21st Century Skills are so last century!
Donald Clark, Plan B, November 30, 2011.

I really need to write my thing one day about what I think are the real 21st century skills. Donald Clark's list here is so last century: communicating, collaborating, problem solving, creativity, critical thinking, digital literacy. My list is very different:
- emergent thinking: extracting patterns, rules, regularities, prototypes
- sensing value - finding meaning, truth, relevance, purpose, goals
- acting semiotically - using signs, signals, art, desig, etc., to do things
- seeing beyond - describing, defining, drawing conclusions, explaining data
- ecological sensitivity - placing in context, seeing frames, making meaning
- living in change - understanding flow, adaptation, progression
These are literacies that reflect the times and not simply the fact that we have a lot of machines. (Hits Today: 3 Total: 1911) [Direct Link] [Tags: none]

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Re: 21st Century Skills are so last century!

Gary Lewis, November 30, 2011

Very cool list. You've got the makings of a book there. Go for it! The world sorely needs the skills you mention. ... Gary [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

Re: 21st Century Skills are so last century!

martciel, December 3, 2011

Yours is a great list Donald, but I continue to be bemused by this attempt to identify a set of literacies or traits that are peculiar to the 21st (22nd, 23rd etc) century. Your list as well as all others I have seen detail skills used by successful and innovative people as far back as people have been looking at what it takes to succeed in life and work. The thing that seems to vary is the extent to which particular traits/skills are valued or fostered in any particular place or time. When I first started playing around with technologies in learning back in the late 80's, it was colleagues who had the traits you describe who made the most significant contributions and innovations, not the technologists or theorists.

The sad thing is that very few of those traits can be "taught". You can pack as much semiosis into the curriculum as you want, but you'll be waiting a long time for it to pop out the other end. The best teachers model the behaviours they want to see in their students, so it becomes a chicken and egg dilemma [Comment] [Permalink] [Previous][Next]

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