problem solving 21st century skill

Defining Deeper Learning and 21st Century Skills

Life in the 21st century requires people to be prepared to fill a variety of roles—as workers, parents, citizens, and consumers—in which they will need to apply their knowledge and skills effectively to rapidly changing situations. Recognizing this need, business, political, and educational leaders are increasingly asking schools to teach students the competencies they will need to navigate a changing world—skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration. Such skills are often referred to as “21st century skills,” “soft skills,” or “deeper learning.”

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Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century

Americans have long recognized that investments in public education contribute to the common good, enhancing national prosperity and supporting stable families, neighborhoods, and communities. Education is even more critical today, in the face of economic, environmental, and social challenges. Today's children can meet future challenges if their schooling and informal learning activities prepare them for adult roles as citizens, employees, managers, parents, volunteers, and entrepreneurs. To achieve their full potential as adults, young people need to develop a range of skills and knowledge that facilitate mastery and application of English, mathematics, and other school subjects. At the same time, business and political leaders are increasingly asking schools to develop skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and self-management - often referred to as "21st century skills."

Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century describes this important set of key skills that increase deeper learning, college and career readiness, student-centered learning, and higher order thinking. These labels include both cognitive and non-cognitive skills- such as critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, effective communication, motivation, persistence, and learning to learn. 21st century skills also include creativity, innovation, and ethics that are important to later success and may be developed in formal or informal learning environments.

This report also describes how these skills relate to each other and to more traditional academic skills and content in the key disciplines of reading, mathematics, and science. Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century summarizes the findings of the research that investigates the importance of such skills to success in education, work, and other areas of adult responsibility and that demonstrates the importance of developing these skills in K-16 education. In this report, features related to learning these skills are identified, which include teacher professional development, curriculum, assessment, after-school and out-of-school programs, and informal learning centers such as exhibits and museums.

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• Press Release
• Education for Life and Work: Guide for Practitioners
• Policy Highlights
• Report Brief

Description

An ad hoc committee will review and synthesize current research on the nature of deeper learning and 21st century skills and will address the following:

• Define the set of key skills that are referenced by the labels “deeper learning,” “21st century skills,” “college and career readiness,” “student centered learning,” “next generation learning,” “new basic skills,” and “higher order thinking.”  These labels are typically used to include both cognitive and non cognitive skills - such as critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, effective communication, motivation, persistence, and learning to learn that can be demonstrated within core academic content areas and that are important to success in education, work, and other areas of adult responsibility.  The labels are also sometimes used to include other important capacities - such as creativity, innovation, and ethics - that are important to later success and may also be developed in formal or informal learning environments.
• Describe how these skills relate to each other and to more traditional academic skills and content in the key disciplines of reading, mathematics, and science.   In particular, consider these skills in the context of the work of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers in specifying Common Core State Standards for English language arts and mathematics, and the work of the NRC in specifying a Conceptual Framework for New Science Education Standards.
• Summarize the findings of the research that investigates the importance of such skills to success in education, work, and other areas of adult responsibility and that demonstrates the importance of developing these skills in K-16 education.
• Summarize what is known - and what research is needed - about how these skills can be learned, taught, and assessed.  This summary should include both the cognitive foundations of these skills in learning theory and research about effective approaches to teaching and learning these skills, including approaches using digital media.
• Identify features of educational interventions that research suggests could be used as indicators that an intervention is likely to develop the key skills in a substantial and meaningful way.  In particular, for learning in formal school-based environments, identify features related to learning these skills in educational interventions in a) teacher professional development, b) curriculum, and c) assessment   For learning in informal environments, identify features related to learning these skills in educational interventions in d) after-school and out-of-school programs and e) exhibits, museums, and other informal learning centers.   For learning in both formal and informal environments, identify features related to learning these skills in education interventions in f) digital media.

The conclusions and recommendations of the report will provide a common foundation for further research and policy work that seeks to improve the way these skills are developed in K-16 education.  The primary messages from the report will be distilled into a short report brief that could be broadly disseminated.

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How do we teach 21st century skills in classrooms?

