University of the People

EDUC 5010 EDUCATION IN CONTEXT: HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, AND

SOCIOLOGY

Instructor: Dr. Bertrand Ichoumi

15th March 2022

What are the principles of 21St Century Skills? How do the 21st Century skills impact your

teaching or your beliefs about teaching? Which skill is the most important or critical for students

to learn in order to be successful?

1. What are the principles of 21St Century Skills?

This article focused on the 21st

Century Skills required for pupils to

flourish in today's environment. Six of these

talents are covered in detail in the first

section, which also analyzes how these

skills impact my teaching methods and the

IB learner profiles of my pupils. The final

portion explores why "social skills" are the

most crucial twenty-first-century skills for

student achievement.

Twelve talents known as "21st Century Skills" are thought to be essential for pupils to

succeed in the information age and the internet. The three sub-sections of these talents are the four

C's, digital literacy, and career & life skills (Stauffer, 2020). Critical thinking, creativity,

cooperation, and communication make up the four C's. Information, media, and technological

literacy abilities are included. Last but not least, students should demonstrate initiative, leadership,

productivity, flexibility, and social skills to excel in life skills. Six of these talents are the specific

emphasis of this component of the assignment.

The 21st Century Skills are divided into 3 groups:

Learning Skills: Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaborative and Communicative

The four “C” can vary according to the aspiration of each individual. The most important in this

group is Critical Thinking, this skill helps students to find solutions to problems, work

independently and be risk-takers. Creativity is also important because it helps students to see

things from another perspective and innovation.

Critical Thinking: The main goal of critical thinking is to

identify and solve problems. Students that master this talent will

have the mental growth needed to improve and change the working

environment of today. Maybe the most crucial quality for someone

in the medical sciences to have is critical thinking. It is crucial for

corporate improvement as well. It is a process that removes

barriers and replaces them with fruitful endeavors. In the absence

of an instructor, it aids kids in figuring things out on their own. 5 tops Critical Thinking Skills

Collaboration is could be a simple word but it’s the most difficult as the students interact

with others, share ideas, projects and need to take a decision together, to make all this possible the

glue to all these skills is communication, where the students need to learn how to convey ideas to

get the results they are looking for. Communication is part of the IB Curriculum because they are

willing to express their ideas with others and through collaboration reach the same goal.

An individual's ongoing success depends on their social skills. In the organizational

culture, connections are essential because, as the adage goes, "It's not what you know. Who you

know matters. While some vocations require more frequent networks than others, all require

some degree of sociability. The emergence of social media has significantly changed how people

connect nowadays. To succeed in the modern world, students need to demonstrate essential
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competencies in manners, courtesy, and small chat, and schools are the best places to master

these skills.

Literacy Skills: Information, Media, and Technology.

Information literacy basically helps students to separate reality from fiction. At this

moment the students have access to tons of information online the differentiation basically is a job

on their own, where they need to analyze, compare and contrast the information to decide the

correct one. Media literacy is connected with information, as the resources are available for all

the students in the different forms that students find the information needs to know what is the true

one. Last in this area technology helps students to understand how machines work and how this

affected our daily lives exploring different ideas (knowledge)

Life Skills: Flexibility, leadership, initiative, productivity, and social skills.

Flexibility is the option to adjust the original idea to different chances and perspectives,

be open-minded to the different perspectives and grow up from the experience. The leadership

part is not only taking the initiative for a project, but it is also motivating the team to reach the

goal, which is connected with the initiative to start something or plan to share, communicate and

collaborate with others, taking responsibility for their own actions and the different consequences

about it. (Principled)

I think productivity as a life skill is connected with compromise and positive discipline,

the maintain the goal even with the different distractions that might present during the planning,

performance, and/or results. The last one, social skills, from my perspective is connected with

communication and collaboration where the students need to connect with others to get a mutual

benefit where the balance of their strengths and limitations has an important role in the

development of this skill (reflective).

2. How do 21st-century skills impact your teaching or your beliefs about your teaching?

As a teacher, the 21st-century skill impact my teaching style in the way of the planning as I look

for my students applied most of them during the lesson, part of this is the collaboration part

between students and teachers, the teacher is not the only one who has the knowledge, the

students develop strategies to achieve their goal bring the knowledge beyond the classroom and

give the opportunity to the students to explore new areas where the book is the beginning to that,

and the technology will bring the support that they need it.

