Discover the 6 Qualities of the 21st Century Teacher

The teacher of the 21st century must keep up with advances in technology, read wide, and marry
learning content to skills.

Updated January 3, 2023
byAlfred Amuno

The teacher of the 21st century defers from the 20th century teacher because of what
learners expect from him. They want him to marry classroom content to 21st-century
skills, and integrate digital tools in the learning environment.

The new learners coexist with technology devices at home, and strongly believe these
should be part of their education, just as they are in their lives.

And they are not alone. Governments around the world and stakeholders in the
education sector strongly believe technology should be used in the 21st-century
classroom.

The new teacher, therefore, must keep up with advances in technology, stay updated
about new information, and make the learning process active.

And now that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are making

breakthroughs in the workplace, the new teacher must rewire his ‘digital thinking’ to
suit the 4th Industrial Revolution and Education 4.0 vocabularies.

According to a March 2019 UNESCO working paper,

AI has started producing new teaching and learning solutions that are now undergoing
testing in different contexts. AI requires advanced infrastructures and an ecosystem of
thriving innovators

Besides AI and ML, teachers must also prepare to use virtual reality (VR) and
augmented reality (AR) technologies in the classroom. Using platforms such as
the Metaverse, learners and teachers will benefit from a whole new immersive learning
experience in 3D.

The metaverse is a digital reality that combines aspects of social media, online
gaming,  augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and cryptocurrencies to allow users
to interact virtually. 

Investopeida

Teaching and learning in virtual spaces is a sure way to make education more
interesting, because it will bring content closer to the learning environment. Inside
these spaces, learners will benefit from vast information and extensive collaborative
opportunities.
By using avatars, they will teleport to all corners of the world and connect with new
learning experiences.

The virtual learning environment is also a lifesaver when education is hit hard by a
pandemic, just like it happened in 2020. Covid-19 surely stopped education in its
tracks, and this should not happen again in the 21st century!

Article contents

What are the skills to teach the 21st-century learners?

Well, with so much to learn about the evolving workplaces, there are no clear-
cut universal  skill sets that stand out.

This probably explains why the antiquated ‘data dumping‘ teaching model is still used
in classrooms today. But a lot is changing – and pretty fast for sure.

Conservatism in the classroom must pave the way for active learning and innovative
ways to provide learners with an education that makes sense today.

Where learning was a passive activity in the past, it must become active today because
employers want to hire hands-on individuals with competitive working skills.

So, what is there to learn today?

In a UNESCODOC file, Tony Wagner (2010) and his team at Harvard University

identified a set of competencies and skill sets that learners need for life, work, and
citizenship.

The 21st century skills have been grouped into 3 categories namely;

 Learning and innovation skills

 Literacy skills
 Life and career skills

All in all, they include the following and much more:

 Critical thinking and problem solving skills

 Curiosity and imagination skills
 Agility and adaptability skills
 Initiative and entrepreneuriship skills
 Effective oral and written communication skills
 Access to and analysis of information skills
 Collaboration and leadership skills

The above may not be the ultimate list of desirable skills, but remain a measurable
guideline for those wishing to become relevant in the new century.

So, what characteristics add up to the ultimate teacher of the 21st-

century ?
Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

Just like the list above, there are no comprehensive and universal guidelines as to the
ultimate characteristics of the 21st-century educator. Just as well, there are no clear-
cut teaching methodologies for learning in the 21st-century classroom.

Still, a few important factors explained below should suffice most of the time.

Many of these are centered around personalized learning. In this scenario, education is

centered around learner uniqueness, interests, needs, strengths, and skills. 

1. The teacher of the 21st century is flexible & adaptive

The 21st-century teacher is expected to be flexible & adaptive enough to
the emerging  teaching/learning environments.

Teaching has moved away from the 20th-century classroom into the learner-centered
environment, for a more personalized model of learning. The old ‘top-down’ model of
teaching is being cast aside, given the power of the internet, where information is
available in plenty and always on.