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, esther care , esther care former nonresident senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @care_esther helyn kim , and helyn kim former brookings expert @helyn_kim alvin vista alvin vista former brookings expert @alvin_vista.

October 17, 2017

This is the first in a six-part blog series on teaching 21st century skills, including  problem solving ,  metacognition , critical thinking ,  collaboration , and communication in classrooms.

Over the past several decades, there has been increased demand for formal education to include the development of generic skills as well as traditional academic subjects, i.e., to include competencies for ways of thinking, ways of working, tools for working, and skills for living . These skills for today’s rapidly changing society, such as communication, problem solving, collaboration, and critical thinking, are being acknowledged increasingly all over the world. The big challenge, however, is knowing how to support and teach these skills in schools and classrooms.

In the absence of well-established, evidence-based approaches that demonstrate how to teach the skills and show how students have benefited from the process, countries are selecting a variety of paths to explore optimal models. For example, the “ Singapore Swiss Roll ” approach, which is starting to be implemented across the core curriculum, adopts a value-centric framework that incorporates 21st century competencies, including civic literacy, global awareness, and cross-cultural skills; critical and inventive thinking; communication, collaboration and information skills; as well as social and emotional competencies. Syllabi provided by the Ministry of Education offer guiding principles for the variety of teaching approaches that teachers can implement to enhance learning. Australia’s national curriculum of 2010 identified seven general capabilities , which teachers are expected to integrate throughout their teaching. They are guided by online resources provided by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority.

In Costa Rica, with the understanding that the education system needs to progress to respond to the changing demands for skills, the National Development Plan for 2015-2018 and a new curriculum being rolled out in 2018, aims to emphasize the development and application of key 21st century skills and attitudes, such as socioemotional, communication, critical thinking, citizenships, and problem solving. Similarly, Kenya is currently developing their new competency-based curriculum , which is designed to integrate seven competencies within and across all subject areas, to ensure a comprehensive approach to skills development.

A major recommendation from an Asia-based review of the challenges facing countries as they adopt or integrate “21st century skills”, was to undertake in-depth research into the nature and development of the skills themselves. If we don’t understand what skills actually “look like” as children and adolescents at different levels of competence demonstrate them, then expecting our subject-based and trained teachers to teach them is an unfair impost at best and destined for failure at worst. We have historically taught children based on curricula—roadmaps to learning. These curricula have outlined the substance of what is to be taught, sequences to follow to ensure movement from the simple to complex, and expectations about the quality of anticipated student performance or knowledge.

Where are the curricula for skills? Surely, in order for teachers and students to know what simple forms of communication through to sophisticated look like, they need a roadmap . This roadmap then provides the guidelines for how educators can integrate development of student skills within existing and reform subject-based curricula. Creation of these roadmaps requires us to think developmentally, to identify how we develop the competencies. An important component is to identify what demonstration of these competencies might look like and how to elicit or stimulate performance so that we know what the individual is ready to learn.

In this new blog series, we will highlight classroom practices that provide concrete examples of how just a few different 21st century skills could be seamlessly integrated throughout the school day—not as a subject area, but by making it part of the classroom culture. We start with our next blog on problem solving, while the following one will be focused on a more “social” skill. Each blog will provide concrete examples of how professionals in teaching and research can pool their resources and expertise to demonstrate activities that can be undertaken with children in classrooms here and now.

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A Comprehensive Guide to 21st Century Skills

Jenna Buckle

The concept of "21st century skills" isn't new—skills like critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving have been taught in classrooms for decades. 

Yet, as the demands of our changing economy rise, many school districts are now including 21st century skills in strategic plans to better prepare students for college, career, and life.

What are 21st century skills, why do they matter, and how can your district implement 21st century learning strategies into curriculum, assessment, and instruction? This guide shares information, research, and examples to bring you up to speed.

Table of Contents

1. What Are 21st Century Skills?

2. The Importance of 21st Century Skills

3. Frameworks and Examples of 21st Century Skills

4. 21st Century Learning Strategies and Implementation

5. Additional Resources

Free Download: Panorama's Social-Emotional Learning Survey

What Are 21st Century Skills?

