21st Century Skills

21st century skills refer to the unique blend of worldly skills and core academic subjects that readies a student for the 21st century. 21st century skills build on the basis of academic knowledge and understanding to teach students the essential 4C's (critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity) they need to succeed in today's global economy and technology based society. Instead of teaching just the academic skills students need to succeed in the academic realm, 21st century skills are equipping students with the literacies, skills, knowledge, and expertise they'll need to succeed in LIFE. Once the core subjects are taught, interdisciplinary themes are included to promote a higher level of understanding; learning and innovation skills are included to prepare students for the work environment; information, media, and technology skills are included to prepare students for a technology based society; and life and career skills are included to prepare students to function in life and work. When all these things come together, they create a well-rounded, informed, able, prepared, multi-dimensional individual. In today's ever-changing, high speed, complicated, information loaded world, more and more is required of students. 21st century skills prepare students to go out and be able to not only accomplish what is required of them in this demanding world, but make contributions as well.

As an elementary education major, my field is not only refining the 21st century skills I’ve learned through schooling, but is teaching me how to teach these skills to students when I become a teacher. My profession goes beyond the core subjects. As a teacher I am preparing these children for the world-the purpose 21st century skills serves. Without 21st century skills and the framework for 21st century learning, my field would be, in essence, futile. We would not be able to create well rounded, prepared individuals. Therefore, I have to have all the 21st century skills down to a “T” if I am going to teach them to young children.

Besides teaching these skills to children, I will be using them on a daily basis in my field. Teaching kindergarten requires a lot of creativity and innovation. I have to be able to create learning activities for my students that are fun, exciting, and engaging (5 year old attention spans don’t last long), but at the same time effective and meaningful. If one activity isn’t effective, or a child is not understanding or progressing, I have to be innovative and utilize critical thinking and problem solving skills to deal with the problem and find a solution. Communication skills are imperative. Not only do I have to effectively communicate with kindergarten age children and be able to communicate with them on a level that makes them understand and in a way that suits their needs, but I have to communicate with parents. Communication with parents is a vital aspect of gaining their trust in teaching their child and in promoting the child’s success. Collaboration skills will be used on a daily basis when working with other teachers to create lesson plans, share ideas, and help each other to run an efficient classroom, and when working with my class as a whole on an activity. In an ever changing, high speed, technology focused world, I have to be ready to teach a generation of children that will probably be able to use more technology than me and be learning in ways we didn’t at that age. I will utilize information, technology, and media skills on a daily basis. Whether it’s using technology to enhance lessons and stimulate learning, such as powerpoints, videos, songs, the computer, or interactive technology; using technology to form my lesson plans, such as researching databases and making use of the internet; or using technology to organize, such as computer documents for grades and lesson plans, and email for contact with parents, I will need to be technology savvy to do my job. Life and career skills may be the most important of all the 21st century skills for my field. I have to be flexible, especially dealing with kindergartners. They may not always understand or be able to do something I ask them to, and I have to be flexible and find a way to adapt the situation to fit the needs of the student. I also have to be flexible when dealing with parents and faculty and dealing with decisions that I did not make but have to work with. I have to have social and cross cultural skills in order to work with people of varying ages all day everyday, and to understand why certain students act a certain way or have certain characteristics and not be offensive to anyone. I have to be productive in order to effectively and efficiently teach young children everything they need to know I order to succeed and move on in their schooling. And last but not least, I have to be a responsible and be a leader for my students. I am responsible not only for their academic success but their well being during the school day. I have to care for them and adequately provide for them. And I have to be a leader for them. They need a role-model to look up to, who they can trust and rely on to always lead them in the right direction.



In this video, leaders in education and business talk about the importance of 21st century skills. I chose this video because it includes prestigious and well-educated individuals who are successful in today’s world and whose words have substantial support. They do a great job of explaining the importance of teaching 21st century students 21st century skills, and preparing them with the skills to be able to think on their own and succeed in today’s global economy, and to go beyond that and make contributions to their world. They emphasize the need for 21st century skills in an ever changing and challenging world, no matter what field of study or work you are in. I can strongly relate to this video because it stresses the role teachers play in implanting these skills in students, and how teachers are having to adapt their teaching methods to catch up with the 21st century.