[ON SCREEN: What do you understand by 21st century skills?]
ROB LEWIS (Portugal): The first thing I think of about twenty-first century skills is that we're already almost a quarter of the way through the twenty-first century. So, it feels to me like, er, the terminology is a little bit strange, er, because surely, the skills have changed, from say nineteen ninety-five to twenty nineteen. But anyway, er, in terms of what it means to me, I suppose I associate it with technology above all. This idea of twenty-first century skills, particularly, the use of, er, communication technology. So, communicating online, above all. And, er, I would associate it quite closely with critical thinking as well, particularly in terms of thinking hard and questioning, er, about what you find online. Er, so, in other words, in other words, thinking about the sources of information that you are finding.
KIRSTEEN DONAGHY (Malaysia): When I think of twenty-first century skills, I think of resilience and flexibility. So, you're able to accept and manage change. I think of digital, digital literacy skills and, before that, obviously basic literacy skills, but also, again, the ability to, erm, take on and use, erm, new technology all the time. And I guess part of that too is, erm, then working collaboratively and understanding how you can use modern tools today, erm,  to work with a global audience, to work, erm, with others, and to learn to be active listeners and, erm, compromise with each other. Erm, there's also self-motivation and the ability to learn, and ability to learn how you learn well and, erm, be able to continually learn. So, it's like, life, like, lifelong learning – it's another twenty-first century skill. So, I think twenty-first century skills are resilience, flexibility, digital literacy, collaboration, learning to learn and lifelong learning and self-motivation – being driven.
[ON SCREEN: Why might 21st century skills be important for learners to develop?
KIRSTEEN: I think these are really important because learners will carry these through into their careers. And we no longer have a job for life. We have a life of jobs. And for our learners to understand that and be prepared for that, we need all of these skills that we've talked about.
ROB: When they leave school or when they leave university, they have to demonstrate that they have these kind of skills now. Er, for me, it was very different. So, thirty years ago, I just had to show my certificate from university when I applied for a job. I think recruitment is much more sophisticated now. Employers can be, not always, but can be, er, clearer about exactly what skills they expect potential recruits to have. So, I think that, above all, that is why twenty-first century skills are so important – to help our learners in the job market. Quite apart from the fact that it's, er, very useful on a personal level to, to have the, the kind of skills we're talking about as well.
[ON SCREEN: Have you adopted any teaching approaches which have helped your learners to develop any of these 21st century skills?]
KIRSTEEN: I think a lot of the curriculum now has a, has more focus on global issues. We have the opportunity to take on schooling projects. So, le-, my learners get to know about learners, other learners' cultures, other learners' difficulties, erm, sometimes political regimes in other countries that fascinate them and, erm, and they, they then also learn to use these tools to collaborate and work together. And it's really interesting and very motivating for them. I also do a lot of, erm, learning to learn work. I try to help my learners become autonomous and teach them how to make choices for themselves, how they can find out how they work best. And this will help them too, in the future, know how they can work and to get the best of themselves. Erm, and then things like portfolio assessments, I think are really useful for the learners to be able to make choices themselves, which, erm, work will be assessed and then to understand their own strengths and weaknesses. ROB: I have to be honest, I can't say I have developed or tried to develop these, er, so-called twenty-first century skills in my students, er. Certainly not, er, consciously thinking yeah, I've got to help them develop these. But I like to think that my approach to teaching and, er, the way I try and raise awareness, er, among students about the kind of activities, or related to the kind of activities that we do in class, is actually part of that. So, critical thinking again, is the, the first point that comes to mind. But also, just getting them to reflect on how they communicate with each other and with other people too. Er, getting them to work together as well, getting them to use new technologies to, to carry out tasks. This is something that I try to do anyway in my teaching, without thinking specifically yeah, this will develop the, the, the set of skills the, er, the so-called twenty-first century skills. So, I can't say I've, er, I've actually made changes for that reason alone. But I do think that, perhaps some of the approaches I take in class, could help students, er, in the long-run. I certainly hope so.

Critical thinking is a very specific kind of thinking which can benefit learners in three main ways. First, it's effective. It helps learners to avoid common mistakes such as only seeing one side of an issue, discounting new evidence if it conflicts with previously held views, reasoning from passion rather than logic and failing to support statements with evidence. It helps learners become more open-minded. Second, it's novel. Critical thinking involves thinking in new ways – not just remembering previous situations and solutions that are similar enough to guide you. Lastly, critical thinking is self-directed. It requires independent thinking that isn't overly controlled by the teacher or anyone else.

One reason that critical thinking and problem solving are essential skills is that they enable people to make better decisions and improve their livelihoods. A growing proportion of jobs now require teams of people across the globe to work together to solve unique problems, using approaches that are effective and self-directed. However, few learners learn these skills at school.

PISA tests have revealed that in most countries, fewer than one in ten 15-year-old learners are able to use creative approaches to solve fairly complex problems. According to management consultants McKinsey & Company, 75 million young people around the world are unemployed, yet they do not have the skills needed to do the high- and middle-skilled jobs available.

Of course, critical thinking and problem solving are also important for other reasons which go far beyond jobs. The goal of education is also to enable learners to fulfil their potential and make a positive contribution to the world. Better critical-thinking and problem solving-skills will achieve this too.

Critical thinking and problem solving aren't general skills. In other words, being able to think critically about one thing or solve certain types of problems doesn't mean you can think critically about other things or solve other problems. This means learners need content knowledge as well as strategies for critical thinking and problem solving. It's therefore more sensible to integrate critical thinking and problem solving into school subjects, rather than teaching these skills in isolation.

Critical-thinking and problem-solving strategies, such as looking at an issue from multiple perspectives, first need to be made explicit by the teacher and then practised extensively by learners. You need to be prepared to model critical thinking, ask questions and provide feedback that enables learners to solve problems. To help achieve this, curriculum resources will need to be redesigned with critical thinking and problem solving in mind. Last but not least, the focus of exams needs to shift to evaluate these skills as well.

For learners to develop their collaboration and communication skills by carrying out a group task.

This activity takes around 30 minutes, including post-task discussion.

This activity is suitable for older primary learners and above.

For this activity, you'll need:

Could you use this activity with your learners? How would you adapt it?

Your role is to observe everyone and make detailed notes on what is happening with the task and with the people in your group.

Infographics for comprehension

Digital note-taking

Reporting and responding

Online comic strip

Video learning journal

Video dictionary

Interactive story time

 

Students, especially teens suffer from social distancing during the pandemic. Even If they get on well with their parents they miss alike social contacts. And of course 15 year-olds want to liberate from their parents. Furthermore there were hardly any possibilities to experience something new and exciting.
The project ist about what heir retreats were / are and what they did / do for their well-being. The results are collected in a sort of travelblog or in a padlet.

The students will get to know students from a different country. They' ll learn how English works as a lingua franca. They'll also learn about possibilities and strategies to overcome difficult times and situations auch als the social distancing during the pandemic.

Each student writes a short profile first. They'll share the profiles, meet in groups of three online to talk about small-talk topics. Then each works individually in their retreat. The, present their retreat during covid pandemic by describing the place and atmosphere. They'll add photos.
For early finishers there is the task to add a dream retreat.
After that, they'll See and read each other's entries. They'll meet in groups online and discuss their retreats.

I expect the students to use the English language well and describe places and atmospheres thouroughly.
I also expect them to learn about each other's culture and places.