Districts, schools, and organizations prioritize different 21st century skills depending on what is most important to their respective communities. Generally, however, educators agree that schools must weave these skills into learning experiences and common core instruction. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the most commonly cited 21st century skills.

• Critical thinking
• Communication skills
• Problem solving
• Perseverance
• Collaboration
• Information literacy
• Technology skills and digital literacy
• Media literacy
• Global awareness
• Self-direction
• Social skills
• Literacy skills
• Civic literacy
• Social responsibility
• Innovation skills
• Thinking skills

The Importance of 21st Century Skills

While the bar used to be high school graduation, the bar for today's students is now college, career, and real-world success. Let’s take a look at why 21st century skills matter.

• Higher-education and business leaders cite soft skills as being the most important driver of success in higher-level courses and in the workplace.
• In today’s world, our schools are preparing students for jobs that might not yet exist. Career readiness means equipping students with a nuanced set of skills that can prepare them for the unknown.
• Social media has changed human interaction and created new challenges in navigating social situations.
• The age of the Internet has dramatically increased access to knowledge. Students need to learn how to process and analyze large amounts of information.
• Content knowledge from core subjects can only go so far; students need to be taught how to apply facts and ideas towards complex problems.

We've reviewed the definition of 21st century skills and why they're important in a changing world. Now, let's review a few frameworks and how school districts are putting 21st century learning into practice.

Frameworks for 21st Century Skills

The framework for 21st century learning.

This popular framework was designed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) . Describing the skills, knowledge, and expertise students must master to succeed in work and life, the framework combines content knowledge, specific skills, expertise, and literacies. P21 believes that the "base" of 21st century learning is the acquisition of key academic subject knowledge, and that schools must build on that base with additional skills including Learning Skills, Life Skills, and Literacy Skills.

• Learning Skills: Also known as the "four Cs" of 21st century learning, these include critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.
• Life Skills: Flexibility, initiative, social skills, productivity, leadership
• Literacy Skills: Information literacy, media literacy, technology literacy

World Health Organization 

The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies the fundamental life skills as decision-making and problem solving, creative thinking and critical thinking, communication and interpersonal skills, self-awareness and empathy, and coping with emotions and stress. The WHO focuses on broad psychosocial skills that can be improved over time with conscious effort.

Redefining Ready! Initiative 

The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) Redefining Ready! initiative offers a framework that many districts use to define college, career, and life readiness. AASA provides readiness indicators to capture the educational landscape of the 21st century. Metrics include Advanced Placement courses, standardized testing, college credits, industry credentials, attendance, community service, and more. On the topic of life readiness, AASA argues:

School District Frameworks

21st century skills take hold in various ways for school districts. A " Portrait of a Graduate " is one common strategy for communicating what it means for students to be college, career, and future ready. To develop a profile of a graduate, districts often adapt existing 21st century skill frameworks to fit their needs. Input from stakeholders—such as the district board, teachers, parents, partner organizations, and students—ensures that the final "portrait" is authentic to their community. Here are some Portrait of a Graduate examples.

Everett Public Schools in Everett, Washington defines 21st century skills as citizenship, collaboration, communication, creativity, critical thinking, and growth mindset. The district believes that graduates are college, career, and life ready when they have the academic knowledge, attitudes, and skills to transition to college level coursework, workforce training, and/or employment.

Gresham-Barlow School District (GBSD) in Gresham, Oregon has a mission to develop culturally responsive graduates who will thrive in an ever-changing global community. The district’s Portrait of a Graduate represents the GBSD community's collective vision of what their graduates should look like. The portrait consists of six learner profiles: Independent Lifelong Learner, Adaptable Collaborator, Compassionate Communicator, Responsible Creator, Open-Minded Critical Thinker, and Globally Aware Community Member.

Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District (SCUC ISD) in Schertz, Texas has a strategic goal around graduating college and/or career and/or military ready students. Within this vision, SCUC ISD has outlined five Traits of a Graduate: Dynamic Leader, Self-Motivated, Skilled Communicator, Service Oriented, and Future Ready.

