The document discusses competencies needed for 21st century teaching. It identifies three main categories of teacher competencies: relating to the community, relating to the school as an institution, and relating to students and the classroom. Within these, teachers need cultural knowledge, critical thinking, reflection, technical skills, adaptability, teamwork, organization, and administration abilities. Later sections discuss additional competencies like using technology, lifelong learning, communication skills, and fostering student agency, choice, and motivation. The core 21st century teacher competencies are said to be magnifying meaning, elevating experience, amplifying agency, curating curriculum, busting barriers, teaching technology, and revamping roles.
The document discusses competencies needed for 21st century teaching. It identifies three main categories of teacher competencies: relating to the community, relating to the school as an institution, and relating to students and the classroom. Within these, teachers need cultural knowledge, critical thinking, reflection, technical skills, adaptability, teamwork, organization, and administration abilities. Later sections discuss additional competencies like using technology, lifelong learning, communication skills, and fostering student agency, choice, and motivation. The core 21st century teacher competencies are said to be magnifying meaning, elevating experience, amplifying agency, curating curriculum, busting barriers, teaching technology, and revamping roles.
The document discusses competencies needed for 21st century teaching. It identifies three main categories of teacher competencies: relating to the community, relating to the school as an institution, and relating to students and the classroom. Within these, teachers need cultural knowledge, critical thinking, reflection, technical skills, adaptability, teamwork, organization, and administration abilities. Later sections discuss additional competencies like using technology, lifelong learning, communication skills, and fostering student agency, choice, and motivation. The core 21st century teacher competencies are said to be magnifying meaning, elevating experience, amplifying agency, curating curriculum, busting barriers, teaching technology, and revamping roles.
The document discusses competencies needed for 21st century teaching. It identifies three main categories of teacher competencies: relating to the community, relating to the school as an institution, and relating to students and the classroom. Within these, teachers need cultural knowledge, critical thinking, reflection, technical skills, adaptability, teamwork, organization, and administration abilities. Later sections discuss additional competencies like using technology, lifelong learning, communication skills, and fostering student agency, choice, and motivation. The core 21st century teacher competencies are said to be magnifying meaning, elevating experience, amplifying agency, curating curriculum, busting barriers, teaching technology, and revamping roles.
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TEACHING COMPETENCIES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
In one way or another, the competencies that teachers must achieve will be related to the tasks they must perform, which make it necessary to identify and comprehend them.
Buling 2022, groups these tasks into three large categories, which are interdependent. The teacher concerning the community, the teacher about the school as an institution, and the teacher with the student and the class group. The first classification requires the teacher to have a deep knowledge of the community where he or she works to incorporate the community’s cultural values and traditions into his practice. This knowledge of the environment is directly linked to decision-making to design curricular projects, since all these elements of the environment must be present in the curriculum, dispensing with unique manuals that say what to teach in any circumstance.
The second category refers to the knowledge that the teacher must possess about the educational system so that he or she can integrate and adapt it to achieve full development. The following are a series of characteristics or possible competencies one can extract from Buling (2022) postulates: cultural preparation, critical analysis, reflective ability, technical knowledge, adaptability, teamwork and cooperation, organizational capacity and administrative competence. These characteristics are all highly desirable in any teacher, and they provide the first sights about the new teaching- associated competencies.
The third area, teacher-student relationship and class group, is,
according to Buling (2022), the most important one. The better the teacher knows his or her students, the better he or she can adapt the pedagogical interventions to the degree of maturity, needs and interests of the students. The author suggests that the teacher should tend to find the best way to evaluate the students’ learning process and also to evaluate himself.
Continuing with the new demands and what is asked of the teachers today, the OECD and UNESCO (2001) point out that expectations are higher every day. In the opinion of these institutions, there is a growing demand for higher academic qualifications and they show the need for continuous updating, both in the didactic expertise and in the knowledge of the teachers. For the OECD and UNESCO, this is essential because to provide tomorrow’s world with the knowledge and skills on which economic and social progress so critically depend, educational institutions and teachers need to respond by developing and delivering appropriate educational content. They add that it is necessary to complement the teachers’ disciplinary command with pedagogical competence to facilitate the development of high-level competencies in their students. Within these competencies, motivation to learn, creativity, and cooperation seem to be crucial.
For the OECD and UNESCO (2001), technology applied to vocational
education has become a new feature of TVET. This fact forces the teacher to understand the pedagogical potential f this tool and to be able to integrate it efficiently into the teaching-learning process. Besides, these international organizations consider teaching should become a group or cooperative process within the scope of schools as learning organizations. Under this conception, teachers must enrich their knowledge and pedagogical management with the experiences of others, base their decisions on the characteristics of the environment where they work, and take a more leading role in the management of the school system.
Another interesting contribution to the subject of competencies for the
knowledge society is made by Rychen (2002). The author explains that key competencies have an individual basis and are important both at a personal and societal level, and they are applied transversely in the different areas of knowledge In Rychen’s opinion, new competencies must help to face the growing challenges and problems of today’s society. The author identifies the following: rapid social and technological changes, economic and cultural globalization (standardization and a trend toward uniformity), growing individual and social diversity, competition, liberalization, large-scale value changes, instability of norms, and substantial global inequality of opportunities, conflicts of poverty in all its forms, HIV / AIDS, and ecological destabilization.
