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© WERDELIN 2013
21st Century Skills
- delivered by Cooperative Learning since the 1930s
The term 21st Century Skills refers to a broad set of knowledge, skills, work habits, even character traits, that are believed — by educators, school reformers, college professors, employers, and others — to be critically important to success in today’s world.*
While the definitions are fluid, the cornerstone is the drive to independently and collaboratively discover, critically process and share complex information and ask imaginative questions leading to novel solutions.
The highly controlled social constructivism afforded by Cooperative Learning facilitates this in a natural way.
Thus, these core skills have been the remit of Cooperative Learning since the 1930s when Allport, Watson, Shaw and Mead began establishing it as a theory after finding that group work was more effective and efficient in quantity, quality, and overall productivity than working alone.
werdelin E D U C A T I O N
facilitating 21st century skills through Cooperative Learning
‘‘...an entire generation of kids will fail (...) in the global economy because they can’t think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad...’’
TIME magazine, 2006 >
Business not
as usual
How Disney got into
free thinking
The 21st Century Skills concept is motivated by the belief that schools should teach the most relevant, useful, in-demand, and universally applicable skills which reflect the demands placed upon them in the complex, competitive, knowledge-based, information-age, technology-driven economy and society.
Therefore these skill sets are relentlessly promoted by representatives of the business community, such as The Partnership for 21st Century Skills whose member list include brand names such as Apple, Ford Motors, Disney, Lego and Unicef.
Other links:
OECD on 21c Skills
University of Cambridge:
Ancient, ubiquitous, enigmatic?
Educational Policy
Improvement Center:
The wider
impact
Democracy, multi-culture, globalisation
21c Skills include civic literacy, social-justice awareness, ethical literacy, global and multicultural literacy and humanitarianism.
The push to prioritize 21st century skills is typically motivated by the belief that these skills will have significant consequences for our economy, democracy, and society.
Thus the 21c Skills concept has become a touchstone in a larger debate about what public schools should be teaching and what the purpose of public education should be:
Is the purpose of public education to get students to pass a test and earn a high school diploma? Is it to serve business? Is it to lead rich, fulfilling lives?
With Cooperative Learning, it is not an either/or.
Interested in RE & P4C? contact@werdelin.co.uk
Tony Wagner’s shortlist of
From The Global Achievement Gap, 2008:
- Critical thinking and problem solving
- Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
- Agility and adaptability
- Initiative and entrepreneuralism
- Effective oral and written communication
- Accessing and analyzing information
- Curiosity and imagination
Tony Wagner is co-director of the Change Leadership Group at Harvard Graduate School of Education. more >
‘‘...motivation and determination, plus the ability to work with others, communicate, contribute and sometimes lead, will inevitably swing the balance.....’’
Independent schools: 21st-century character building
Helena Pozniak, The Telegraph 24 March 2013
‘‘Today, because of rapid economic and social change, schools have to
prepare students for jobs that have not yet been created, technologies that
have not yet been invented and problems that we don't yet know will arise.”
Andreas Schleicher, OECD Education Directorate (2010)