Council Bluffs Community School District in Council Bluffs, Iowa, developed a Profile of a FutureReady Graduate that encompasses both academic and social-emotional indicators of success. The district’s social-emotional indicators—aligned to the CASEL framework—include Self-Management, Self Awareness, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills, and Responsible Decision Making.

North Kansas City Schools just north of Kansas City, Missouri, identified seven competencies that span time, space, jobs, and occupations, ensuring that students' life skills are highly transferable. The district's competencies—developed with input from students, community and business leaders, teachers, and administrators—include Adaptability, Communication, Collaboration, Empathy, Integrity, Learner's Mindset, and Problem Solving. 

Download our guide to developing your district's own vision for college, career, and life readiness

21st Century Learning Strategies & Implementation

Having a strong vision for 21st century learning is just the first step. Without an intentionally designed plan for implementation, it's unlikely that your students will acquire the skills outlined in your district's vision. Here are some best practices from Panorama's partner districts to set you up for success.

1. Build staff capacity to demonstrate 21st century skills in support of student learning.

It all starts with the adults in your building. Teachers and staff need to deeply understand and model the skills that you want your students to develop. Integrate 21st century skills into staff professional development as a precursor to growing these competencies in students. Download our Adult SEL Toolkit for ideas, worksheets, and activities to build adult SEL.

2. Develop strategies to support teachers with implementation of 21st century skills.

It can be helpful to create a playbook of recommended strategies and approaches that span across content areas. For instance, you might encourage teachers to add comments to report cards about students' 21st century skills.

3. Assess students’ 21st century learning skills.

What gets measured matters. Regularly collect data on how students are progressing in this area, whether the data is anecdotal, qualitative, or quantitative. For example, you might administer a biannual survey in which students reflect on their development of 21st century, social-emotional skills . Keep in mind that the data you gather should be formative rather than evaluative. Be transparent about the purpose.

4. Equip educators with data to proactively identify and support students who are off track.

Once you have data on students' 21st century skills, you'll want to ensure that the data is actionable for educators. Many districts opt to implement an early warning system with indicators across academics, attendance, behavior, and social-emotional learning/21st century skills. This helps educators make data-driven decisions about the best way to keep each student on track.

Additional Resources

Looking for more information on 21st century skills? Here are some other articles and resources to explore:

• "Why Social and Emotional Learning and Employability Skills Should Be Prioritized in Education" via CASEL and Committee for Children 
• "Teaching 21st Century Skills For 21st Century Success Requires An Ecosystem Approach" via Forbes
• "Bringing 21st Century Skill Development to the Forefront of K-12 Education" via Hanover Research
• "How Do You Define 21st-Century Learning?" via Education Week

Honing in on 21st century skills is essential to ensuring that students are prepared for college, career, and civic life . While there is no one "right" way to approach this work, we hope that the information in this guide inspires you to explore what 21st century learning could look like in your district!

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21st Century Skills

The term 21 st century skills refers to a broad set of knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits that are believed—by educators, school reformers, college professors, employers, and others—to be critically important to success in today’s world, particularly in collegiate programs and contemporary careers and workplaces. Generally speaking, 21 st century skills can be applied in all academic subject areas, and in all educational, career, and civic settings throughout a student’s life.

It should be noted that the “21 st century skills” concept encompasses a wide-ranging and amorphous body of knowledge and skills that is not easy to define and that has not been officially codified or categorized. While the term is widely used in education, it is not always defined consistently, which can lead to confusion and divergent interpretations. In addition, a number of related terms—including applied skills , cross-curricular skills , cross-disciplinary skills , interdisciplinary skills , transferable skills , transversal skills , noncognitive skills , and soft skills , among others—are also widely used in reference to the general forms of knowledge and skill commonly associated with 21 st  century skills. While these different terms may not be strictly synonymous, and they may have divergent or specialized meanings in certain technical contexts, these diverse sets of skills are being addressed in this one entry for the purposes of practicality and usefulness.