Teaching style has changed with time and as a teacher, I need also to be on the same rhythm with

the new strategies and techniques to bring to my students the best of that and also help them to

grow their curiosity, to be reflective, risk taker and include also the IB principles in my lesson

plan.

For example, my grade 5 students frequently have to perform Geography projects in class

in order to foster the "thinkers" of tomorrow by fostering qualities like critical thinking,

creativity, flexibility, and information. They worked on both group and individual projects last

term to solve a number of current and urgent global concerns, including global warming, water

conservation, and tree planting in Viet Nam.

I often do group and whole class discussions in order to create "communicators" in my

classroom who will aid students in developing their social, communication, and teamwork skills.

Common procedures like think-pair-share, group projects, and presentations let students freely

communicate their thoughts with their peers. For instance, a "Roleplay" in Host Country Study

lesson for Second graders encourages kids to act as a favorite character in tales or legends of Viet

Nam as a way of expressing themselves. Also, it encourages kids to listen to others' opinions
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while they are being expressed. Giving feedback and asking questions during the group

presentation is the best way to help the students improve their social skills.

My classroom etiquette is based on the concepts of empathy, compassion, understanding,

and collaboration because IB learners are "reflective" (The IB Learner Profile, 2013).

Collaboration is used to develop and seriously enforce the rules in the classroom. This enables

students to collaborate effectively with their peers by providing assistance to those in need in a

compassionate and considerate way, which meets the needs of the 21st Century skills of

leadership, productivity, and initiative.

3. Which skill is more important or critical for students to learn in order to be successful?

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who

cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” – Alvin Toffler.

I'll start with this quotation. To examine it and gain access to information and media literacy,

pupils must acquire the material, integrate it, verify it, and choose accurate information. On the

other hand, communication is essential when starting a project involving teamwork and

creativity to address the various issues that the students must deal with throughout the project's

development, where critical thinking plays a significant role in perseverance in the project's

goals:

- A student may be a critical and creative thinker with a brilliant solution to a pressing

problem, but due to a lack of social skills, they are unable to express the idea effectively,

negatively affecting their and their team's performance.

- Having impressive information, media, and technology literacy skills will not translate

into success except if a student can effectively demonstrate his knowledge and
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understanding through social skills in class and/or outside of class.

- Social skills are followed by life skills such as flexibility, leadership, and initiative. To

excel at the aforementioned skills, one must also excel at the social ability to express,

lead, and reflect others in the real world.

In conclusion, 21st century skills are essential for kids to learn effectively. More than

ever, our kids need to be prepared for the real world as we experience significant technical

developments, fierce competition, and increased economic opportunities.

By incorporating these abilities into our pedagogy today, we may prepare our students for

success in the workplace tomorrow.

References

21st Century Skills Overview- the University of Sandiago- Chartered in July 1949 From

https://sites.sandiego.edu/dlt/files/2021/09/21st-Century-Skills-Overview.pdf

Benefits of Social Skills Learning. (n.d.). Power-Solving. Retrieved from

https://power-solving.com/why-social-skllls/benefits-of-social-skills-learning/

What are Social Skills? (n.d.). Skills You Need. Retrieved from

https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/social-skills.html

Ledward, C., & Hirata, D. (2011). An overview of 21st century skills. Research and Evaluation.

Accessible from here.

Bri Stauffer-What are 21st Century Skills? January 10th, 2022 | 12 min. Read. From

https://www.aeseducation.com/blog/what-are-21st-century-skills
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How do 21st century skills impact your instructional design? From

https://www.winjigo.com/how-do-21st-century-skills-impact-your-instructional-design/

The IB learner profile. (2013). International Baccalaureate. Retrieved from

https://www.ibo.org/contentassets/fd82f70643ef4086b7d3f292cc214962/learner-Profile-en.pdf

7 Skills Students Will Always Need Future-Proofing School, By TeachThought Staff, March

17,2019. The Future Of Learning / Essential, Experienced Teacher from

https://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/skills-students-need/

Jennifer Herrity- 5 tops Critical Thinking Skills (And how to improve them), Updated February

25,2023 From https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/critical-thinking-skills