It is important to note that there is no clear consensus on what skills should be included in the category of 21st-century skills. The term itself represents a list of skills that students need to acquire for work, life and citizenship. Let’s look at some proposed skills.

For instance, Tony Wagner suggests seven survival skills:

Watch this video if you wish to learn more about seven survival skills.

Another list of 21st-century skills was proposed by the non-profit organisation Partnership for the 21st-century learning (P21). They suggest:

You can download the Framework for 21st Century Learning developed by P21 here.

Even though there are some differences in approaches, some skills are on almost every list, such as critical thinking, digital literacy, and communication.

 

Watch this video to understand how we can teach students 4C’s (critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity).
As we could see, hands-on and project-based learning, teamwork, and the use of technology can help students develop 21st-century skills and prepare them for challenges.

A teacher could further improve their classroom activities by using already available resources such as Scientix, or by continuously learning about new pedagogical trends through European Schoolnet Academy MOOCs.

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How to use the Creative Commons License in your lesson plan?When including a Creative Commons license in a document, you can use the Creative Commons webpage to find out which license you can apply, depending on your needs: https://creativecommons.org/choose/In doing so, you should answer these two questions:

In order to get a resource that can be modified, you’ll need to choose a license that allows adaptations - that means answering “Yes” or “Yes, as long as others share alike”. If you need help using this tool, you can click on the question mark under the question on the webpage.

After you answer the questions, you’ll find the “Selected License” below. In order to use it in your document, you can copy and paste the icon and the first sentence that appears under “Have a web page?”

Licenses have an important role in Scientix; you will find them under the title of each resource, so you can visualise them easily. Scientix Translation on Demand allows you to request free translations of teaching materials included in the Scientix repository. These resources are under license that allows derivatives.

What is the most significant advantage of an interdisciplinary approach to STEM lessons? Share your ideas and experience on the Padlet below.