While the specific skills deemed to be “21 st century skills” may be defined, categorized, and determined differently from person to person, place to place, or school to school, the term does reflect a general—if somewhat loose and shifting—consensus. The following list provides a brief illustrative overview of the knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits commonly associated with 21 st century skills:

• Critical thinking, problem solving, reasoning, analysis, interpretation, synthesizing information
• Research skills and practices, interrogative questioning
• Creativity, artistry, curiosity, imagination, innovation, personal expression
• Perseverance, self-direction, planning, self-discipline, adaptability, initiative
• Oral and written communication, public speaking and presenting, listening
• Leadership, teamwork, collaboration, cooperation, facility in using virtual workspaces
• Information and communication technology (ICT) literacy, media and internet literacy, data interpretation and analysis, computer programming
• Civic, ethical, and social-justice literacy
• Economic and financial literacy, entrepreneurialism
• Global awareness, multicultural literacy, humanitarianism
• Scientific literacy and reasoning, the scientific method
• Environmental and conservation literacy, ecosystems understanding
• Health and wellness literacy, including nutrition, diet, exercise, and public health and safety

While many individuals and organizations have proposed definitions of 21 st century skills, and most states have adopted learning standards that include or address cross-disciplinary skills, the following are three popular models that can serve to illustrate the concept and its applications in education:

• Framework for 21 st Century Learning  (The Partnership for 21 st Century Skills)
• Four Keys to College and Career Readiness  (David T. Conley and the Educational Policy Improvement Center)
• Seven Survival Skills  (Tony Wagner and the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education)

For related discussions, see content knowledge and learning standards .

Generally speaking, the 21 st century skills concept is motivated by the belief that teaching students the most relevant, useful, in-demand, and universally applicable skills should be prioritized in today’s schools, and by the related belief that many schools may not sufficiently prioritize such skills or effectively teach them to students. The basic idea is that students, who will come of age in the 21 st century, need to be taught different skills than those learned by students in the 20 th century, and that the skills they learn should reflect the specific demands that will placed upon them in a complex, competitive, knowledge-based, information-age, technology-driven economy and society.

While 21 st century skills are relevant to all areas of schooling and academic study, and the skills may be taught in a wide variety of in-school and outside-of-school settings, there are a few primary ways in which 21 st century skills intersect with efforts to improve schools:

• Teachers may be more intentional about teaching cross-disciplinary skills in subject-area courses. For example, in a science course students might be required to learn research methods that can also be applied in other disciplines; articulate technical scientific concepts in verbal, written, and graphic forms; present lab results to a panel of working scientists; or use sophisticated technologies, software programs, and multimedia applications as an extension of an assigned project.
• States, accrediting organizations, and schools may require 21 st century skills to be taught and assessed in courses. For example, states can adopt learning standards that explicitly describe cross-disciplinary skills, and assessments may be designed or modified to evaluate whether students have acquired and mastered certain skills.
• Schools and teachers may use educational approaches that inherently encourage or facilitate the acquisition of cross-disciplinary skills. For example, educational strategies such as authentic learning , demonstrations of learning , or  project-based learning tend to be cross-disciplinary in nature, and students—in the process of completing a research project, for example—may have to use a variety of applied skills, multiple technologies, and new ways of analyzing and processing information, while also taking initiative, thinking creatively, planning out the process, and working collaboratively in teams with other students.
• Schools may allow students to pursue alternative learning pathways in which students earn academic credit and satisfy graduation requirements by completing an internship, apprenticeship, or volunteer experience, for example. In this case, students might acquire a variety of practical, job-related skills and work habits, while also completing academic coursework and meeting the same learning standards required of students in more traditional academic courses.

While there is broad agreement that today’s students need different skills than were perhaps taught to previous generations, and that cross-disciplinary skills such as writing, critical thinking, self-initiative, group collaboration, and technological literacy are essential to success in higher education, modern workplaces, and adult life, there is still a great deal of debate about 21 st century skills—from what skills are most important to how such skills should be taught to their appropriate role in public education. Given that there is no clear consensus on what skills specifically constitute “21 st century skills,” the concept tends to be interpreted and applied in different ways from state to state or school to school, which can lead to ambiguity, confusion, and inconsistency.

