The Other 21st Century Skills

Many have attempted to identify the skills important for a learner today in this era of the 21st century (I know it is an overused phrase).  I have an affinity towards the skills identified by Tony Wagner:

• Critical thinking and problem-solving
• Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
• Agility and adaptability
• Initiative and entrepreneurialism
• Effective oral and written communication
• Accessing and analyzing information
• Curiosity and imagination   http://www.tonywagner.com/7-survival-skills

Today I viewed a slideshow created by Gallup entitled, The Economics of Human Development: The Path to Winning Again in Education.

Here are some slides from this presentation.

This presentation sparked my thinking about what other skills and attributes would serve the learners (of all ages) in this era of learning.  Some other ones that I believe important based on what I hear at conferences, read via blogs and other social networks include:

• Perseverance
• Resilience
• Hope and Optimism
• Vision
• Self-Regulation
• Empathy and Global Stewardship

Perseverance

http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/the_tempered_radical/2012/11/how-gritty-are-todays-learners-slide.html

How to Foster Grit, Tenacity and Perseverance: An Educator’s Guide

Students can develop psychological resources that promote grit, tenacity, and perseverance. Our research pointed to three facets—all of which have been shown to be malleable and teachable in certain contexts:

Academic mindsets. These constitute how students frame themselves as learners, their learning environment, and their relationships to the learning environment. They include beliefs, attitudes, dispositions, values, and ways of perceiving oneself. A core mindset that supports perseverance is called the “growth mindset”—knowing “My ability and competence grow with my effort.”

Effortful control. Students are constantly faced with tasks that are important for long-term goals but that in the short-term do not feel desirable or intrinsically motivating. Successful students marshal willpower and regulate their attention during such tasks and in the face of distractions.

Strategies and tactics. Students are also more likely to persevere when they can draw on specific strategies and tactics to deal with challenges and setbacks. They need actionable skills for taking responsibility and initiative, and for being productive under conditions of uncertainty—for example, defining tasks, planning, monitoring, changing course of action, and dealing with specific obstacles.

Resources for Educators:

• How to Foster Grit, Tenacity and Perseverance: An Educator’s Guide
• How Important is Grit in Student Achievement?
• Instilling Perseverance In Children

Resilience

Resilience is directly related to grit.  While grit is having the perseverance to continue on one’s journey, resilience is the ability is bounce back in the face of set-backs, obstacles, and failures.

Schools are an excellent place to foster healthy development in youngsters whether teaching the “Three Rs” or AP chemistry. Each adult can support resiliency development by

• communicating caring and support;
• setting high expectations;
• providing meaningful opportunities for participation and involvement in the school community; and
• viewing students from a strength-based perspective. (Supporting Student Success By Building Resiliency Skills)

Resources for Educators:

• Risk and Resilience
• Building Resiliency in Students

Hope and Optimism

For educators who want to help their students build these skills of hope, here are five research-based guidelines. From How to Help Students Develop Hope:

1. Identify and prioritize their top goals, from macro to micro. Start by having students create a “big picture” list of what’s important to them—such as their academics, friends, family, sports, or career—and then have them reflect on which areas are most important to them and how satisfied they are with each.
2. Breakdown the goals—especially long-term ones—into steps. Research has suggested that students with low hope frequently think goals have to be accomplished all-at-once, possibly because they haven’t had the parental guidance on how to achieve goals in steps. Teaching them how to see their goals as a series of steps will also give students reasons to celebrate their successes along the way—a great way to keep motivation high!
3. Teach students that there’s more than one way to reach a goal. Studies show that one of the greatest challenges for students with low hope is their inability to move past obstacles. They often lack key problem-solving skills, causing them to abandon the quest for their goals.
4. Tell stories of success.  Scientists have found that hopeful students draw on memories of other successes when they face an obstacle; however, students with low hope often don’t have these kinds of memories. That’s why it’s vital for teachers to read books or share stories of other people—especially kids—who have overcome adversity to reach their goals.
5. Keep it light and positive. It’s important to teach students to enjoy the process of attaining their goals, even to laugh at themselves when they face obstacles and make mistakes. Above all, no self-pity! Research has found that students who use positive self-talk, rather than beating themselves up for mistakes, are more likely to reach their goals.

Resources for Educators:

• How to Help Students Develop Hope
• Optimism: The hidden asset

Vision for the Future

The impossible has been obtained in this globe mainly due to the objectives and experienced concepts and objectives of so-called mavericks. Having a desire, be it to fight social injustices or to journey through space, has allowed humans to create the globe a better place to live in and to discover the secret that is life and beyond. Motivating learners to have little or big objectives, picturing and success stories is a great addiction to teach (Helping Students Achieve Dreams Through the Vision Board).

Resources for Teachers:

• Dream-driven Education
• Helping Students Achieve Dreams Through the Vision Board

Self-Regulation

Globalization and technological advancements require that students learn to be more autonomous, flexible, and critical in their thinking. To reflect societal changes, educational reform has focused on the learning environment, developing more problem-based, collaborative, and student-centered classrooms to better represent the complex learning situations students may face in a real-life work environment. Part of this ongoing reform involves teaching students appropriate learning strategies and self-regulatory skills to help them adapt to these future situations and become life-long learners (Zimmerman & Schunk, 2003).  For today’s educator, knowledge of self-regulation, its development, and strategies to optimize self-regulation in all learners is pivotal for student success.  Self-regulation is a complex process involving numerous motivational, affective, cognitive, physiological and behavioral factors that individuals proactively direct and manage in order to attain self-set goals (Zeidner, Boekaerts, & Pintrich, 2000). It is a broad construct incorporating behaviors and strategies utilized by individuals across their lifespan to modulate or control their own emotional and behavioral responses. Students who self-regulate believe that they are responsible for their own learning and are more adept at dictating what, where, and how their learning occurs (Bandura, 2006). These students often persist longer through academic tasks and display higher levels of motivation and achievement (Schunk & Ertmer, 2000; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2001) (BC’s Self-Regulation Story: Engaging the First Wave Classrooms and Schools).

Resources for Educators:

• Self-regulation key to classroom success
• Self-Regulation: The Key to Successful Students?
• Self-Regulated Learning in the Classroom: A Literature Review on the Teacher’s Role

Empathy and Global Stewardship

The general hope is that teaching empathy might lead to greater social harmony, altruistic action, social justice, and interpersonal and intercultural understanding. If we’re to reverse the increasing disregard for human suffering in this country and around the world, with the growing gap between rich and poor, empathy education — if it could be successful and massive — could make a major difference.  The problem is never too much empathy. The problem is not enough. Empathy education needs to move beyond volunteerism and toward social transformation. One has to have the kind of empathy that really understands you don’t just give people handouts; what you do is transform the system so the people themselves can be transformed. While empathy is not itself sufficient, it is necessary for greater social justice to come about (Teaching Empathy to the ‘Me’ Generation).

Resources for Educators:

• Empathy: The 21st Century Skill
• Developing Empathy
• Teaching Students to Turn Empathy into Action