Part of the reason for the shift stems from the desire to take full advantage of learner
abilities to make him more aware of himself.

Learners can do a lot more on their own without constant supervision by the educator.

Still, the teacher is challenged to work with learners to understand their needs,

strengths, weaknesses, and the influence of technology in their lives.

Learners today utilize mobile gadgets and applications as their primary sources of
information, knowledge, and social discourse. However, despite these advances in
educational technologies and the way learners have adapted to their changing
environments, many classrooms today still employ teaching methods of the past: lecture
formats, unauthentic assessments, and rote learning.

UNESDOC

Of course, the acknowledgment comes with its boons and banes. The 21 st century is
loaded with innovations and dependencies that keep changing, and the teacher must
change with these realities.

Flexibility in the classroom necessitates realizing that learners are different, and that
information and educational settings are always changing.

The modern teacher must be aware that learners too can acquire and challenge
incorrect information from the teacher. It is upon the teacher to accept the changes
and adapt accordingly.  

Also true is the explosion of FAKE data and information, where the teacher has the
uphill task to sort through this, to find out what is right and wrong information.
2. The 21st century educator is a lifelong learner
To appreciate the benefits of a lifelong learner, it is necessary to recognize why it is no
longer sufficient to just know things, but also to be intrigued about what the future
holds.

Whereas your typical teacher focuses on facilitating knowledge and skill acquisition –
and most of the time BASED on what he too acquired from previous teachers, the new
educator focuses on reading wide and on the hunt for new information.

He must stay on top of the knowledge curve with new information and innovations,

to produce learners who are explorers of knowledge.

To do this correctly, he must read wide and be an ardent follower of global trends in

education and other disciplines.

The educator, therefore, is a persistent learner, and avid reader of emerging

knowledge-base and technology trends.

He should also remain informed about the following global realities:

 cultural relativism
 religious relativism
 racial diversity
 civil literacy
 etc.

The drive to remain current and informed becomes a motivating factor, which should
trickle down to the learners.

3. The new educator is tech savvy

Technology is the fulcrum upon which productivity and socio-economic activities
rotate in the 21st century.

It is used in science, finance, manufacturing, the labor market, communication, and

domestic entertainment. It will ultimately take over all areas of life as the years go by.

New technology means new ways to affect productivity, communicate, and teach.
Technology is designed to explore and store data, improve productivity, and make life
better for all of us.

For the Teacher, it calls for the readiness to try out new technology devices, and to
discover the right balance between old learning models and emerging learning
realities.

As it stands, promoting technology in the classroom is done through blended

learning and other teaching methodologies.
formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online
delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time,
place, path, and/or pace  and  at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location
away from home.

This is how Christensen Institute defines Blended Learning:

Another way to integrate technology involves the implementation of the Smart

Learning Environment (SLE) to ensure that learning remains relevant.

smart learning is founded on two different types of technology: smart devices and
intelligent technologies. Smart devices refer to artefacts that exhibit some properties of
ubiquitous computing, including (although not necessarily) artificial intelligence; for
instance, the Internet of things, wearable technology in the form of an accessory such as
glasses, a backpack, or even clothing’ (p. 3). Intelligent technologies refer to learning
analytics, cloud computing and AI capabilities, and are vital in capturing valuable
learning data that can effectively enhance the development of personalized and
adaptive learning

Regardless, the teacher has to evolve with the advancements, experiment with new
hardware and software, and seek relevant components for improved learning
experiences.  

Better use of multimedia content in the classroom will also facilitate interest,
engagement, creativity, and ultimately better use of information learned in the
classroom.

Below are some focal points for the tech-savvy teacher:

 Integrate multiple technologies in the classroom

 Integrate apps, multimedia, and e-learning tools
 Track learner progress as an attribute of SLE
 Analyze and explore technology smartly and extensively
 Discover and recognize new learning environment
 Promote the use of online virtual and other smart tools
 Get to understand Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning better
 Integrate augmented reality(AR) and virtual realty(VR) in the classroom
 Bridge learning communities and environment

A deeper look into the workings of technology will motivate the tech-savvy teacher to
design even better syllabuses for future educators and learners.

