affect
ones’ ability to manage conflict. Empathy, which is the ability to listen
and understand others’ needs, is also a key interpersonal skill.
Teamwork and the ability to cooperate include expressing respect for
those around us. Development of this skill set enables the adolescent
to be accepted in society. These skills result in the acceptance of
social norms that provide the foundation for adult social behaviour.
c. Coping and self-management skills refers to skills to increase the
internal locus of control, so that the individual believes that they can
make a difference in the world and affect change. Self esteem, self-
awareness, self-evaluation skills and the ability to set goals are also
part of the more general category of self-management skills. Anger,
grief and anxiety must all be dealt with, and the individual learns to
cope loss or trauma. Stress and time management are key, as are
positive thinking and relaxation techniques.

2. How can the attainment of 21st century skill contributes to the realization of education
goals?
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.”

3. How can you prepare, plan and deliver a lesson with an end goal of attaining 21st century
skills?
As a general guide, however, here are five “essential strategies” I would
recommend that you develop in your classroom to encourage 21st Century
thinking and learning. They may involve a change in perspective about how your
students learn best, so feel free to take small but steady steps toward these
goals. Practical information on how to implement these strategies will follow in
future blogs.
1. Let Your Students Lead The Learning
Learning takes place best in environments where students feel
empowered to learn. Effective teachers are more like moderators,
offering inspiration and guiding students to discover for
themselves. Give students the opportunity to be self-learners,
which guarantees lifelong learning. This brings us directly to the
second point.
2. Create an Inquiry-Based Classroom Environment
If students are to lead the way to learning, they need to be able to
ask questions – and then find the means to answer them.
Students (and teachers) need to “wonder out loud” as they
encounter new information. A KWL chart (What do you Know?
What do you Want to know? What have you Learned?) can guide
students toward true self-motivated learning.
 3. Encourage Collaboration
“We are greater than the sum of our parts.” Herein is the heart of
collaboration. A healthy, active classroom is a sharing classroom.
Students are social beings, and even more so in a language class.
Find every opportunity to allow students to form pairs and small
groups. Not only does this encourage the development of
speaking and listening skills, but it also teaches students how to
effectively achieve goals together.
4. Develop Critical Thinking Skills
Learning is more than memorizing and remembering. Critical
thinking skills take students well beyond simple comprehension of
information. Students use these skills to solve problems in new
situations, make inferences and generalizations, combine
information in new patterns, and make judgments based on
evidence and criteria. Introduce activities in your lessons that build
critical thinking skills along with language skills.
5. Encourage Creativity
Encourage your students to be creative throughout each lesson.
Creative activities allow students to express what they’ve learned
in a new way. This synthesizing and personalizing of knowledge
consolidates learning, and creates an experience that remains
with students long after the class is over.
By keeping these strategies in mind as you plan each lesson, you will be
encouraging the development of 21st Century skills. Of course, your students
may also need time to adjust to this new way of learning. However, they will soon
begin to feel empowered to think more critically, to ask questions and seek
answers, and to express themselves creatively. Most importantly, their
communication skills will become much stronger as a result, which always
remains our main objective!

4. How can you integrate 21st century skills in teaching-learning process?

Coming from a background where all spheres of education are teacher-
centered, many things I've read, learnt and seen online and abroad have been a
big eye-opener in my career. Assuming I, m a teacher…What I do in class and
how I see education at large has taken a different turn in the past few years so
it's only logical for me to continue helping my learners grow in the best possible
way.
 I guess there's no need to introduce the term '21st century skills', many
have already done it wonderfully on this website. But basically, when my
students leave the classroom I want them to be better at 1) thinking critically
and/or creatively while 2) performing either independently or in groups on a
global scale. This means that I'm no longer teaching just present continuous, but
rather I’m trying to get the most by providing engaging content and higher level
thinking tasks.
Without further ado, let's see what positive changes we can make in our
classes to prepare our learners for the future.
Make the experience personal. Our learners are our inspiration and our
starting point. Finding out what they like and what makes them tick is what's
going to spark their curiosity and that's, I believe, a pre-requisite for every kind of
learning experience. This leads me to my second point….
Provide authentic content. Bringing content from a range of online and
offline resources into classrooms keeps my students on their toes and makes
their time worthwhile. When my learners come to class and know that
something's NOT going to be from the coursebook I grab their attention and little
light bulbs above their heads turn on. Authentic content (digital or not) benefits
the 'intrinsic motivation' factor.