Calls for placing a greater emphasis on cross-disciplinary skills in public education are, generally speaking, a response to the perception that most public schools pay insufficient attention to the postsecondary preparation and success of students. In other words, the 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. For example: Is the purpose of public education to get students to pass a test and earn a high school diploma? Or is the purpose to prepare students for success in higher education and modern careers? The push to prioritize 21 st century skills is typically motivated by the belief that all students should be equipped with the knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits they will need to pursue continued education and challenging careers after graduation, and that a failure to adequately prepare students effectively denies them opportunities, with potentially significant consequences for our economy, democracy, and society.

A related debate centers on the distinction between “knowledge” and “skills,” and how schools and teachers may interpret—or misinterpret—the concepts. Some educators argue that it’s not possible to teach cross-disciplinary skills separately from knowledge and conceptual understanding—for example, students can’t learn to write well if they don’t have ideas, facts, principles, and philosophies to write about. The basic idea is that “21 st century skills” is an artificial concept that can’t be separated out from subject-area knowledge and instruction. Other educators may argue that cross-disciplinary skills have historically been ignored or under-prioritized in schools, and the push to give more emphasis and attention to these skills is simply a commonsense response to a changing world.

The following list provides a few additional examples of representative arguments that may be made in support of teaching 21 st century skills:

• In today’s world, information and knowledge are increasing at such an astronomical rate that no one can learn everything about every subject, what may appear true today could be proven to be false tomorrow, and the jobs that students will get after they graduate may not yet exist. For this reason, students need to be taught how to process, parse, and use information, and they need adaptable skills they can apply in all areas of life—just teaching them ideas and facts, without teaching them how to use them in real-life settings, is no longer enough.
• Schools need to adapt and develop new ways of teaching and learning that reflect a changing world. The purpose of school should be to prepare students for success after graduation, and therefore schools need to prioritize the knowledge and skills that will be in the greatest demand, such as those skills deemed to be most important by college professors and employers. Only teaching students to perform well in school or on a test is no longer sufficient.
• Given the widespread availability of information today, students no longer need teachers to lecture to them on the causes of the Civil War, for example, because that information is readily available—and often in more engaging formats that a typical classroom lecture. For this reason, educators should use in-school time to teach students how to find, interpret, and use information, rather than using most or all of the time to present information.

The following list provides a few examples of representative arguments that may be made against the concept of 21 st century skills:

• Public schools and teachers have always taught, and will continue to teach, cross-disciplinary skills—they just never gave it a label. The debate over “content vs. skills” is not new—educators have been talking about and wrestling with these issues for a century—which makes the term “21 st century skills” somewhat misleading and inaccurate.
• Focusing too much on cross-disciplinary skills could water-down academic courses, and students may not get “the basics.” The more time teachers spend on skill-related instruction, the less time they will have for content-based instruction. And if schools privilege cross-disciplinary skills over content knowledge , students may be denied opportunities because they are insufficiently knowledgeable. Students need a broad knowledge base, which they won’t receive if teachers focus too much on skill-related instruction or “learning how to learn.”
• Cross-disciplinary skills are extremely difficult to assess reliably and consistently. There are no formal tests for 21 st century skills, so the public won’t know how well schools are doing in teaching these skills.

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The Integration of Problem Based Learning in Generating 21st Century Skills

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21st Century Skills: The Challenges Ahead

What will it take, better curriculum, better teaching, better tests, a better, but harder, way.

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Silva, E. (2008). Measuring skills for the 21st century . Washington, DC: Education Sector. Available: www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/MeasuringSkills.pdf

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Assessing and Teaching 21st Century Skills: Collaborative Problem Solving as a Case Study

• First Online: 05 April 2017

Cite this chapter

• Patrick Griffin 6  

Part of the book series: Methodology of Educational Measurement and Assessment ((MEMA))

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This chapter describes the assessment of collaborative problem solving using human-to-human interaction. Tasks were designed to require partners to contribute resources or skills that they uniquely controlled. Issues were task design, data capture, item and data definition, calibration, and the link to teaching intervention. The interpretation of the student performance is mapped to a criterion-referenced interpretation framework, and reports are designed to assist teachers to intervene at a Vygotsky zone of proximal development in order to promote development of the student ability in collaborative problem solving. The data analytics demonstrate how the equivalent of test items are developed and issues such a local independence are discussed.