4. The new educator is a team leader & collaborator

The teacher of the 21st century no longer teaches in isolation, as has been the case for
ages. He collaborates with learners and other staff at school and around the world to
cultivate a cohesive teaching-learning environment.

This must reflect the working environment in the real world.

The reality about work today is the ability among employers and employees to
communicate effectively while executing their respective roles.

This is done easily through the inclusion of technology in the workplace, where new
information is shared and moved around quickly. This facilitates faster acquisition of
information for improved productivity.

This emerging environment in the workplace must be harnessed in the education

sector before it makes complete sense in the workplace. The teacher must be willing to
share information equally and learn from students who are ‘now’ capable of sourcing
for more relevant learning material online.

This perhaps explains how information has moved away from the textbook and
teacher only, to the internet, and therefore at the fingertips of learners.

Unlike the traditional modal of learning, where knowledge was a reserve of the
teacher, information today is no longer a monopoly of any one person.

Through internet repositories, collaborations,  and public libraries, information is

available through a click, a swipe, a tap on mobile screens, and audio-visual
interactions with voice assistants.

With new innovations and variant lines of thoughts, the teacher of the 21 st century
should get out of his shell and,

 be a team leader
 become a collaborator
 encourage learner-centered education – cooperative learning
 is inclusive of all learners
 promote smart communication skills
 preach accountability and responsibility
 encourage digital citizenship
 create new learning avenues
 enable critical thinking and problem solving
 become visionary and inspirational
 encourage career learning and guidance
 promote hands-on knowledge and skills
 integrate the family, community, and leaders to enhance learner experience
 invite subject professionals or science experts
 cultivate sensitivity/tolerance to different cultures, race, and religions

The learners should master the same skills and become masters in all, or most of them.

5. The new teacher is creative & innovative

It is incumbent upon the teacher of the 21st century to instill a sense of creativity and
innovation in young learners, based on their interests and motivational factors.
Creativity in teaching can help learners cultivate original thought and imagination as
a gateway to 21st-century challenges. On the other hand, innovative learning prepares
children to create new ideas, tools, and dimensions relevant to real life.

Most of these are also cemented through interdisciplinary and applied learning, where
learners are encouraged to integrate ideas and thoughts from different areas of the
curriculum.

This prepares them for a broader marketplace when they leave school. They will
become more than only salary earners, but innovative and creative individuals set for a
much bigger world of opportunities.

The antiquated education system prepared learners for static job markets where they
did not have to think beyond the month-end salary. Whereas the strategy worked for
decades, the dawn of technology has dented the status quo in the second and third
waves of digital transformation.

Besides technology, challenges such as rising urbanization, overpopulation, changing

climate, and unpredictability of life, require that the upcoming adults learn to think out
of the box!

To do this, they need the right educators in and outside the classroom.

In any case, the job market is evolving exponentially with open spaces and work skills.

Out of the many, the teacher can participate and encourage some or all of the
following:

 flipped learning
 playful learning
 critical thinking in solving problems
 creative collaborations
 imaginative games
 innovative thinking
 cooperative learning
 design tests
 relevant instructional scaffolding

These are helpful for established and startup firms, who are constantly looking for new
ideas to create better and new products for emerging markets.

Likewise, the realities of urbanization and globalization demand that creative learners
come up with smart ideas appropriate in the 21st century.

6. The 21st century teacher is a mentor & role model

Today, more than ever, learners are at crossroads in their journey towards adulthood.
They wade their way through untold challenges where they can easily buckle under
pressure.
Placed along their journeys include evolving global cultures, emerging morals, and the
vast world of the internet. These are complicated by urbanization, street violence,
substance abuse, and wanton cyber criminality.

The youth must endure these and more if they are to grow into responsible adults.