These problems manifest themselves in different contexts and at different
levels so essential skills become insufficient. Thus, the development of higher- order mental skills becomes essential, constituting a crucial element in the process of identifying key competencies. Based on some of his studies and the existing literature on the subject under discussion, Rychen (2002) proposes three categories of essential competencies: acting autonomously, interactive use of tools, and functioning in socially heterogeneous groups. The first category is related to relative autonomy and identity, the second to the interaction of the individual with the world using physical and sociocultural tools, and the third to the ability to interact with people. Each category is related to a series of relevant competencies such as the capacity to defend oneself and make rights count, the capacity to develop and conduct life projects and personal plans, the skills to perform within a broad context, the skills to use language, symbols, and texts interactively, skills to use knowledge and information interactively, capacity to use new technology interactively, skills to relate well with others, to cooperate, and capacity to solve conflicts. These competencies are interrelated and, therefore, are more influential as a group than individually.
More information about the skills required for the knowledge society is provided by the OECD (2001). This international organization seeks to answer the question of the competencies required to participate successfully in today’s society. Before delivering the results of several studies, the OECD warns us that there is no agreement on the definition and measurement of these skills and competencies, nor their specific impact on the knowledge economy. Consequently, this paper focuses mainly on the competencies that are most frequently cited in the studies of the OECD.
From the market perspective, these competencies would be the ability to
use information, the ability to use communication technology, the ability to solve problems, the capacity for teamwork, the ability to supervise and lead, and the ability to undertake continuous learning
Regarding personal skills or competencies, these are communicational
and intra-personal skills, the ability to learn, problem-solving, teamwork, self- regulation, initiative and motivation
The need for individuals capable of developing these competencies leads
to the notion of knowledge workers. According to the OECD (2001), they will be the ones who will access the best jobs in today’s society. These knowledge workers will distinguish themselves by being highly enlightened and educated, combining formal knowledge with training and work experience, combining technological skills with business, managerial and administrative skills. They will be able to operate in changing environments, to handle non-routine and abstract work processes, to make decisions or assume responsibilities, to work and interact as a team, and they will achieve a broad and systemic understanding.
The Seven Core 21st Century Teacher Competencies
According to Sam Kary, Founder and CEO of New EdTech Classroom, there are seven core 21st-century teacher competencies namely magnifying meaning, elevate experience, amplify agency, curate curriculum, bust barriers, teach technology and revamp role
The first competency, magnify meaning, refers to an educator’s ability to
help students understand why what they are learning is important. Effectively communicating “the why”, while also guiding students to find their own sense of purpose, is a foundational skill upon which the other competencies are built.
The next competency, elevate experience, pertains to creating active
learning experiences where mistakes are embraced as a crucial part of the learning process.. Project-based learning is one of the most effective ways to Elevate Experience, particularly when students are tasked with creating artifacts that engage with meaningful learning. Amplify Agency pertains to fostering student voice and choice with the goal of increasing students’ sense of autonomy and ownership over their learning. Cultivating internal motivation is central to two UDL guidelines: “Provide options for self-regulation” and “Provide options for executive functions.” Choice-based learning is also at the heart of Universal Design for Learning because the simple act of making a choice is inherently an act that asserts agency.
Designing lessons that fulfill the UDL guideline to offer multiple means of
representation while providing access to relevant, up-to-date information requires educators to learn how to Curate Curriculum.
To truly leverage the power of technology, today’s teacher must learn how to Bust Barriers by proactively eliminate the obstacles that often stand in the way of learning. Designing lessons with the stated intention of reducing barriers to learning is also the single most definitive characteristic of Universal Design for Learning. A straightforward, yet highly impactful way to Bust Barriers is by teaching all of your students how to use the different accessibility tools that are available to them. Chromebooks, for example, have a wide array of built-in accessibility features, as do Microsoft apps. Even commonly used programs like Google Docs have numerous built-in accessibility features ranging from voice typing to pre-created templates. Another way to Bust Barriers is through the use of embedded tools that enable support comprehension such as word translations and definitions. An app like Actively Learn incorporates these features while also allowing teachers to chunk text into smaller sections by adding check-for-understanding questions.
The competency Teach Technology refers to learning how to choose and
use technology tools for your classroom while also creating opportunities for students to do the same. We intentionally dropped “with” from “Teach with Technology” to emphasize the importance of teaching students how to use technology in addition to using it as an instructional tool. On a practical level, teaching students how to use technology is one way to anticipate potential barriers to learning. Every teacher who experiments with technology has undoubtably experienced the deflating feeling of witnessing a lesson go off the rails due to unforeseen problems cropping up. Plus, teaching students foundational technology skills has clear real-world value that transcends far beyond an individual classroom. The final competency, Revamp Your Role, is about understanding the ways in which the Internet has fundamentally altered our relationship to information and adapting accordingly. Knowledge is no longer something locked away behind the gates of educational institutions. Anything a person wants to learn can be found online: often delivered in a more interesting and engaging format than a single teacher ever could.