An earlier version of this chapter was presented as a keynote lecture at the Institute of Curriculum & Instruction at East China Normal University, November 6–8, 2015, Shanghai, China.

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Griffin, P. (2017). Assessing and Teaching 21st Century Skills: Collaborative Problem Solving as a Case Study. In: von Davier, A., Zhu, M., Kyllonen, P. (eds) Innovative Assessment of Collaboration. Methodology of Educational Measurement and Assessment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33261-1_8

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21st Century Skill “Problem Solving”: Defining the Concept

2019, Asian Journal of Interdisciplinary Research

Only knowledge is not sufficient to make students succeed in the world. Students need to attain 21 st century skills like problem-solving, creativity, innovation, metacognition, communication etc. to endure in the modern world. Problem-solving skill is one of the fundamental human cognitive processes. Whenever students face a situation where they do not know the way to complete a task, the problem occurs. Problem-solving is a process, which involves systematic observation and critical thinking to find an appropriate solution or way to reach the desired goal. The framework of problem-solving consisted of two major skills: observation and critical thinking skill. Observation skill refers to collecting data, understanding and interpreting the meaning of the information using all the senses. Critical thinking involves the individual's ability to do the following: conceptualizing, logical reasoning, applying strategy, analytical thinking, decision making and synthesizing to solve any problem.

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The development of the times is the background of increasingly rapid technological advances. The times have become the basis for the education industry to continue to grow. The development of education is expected to produce high-quality human resources and are able to think critically and creatively in solving problems. Quality education will lead to quality human resources as well. Critical thinking and problem solving as skills that need to be mastered by students, especially the younger generation. It has been widely recognized as one of the most important skills. Someone who has the ability to think critically and problem solving is considered to have many benefits because he has the ability to analyze certain situations and make the right decisions for the situation at hand. The research was conducted to determine the level of critical thinking and problem solving skills among students and students using three variables. The results of the study were analyzed using descriptive...

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A problem is a situation, in which a person tries to find a solution and does not exactly know how but still tries to solve it. One of the important elements of problem solving skills that individuals should have is to choose the appropriate strategy in the solution of the problems, which is important in terms of achieving success in solving problems. The research question of the study is " what are the levels of sixth and seventh grade students' problem solving skills? " The aim of this study was to investigate the problem solving and problem-solving strategies levels of secondary school students. The study was carried out through method with a total of 72 students from the two provinces in the Black Sea region of Turkey selected by random in the second term of the 2014-2015 academic year. In this qualitative research for the case study, content analysis was applied. The study group consists of 50 students in Samsun province and 22 students in Sinop province in the Blacksea region, 35 of the students are females, whereas 37 of them are male students. Turkish by the researchers, were used as the data collection tools. The problems applied were evaluated according to Polya's stage of problem solving. The problems were evaluated according to stages such as understanding the problem, choosing a strategy, applying the chosen strategy, and evaluating the solution. While examining students' problem solving papers, it was observed that they were more successful at solving problems, with which they came across before or are similar to the ones they had solved. It was observed that majority of the students had difficulty in solving non-routine problems. It is believed that this results from the fact that mostly routine problems are discussed and solved in the curricula.

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Innovate learning with the 21CLD real-world problem solving and innovation dimension

This module defines real-world problem solving for educators and explains the dimensions that must be present in such classroom activities to prepare learners with 21st century skills.