For this and other challenges, the teacher of the 21st century is meant to be someone
they can lean on, to model the responsible citizen of the 21st century.

The teacher should be:

 sensitive to learner real-life challenges

 reflective of leaner emotional challenges
 sensitive to learner challenges in children
 teach ethical values
 appropriately religious and aware of divergent views
 a mentor on cyberbullying
 aware and mentor on inappropriate content online
 appropriately sociable
 a champion of physical wellness in the tech era of a sedentary lifestyle

Additional characteristics of the aspiring teacher of the 21st century:

The teacher of the new century is

 dynamic
 a storyteller
 a personalized instructor
 enthusiastic about the teaching-learning experience

What Are 21st Century Skills?

21st Century skills are 12 abilities that today’s students need to succeed in their careers
during the Information Age.

The twelve 21st Century skills are: 

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.

They’re essential in the age of the Internet.

On this page, we’ll take a look at what’s included in 21st Century skills, how they help
students, and why they’re so important.

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

To start, let's dive into the three categories that 21st Century skills fall into.
The Three 21st Century Skill Categories
Each 21st Century skill is broken into one of three categories:

1. Learning skills
 2. Literacy skills
3. Life skills

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.

Life skills (FLIPS) take a look at intangible elements of a student’s everyday life. These
intangibles focus on both personal and professional qualities.

Altogether, these categories cover all 12 21st Century skills that contribute to a student’s
future career.

This is not an exhaustive checklist of career readiness skills — but they're the career readiness
skills that overlap with 21st Century skills!

Let’s take a closer look at each category.

Read Your Guide on Teaching 21st Century Skills

Category 1. Learning Skills (The Four C’s)

The four C’s are by far the most popular 21st Century skills. These skills are also
called learning skills.

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.

The 4 C's of 21st Century Skills are:

 Critical thinking: Finding solutions to problems

 Creativity: Thinking outside the box
  Collaboration: Working with others
 Communication: Talking to others

Arguably, critical thinking is the most important quality for someone to have in health
sciences.

In business settings, critical thinking is essential to improvement. It’s the mechanism that
weeds out problems and replaces them with fruitful endeavors.

It’s what helps students figure stuff out for themselves when they don’t have a teacher at
their disposal.

Related Resources:

 Top Critical Thinking Lesson Plans

 Problem Solving Lesson Plans for Middle School
 Best Critical Thinking Activities for High School

Bonus Resource:

Free Critical Thinking Lesson Download 

Creativity is equally important as a means of adaptation. This skill empowers students

to see concepts in a different light, which leads to innovation.

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 means getting students to work together, achieve compromises, and

get the best possible results from solving a problem.

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.

The key element of collaboration is willingness. All participants have to be willing to sacrifice
parts of their own ideas and adopt others to get results for the company.

That means understanding the idea of a “greater good,” which in this case tends to be
company-wide success.

Related Resources:
  What Is Collaborative Learning & How Do You Teach It?
 Top Collaborative Learning Lesson Plans for Middle School

Finally, communication is the glue that brings all of these educational qualities

together.

Communication is a requirement for any company to maintain profitability. It’s crucial for
students to learn how to effectively convey ideas among different personality types.

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.

Related Resources:

 What are Workplace Communication Skills and How Do You Teach Them?
 Best Communication Lesson Plans for Middle School
 Best Resources to Teach Communication Skills in High School

But the four C’s are only the beginning. 21st Century skills also require students to
understand the information that’s around them.

Category 2. Literacy Skills (IMT)

Literacy skills are the next category of 21st Century skills.

They’re sometimes called IMT skills, and they’re each concerned with a different element in
digital comprehension.

The three 21st Century literacy skills are:

 Information literacy: Understanding facts, figures, statistics, and data

 Media literacy: Understanding the methods and outlets in which information is
published
 Technology literacy: Understanding the machines that make the Information Age
possible

Information literacy is the foundational skill. It helps students understand facts,

especially data points, that they’ll encounter online.

