WHAT ARE 21ST

CENTURY SKILLS?
Chapter
1
 WHAT ARE 21ST CENTURY SKILLS?
21st Century skills are 12 abilities that today’s students need to
succeed in their careers during the Information Age.
THE TWELVE 21ST CENTURY SKILLS ARE:
1.Critical thinking 7. Technology literacy
2.Creativity 8. Flexibility
3.Collaboration 9. Leadership
4.Communication 10. Initiative
5.Information literacy 11. Productivity
6.Media literacy 12. Social skills
These skills are intended to help students keep up with the
lightning-pace of today’s modern markets. Each skill is unique in
how it helps students, but they all have one quality in common.
They’re essential in the age of the Internet.
THE THREE 21ST CENTURY SKILL CATEGORIES
Each 21st Century skill is broken into one of three categories:
1. Learning skills
2. Literacy skills
3. Life skills

Learning skills (the four C’s) teaches students about the mental processes
required to adapt and improve upon a modern work environment.
Literacy skills (IMT) focuses on how students can discern facts, publishing
outlets, and the technology behind them. There’s a strong focus on
determining trustworthy sources and factual information to separate it from
the misinformation that floods the Internet.
Life skills (FLIPS) take a look at intangible elements of a student’s everyday
life. These intangibles focus on both personal and professional qualities.
Category 1. Learning Skills (The Four C’s)
The four C’s are by far the most popular 21st Century skills. These skills are
also called learning skills.

More educators know about these skills because they’re universal needs for
any career. They also vary in terms of importance, depending on an
individual’s career aspirations.

The 4 C's of 21st Century Skills are:

1) Critical thinking: Finding solutions to problems

2) Creativity: Thinking outside the box
3) Collaboration: Working with others
4) Communication: Talking to others
Critical thinking is the most important quality for someone to have in health
sciences.
+ In business settings, critical thinking is essential to improvement. It’s the mechanism that
weeds out problems and replaces them with fruitful endeavors.

Creativity is equally important as a means of adaptation. This skill empowers

students to see concepts in a different light, which leads to innovation.
+ In any field, innovation is key to the adaptability and overall success of a company.
+ Learning creativity as a skill requires someone to understand that “the way things have
always been done” may have been best 10 years ago — but someday, that has to change.

Collaboration means getting students to work together, achieve compromises, and

get the best possible results from solving a problem.
Collaboration may be the most difficult concept in the four C’s. But once it’s mastered, it can
bring companies back from the brink of bankruptcy.
+ The key element of collaboration is willingness. All participants have to be willing to sacrifice
parts of their own ideas and adopt others to get results for the company.
+ That means understanding the idea of a “greater good,” which in this case tends to be
company-wide success.
Finally, communication is the glue that brings all of these educational
qualities together.
+ Communication is a requirement for any company to maintain profitability. It’s
crucial for students to learn how to effectively convey ideas among different
personality types.
+ That has the potential to eliminate confusion in a workplace, which makes your
students valuable parts of their teams, departments, and companies.
+ Effective communication is also one of the most underrated soft skills in the
United States. For many, it’s viewed as a “given,” and some companies may
even take good communication for granted.
+ But when employees communicate poorly, whole projects fall apart. No one
can clearly see the objectives they want to achieve. No one can take
responsibility because nobody’s claimed it.
+ Without understanding proper communication, students in the 21st Century
will lack a pivotal skill to progress their careers.
Category 2. Literacy Skills (IMT)

Literacy skills are the next category of 21st Century skills.

They’re sometimes called IMT skills, and they’re each concerned with a
different element in digital comprehension.

The three 21st Century literacy skills are:

1) Information literacy: Understanding facts, figures, statistics, and data

2) Media literacy: Understanding the methods and outlets in which
information is published
3) Technology literacy: Understanding the machines that make the
Information Age possible
Information literacy is the foundational skill. It helps students understand
facts, especially data points, that they’ll encounter online.

+ More importantly, it teaches them how to separate fact from fiction.

+ In an age of chronic misinformation, finding truth online has become a job all on
its own. It’s crucial that students can identify honesty on their own.

Media literacy is the practice of identifying publishing methods, outlets,

and sources while distinguishing between the ones that are credible and
the ones that aren’t.

+ Just like the previous skill, media literacy is helpful for finding truth in a world
that’s saturated with information.
+ This is how students find trustworthy sources of information in their lives. Without
it, anything that looks credible becomes credible.
+ But with it, they can learn which media outlets or formats to ignore. They also
learn which ones to embrace, which is equally important.
Last, technology literacy goes another step further to teach students about
the machines involved in the Information Age.