 Opt for relevant and/or entertaining topics. As soon as we know what

our students are into, we can focus on topics that are either more 'serious
', or rather, relevant like the environment, job markets, or lighter, more
entertaining ones. 
 Get into 'low-prep for you, higher-level thinking for them' mode. Less
is more. We teachers need every spare minute we can get, that's why I
always go with the low-prep tasks if I work on engaging materials. For
example, apart from comparing these illustrations our learners can say to
what extent they agree, if it’s too generic, how reliable the source is or
what they can conclude from the comments - therefore developing their
critical thinking and information literacy skills. Students can also say what
group they think they belong to, take the opposite viewpoint and debate
(communication, empathy). Why stop there? They can make a
questionnaire and then create a pie or bar graph to communicate the
results. Why not take the results outside class and make it a project by
creating an advertising campaign? Options are endless.
 Give feedback. This one’s a no brainer, but still it’s important. Monitoring
during the activities and then reporting back on what was great, what
could be better, drilling, expanding on the lexis… The learners are your
biggest material – get the most out of them!
 Reflect. How have you prepared your learners for the 21st century after
the lesson? What went well? What could you have done differently? Take
a moment to reflect on your own, with your peers, share online…
  Enjoy the journey! Feeling useful and knowing you’re doing your best to
help your learners grow is a fantastic feeling. Good luck and share with us
how you’ve dealt with the challenge!

5. What activities can help learners entrance their 21st century skills?
We hear a lot about how important it is for today’s students to develop their 21st
century skills, in addition to what are often referred to as ‘the basics’. In fact, the 4Cs of
Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity are often described as
the ‘new basics’. These are the skills, dispositions and attitudes that our students will
need to thrive in their future lives of work and play. At Makers Empire, we believe that
3D design and printing can help students develop these vital new basics. Here are 12 of
our favourite ways of making that happen:
Communication
-Sharing thoughts, ideas, questions and solutions in powerful ways.
1. Ask students to show their understanding of a concept or idea using Makers
Empire’s 3D design software. How can they communicate the concept of ‘a
quarter’ or ‘trust’ or ‘bias’ or ‘animal adaptations’?
2. Have students explain the processes they followed while designing in 3D.
What steps did they take? What design decisions did they make?
iPad showing Makers Empire 3D design app bedroom design and comments by
users
3. Encourage students to provide constructive feedback to help other students
improve their designs. How might they use the comments feature in Makers
Empire to do this?
Collaboration
-Achieving shared goals with others. Thinking together and harnessing the ideas, skills
and expertise of the group.
4. Provide opportunities for students to work on collaborative projects where
each student takes responsibility for an aspect of a larger group project. For example,
students at St Michael’s College worked in groups to create an awesome space station.
Each student was responsible for the design of a particular element of the space station
and for making sure this element fitted with the overall designs.
5. Provide opportunities for students to work collaboratively on solving real-world
problems. In this example from Stephen’s School, the students worked together to come
up with an effective solution to help their teacher’s toddler, who has cerebral palsy.
6. Set up design challenges where students work together on the same design.
We’ve seen some great challenges where each student adds a new element to a design.
Designs are ‘passed around’ until the end result has been contributed to by everyone in
the group.
Critical Thinking
-Looking at problems in new ways, making smart decisions and making connections to
other subjects and ideas.
 7. Present students with real-world scenarios and ask them to identify possible
issues or problems. By positioning students as problem seekers and problem finders we
are encouraging them to think critically when they are identifying needs and
opportunities.
8. Develop a class question wall with student-generated questions to guide their
thinking when they are designing. E.g Is there a better way to…?, How might I make this
stronger?

9. Support students to develop criteria for success for their design projects and
use these to evaluate and improve the designs and solutions they develop.
Creativity
Generating and testing new ideas. Being innovative, inventive and enterprising.
10. Provide open-ended design challenges to encourage creativity. e.g. Design a
better way to eat spaghetti or create your dream house.
11. Add constraints to design challenges to encourage students to come up with
new ideas and alternative ways to solve problems. e.g. The dream house must use
exactly 100 blocks or the spaghetti solution must include a cog.
12. Encourage students to come up with as many ideas as they can before
selecting an idea for a designed solution.