More importantly, it teaches them how to separate fact from fiction.

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. 

Related Resources:

 Best Places to Find Information Literacy Lesson Plans for Middle School
 5 Essential Steps to Teach Information Literacy in Middle School

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.

Last, technology literacy goes another step further to teach students about the

machines involved in the Information Age.

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.

They might even guide its future.

But to truly round out a student’s 21st Century skills, they need to learn from a third category.

Category 3. Life Skills (FLIPS)

Life skills is the final category.  Also called FLIPS, these skills all pertain to someone’s
personal life, but they also bleed into professional settings.

The five 21st Century life skills are:

 Flexibility: Deviating from plans as needed

 Leadership: Motivating a team to accomplish a goal
 Initiative: Starting projects, strategies, and plans on one’s own
 Productivity: Maintaining efficiency in an age of distractions
 Social skills: Meeting and networking with others for mutual benefit

Flexibility is the expression of someone’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

This is one of the most challenging qualities to learn for students because it’s based on two
uncomfortable ideas:

1. Your way isn’t always the best way

2. You have to know and admit when you’re wrong

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.

Still, flexibility is crucial to a student’s long-term success in a career. Knowing when to

change, how to change, and how to react to change is a skill that’ll pay dividends for
someone’s entire life.

It also plays a big role in the next skill in this category.

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.

Then, those entry-level employees can apply their leadership skills when they’re promoted to
middle management (or the equivalent). This is where 21st Century skill learners can apply
the previous skills they’ve learned.  

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.

Related Resources:

 Best Leadership Lesson Plans for High School

 Leadership Activities for High School Students

True success also requires initiative, requiring students to be self-starters.

Initiative only comes naturally to a handful of people. As a result, students need to learn it to

fully succeed.

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.
Sometimes, it’s spending an extra 30 minutes at their jobs wrapping something up before the
weekend.

Regardless, initiative is an attribute that earns rewards. It’s especially indicative of

someone’s character in terms of work ethic and professional progress.

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.”

The common goal of any professional — from entry-level employee to CEO — is to get more
done in less time.

By understanding productivity strategies at every level, students discover the ways in which
they work best while gaining an appreciation for how others work as well.

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.

Social skills are crucial to the ongoing success of a professional. Business is frequently

done through the connections one person makes with others around them.

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.

For them, it’s another skill to add to their lives.

Now that we’ve established what 21st Century skills are, let’s answer the next big question.

Do employers actually want people with 21st Century skills?

What’s the Demand for 21st Century Skills?

While 21st Century skills have always been important, they’ve become essential in a
worldwide market that moves faster by the day.

These skills all double back to one key focus.

Someone’s ability to enact and / or adapt to change. 

This is because any industry is capable of changing at a moment’s notice. Industries are now
regularly disrupted with new ideas and methodologies.

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.

Otherwise, they’ll be left behind.

This is especially true as customer demand accelerates in all industries along with
expectations for newer features, higher-level capabilities, and lower prices.

In today’s marketplace, falling behind means becoming obsolete.

That’s a familiar concept to all of today’s students as tomorrow’s advancements make

today’s miracles quaint or unimpressive.

Today, the only consistency from year to year is change.

That's why many teachers like you are incorporating the 21st Century Skills Assessment into
their career readiness courses.

With 21st Century skills, your students will have the adaptive qualities they need to keep up
with a business environment that’s constantly evolving.

How Do You Teach 21st Century Skills?

Now you know what 21st Century skills are and why employers want new hires to have
them.

So how do you teach them in your daily classes?

Before getting into the details, it's important to identify who should teach 21st Century skills.

While these skills can be taught at any grade level, we find it's most important to
teach 21st Century skills in middle or early high school.

This is the time when your students need to hone their career readiness skills before they
enter the workforce!

So how can middle and high school teachers teach 21st Century skills effectively?

Click below to download the Ultimate Guide to Teaching 21st Century Skills in Secondary
Schools and find out!