+ As computers, cloud programming, and mobile devices become more important

to the world, the world needs more people to understand those concepts.
+ Technology literacy gives students the basic information they need to understand
what gadgets perform what tasks and why.
+ This understanding removes the intimidating feeling that technology tends to
have. After all, if you don’t understand how technology works, it might as well be
magic.
+ But technology literacy unmasks the high-powered tools that run today’s world.
+ As a result, students can adapt to the world more effectively. They can play an
important role in its evolution.
+ They might even guide its future.
+ But to truly round out a student’s 21st Century skills, they need to learn from a
third category.
Category 3. Life Skills (FLIPS)
Life skills is the final category. Also called FLIPS, these skills all
pertain to someone’s personal life, but they also bleed into
professional settings.

The five 21st Century life skills are:

1) Flexibility: Deviating from plans as needed

2) Leadership: Motivating a team to accomplish a goal
3) Initiative: Starting projects, strategies, and plans on one’s own
4) Productivity: Maintaining efficiency in an age of distractions
5) Social skills: Meeting and networking with others for mutual
benefit
Flexibility is the expression of someone’s ability to adapt to changing
circumstances.

+ This is one of the most challenging qualities to learn for students because
it’s based on two uncomfortable ideas:
1.Your way isn’t always the best way
2.You have to know and admit when you’re wrong

+ That’s a struggle for a lot of students, especially in an age when you can
know any bit of information at the drop of a hat.
+ Flexibility requires them to show humility and accept that they’ll always
have a lot to learn — even when they’re experienced.
+ Still, flexibility is crucial to a student’s long-term success in a career.
Knowing when to change, how to change, and how to react to change is a
skill that’ll pay dividends for someone’s entire life.
+ It also plays a big role in the next skill in this category.
Leadership is someone’s penchant for setting goals, walking a team
through the steps required, and achieving those goals collaboratively.

+ Whether someone’s a seasoned entrepreneur or a fresh hire just starting their

careers, leadership applies to career.
+ Entry-level workers need leadership skills for several reasons. The most
important is that it helps them understand the decisions that managers and
business leaders make.
+ Then, those entry-level employees can apply their leadership skills when they’re
promoted to middle management (or the equivalent). This is where 21st
Century skill learners can apply the previous skills they’ve learned.
+ It’s also where they get the real-world experience, they need to lead entire
companies.
+ As they lead individual departments, they can learn the ins and outs of their
specific careers. That gives ambitious students the expertise they need to grow
professionally and lead whole corporations.
True success also requires initiative, requiring students to be self-
starters.

+ Initiative only comes naturally to a handful of people. As a result, students

need to learn it to fully succeed.
+ This is one of the hardest skills to learn and practice. Initiative often means
working on projects outside of regular working hours.
+ The rewards for students with extreme initiative vary from person to person.
Sometimes they’re good grades. Other times they’re new business ventures.
+ Sometimes, it’s spending an extra 30 minutes at their jobs wrapping
something up before the weekend.
+ Regardless, initiative is an attribute that earns rewards. It’s especially
indicative of someone’s character in terms of work ethic and professional
progress.
+ That goes double when initiative is practiced with qualities like flexibility and
leadership.
Along with initiative, 21st Century skills require students to
learn about productivity. That’s a student’s ability to complete
work in an appropriate amount of time.
+ In business terms, it’s called “efficiency.”
+ The common goal of any professional — from entry-level employee to
CEO — is to get more done in less time.
+ By understanding productivity strategies at every level, students
discover the ways in which they work best while gaining an
appreciation for how others work as well.
+ That equips them with the practical means to carry out the ideas
they determine through flexibility, leadership, and initiative.
+ Still, there’s one last skill that ties all other 21st Century skills
together.
Social skills are crucial to the ongoing success of a professional. Business is frequently
done through the connections one person makes with others around them.

+ This concept of networking is more active in some industries than others, but
proper social skills are excellent tools for forging long-lasting relationships.
+ While these may have been implied in past generations, the rise of social media
and instant communications have changed the nature of human interaction.
+ As a result, today’s students possess a wide range of social skills. Some are more
socially adept than others. Some are far behind their peers. And some lucky few
may be far ahead, as socializing comes naturally to them.
+ But most students need a crash course in social skills at least. Etiquette, manners,
politeness, and small talk still play major roles in today’s world.
+ That means some students need to learn them in an educational setting instead of
a social setting.
+ For them, it’s another skill to add to their lives.
+ Now that we’ve established what 21st Century skills are, let’s answer the next big
question.
+ Do employers actually want people with 21st Century skills?