Learning objectives

In this module, you will:

• Determine why real-world problem solving and innovation is important
• Define problem solving
• Explore the real-world problem solving and innovation rubric and decision tree
• Examine Microsoft tools that support real-world problem solving and innovation
• Design learning activities that focus on real-world problem solving and innovation

Prerequisites

• Introduction min
• Introduction to real-world problem solving and innovation min
• Design learning experiences with the real-world problem solving and innovation rubric min
• Support real-world problem solving and innovation with Microsoft tools min
• Real-world problem solving and innovation in action min
• Knowledge check min
• Summary min

6 crucial soft skills every student needs to master in the 21st century

T hriving in this ever-changing world not only requires a breadth of skills rooted in academic competencies for children but also abilities like teamwork, critical thinking, communication, persistence, and creativity amongst others. These skills are in fact interconnected.

We live in an era when students require these diverse sets of skills to survive and be successful. It is no longer enough to rely on conventional skill sets like the power of memory and recall, rote, and repetition.

Schools are aware of the evolution of society and the economy and hence are equipping teachers in terms of upskilling and adapting curriculum to ensure conceptual understanding, development of competencies, and growth in character, to ensure that students are nurtured, challenged, and empowered to achieve their academic and personal goals.

What skills then would be useful to students who have to shape their lives in tune with the rapidly changing world?

Here are six crucial soft skills every student needs to master in the 21 st century as listed by Shweta Sastri, Managing Director, Canadian International School, Bangalore:

1. ADAPTABILITY AND CREATIVITY

In the digital age, things are changing very rapidly. By the time students learn one set of skills, a newer version is already emerging.

Students will need to adapt to changing conditions and learn things quickly and efficiently and mentors will have to ensure that students are aware of the best methods to learn new things. Learning how to learn is an important skill that cannot be overemphasised!

2. COLLABORATION SKILLS ARE VITAL

It's quite possible that traditional classrooms may encourage competition and independence compared to collaboration and teamwork. Schools have to keep pace with changing scenarios and bring in a culture of collaboration which are crucial to achieving collective goals.

Every professional today works collaboratively with others in some capacity.  From engineers to artists, learning how to work in a group setting or leading a team that needs motivation requires practice.  What better way to foster these lifelong skills than in a classroom?

3. COMMUNICATION SKILLS

In the new digital age, there is great emphasis on the ability to communicate; hence, students have to be familiar with emerging technologies used in communication. In the current era, technology is omnipresent and schools need to adapt to new communication changes.

In addition to conceptual understanding, students should have the opportunity to grow in character to become well-rounded global citizens who have the confidence to impact a remarkable and sustainable future.

4. CRITICAL THINKING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING

Creating an environment that focuses on conceptual understanding and application of that knowledge to real-world skills leads to lifelong learning and retention of knowledge. 

Building an environment that fosters critical thinking, risk-taking, creativity, and the courage to make mistakes and move beyond them should be a priority.  

Focusing on learning to understand rather than learning to test should be a high priority for educators.

The ability to think critically is not easy and needs instruction and support. However once this skill is mastered, it will help develop analytical capabilities that will help students be competitive in an ever-changing global market.

5. CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING

Growing and learning in a multicultural environment gives children a greater understanding of others' beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours. As globalisation continues to bring cultures together, it is imperative to equip students with the continued experience to be citizens of a global future.

These experiences come from an education model that includes diverse narratives, qualities, and viewpoints, which facilitate an understanding of social pluralism. Multiculturalism promotes principles of inclusion, democracy, and a sense of togetherness, among many other positive traits.

6. UPSKILLING AND ALWAYS BEING AT THE CUTTING EDGE IN TECH 

Technology has shaped human history over the years and will undoubtedly continue to do so. Today, the digital revolution is spreading across the globe, creating connections never before thought of and students will have to have a breadth of broad technological skills.

Whether it is called the Second Machine Age, the Digital Revolution, or the 4th Industrial Revolution, technologists, economists and academics are all concerned with recent rapid technological advances and their implications for the future.

The world is constantly changing and the pace at which the economy is progressing makes agility a great value and in the modern world, there is no one better placed than those who can multitask in a quick time.

Recognising the nature of these changes is vital in understanding the current context in which we live, and the changes to be expected in the future. This, in turn, helps us determine how we view education and the need for the breadth of skills approach.

It is now central that we explore how to align these aspirations in the context of the educational environment.

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