21st Century is a Game Changer! 21st Century is the world of technology, innovations, and internet. These creates a big impact in changing our society. It opens a broad door to different learning platforms and styles to both educators and learners, thus traditional teaching styles are no longer convenient. With this transformation, educators must design a new set of skills to cope up in order to become an effective modern educator. This new set of skills is called the “21st century skills”. According to Panorama Education the term 21st century skills refer to the knowledge, life skills, career skills, habits, and traits that are critically important to student success in today’s world, particularly as student to move on to college, the workforce, and adult life. It means that 21st century skills can be helpful and applied in everyday aspect of life. There are so many 21st century skills found in the internet, but according to aeseducation.com/blog, there are three 21st Century Skill Categories. Fist, the Learning Skills (the four C’s) teaches the students about the mental processes required to adapt and improve upon a modern work environment. Second, the 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 source and factual information to separate it from the misinformation that floods the internet. And lastly, the Life Skills (FLIPS) take a look at intangible elements of a student’s everyday life. These intangibles focus on both personal and professional qualities. The 4 C’s or the learning skills of 21st century skills are Critical thinking, Creativity, Collaboration, and Communication. Critical thinking. According to skillsyouneed.com/learn/critical-thinking.html, critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connection between ideas. For example, students might apply critical thinking during their laboratory experiment where they follow the steps of scientific method. They are required to investigate, gather data, present ideas on how to approach a certain task, analyze, decide which ideas are relevant or factual, make the experiment, and draw a conclusion from the given result. By conducting an experiment, you as a teacher will be able to present an example on how to discern facts from fictions. As a teacher, you play a vital role in encouraging your students to asses and evaluate what they see, hear, and read most importantly in this world of social media where fake news are everywhere. Creativity. According to sites.google.com, creativity is the ability to transcend previous ideas, methods, rules, patters, etc. into new and meaningful ideas. This means that as a teacher we are challenge to push our student’s capabilities and strength to brings out their new and exciting ideas that can make an ancient thing to be in the trend, or utilize the existing resources to their advantage, or see things in different perspectives. But how? Educators can make an assignments or a projects in which a student have to think up the problems and the solution. In this manner, the students will want to explore innovative solutions for it. Or let your students create a group, give a scenario where they can express their thought with their group mates and they can engage with one another ideas and make an argument. In this case, it will help them to produce new ideas. Innovative thinking will be shown when students refine their ideas and make use of the other ideas to have better feedback. Creativity is very helpful in daily life, at home, work, school, and everywhere. Creativity can also be called a problem solver. If a teacher can help the students to be creative, they are ready to be independent in some ways. As the quote from Albert Einstein says; “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. Collaboration means getting students to work together, achieve compromises, and get the best possible results from solving a problem. For example, you require your students to make a film. In order this activity to be successful, the collaboration of students is required. Each student has a certain role like cameraman, director, make up artist, actress, support personnel, audience, etc. Each student is important in this project because if one fails to do their task then it results to unsuccessful film. The key is that your student will work without your assistance. This means every student will work hard toward a specific goal which is to finish the task as a group. With the given individual task, you can pinpoint who fails to do their part. As they have different roles, you as an educator will avoid the scenario where one student will only do the task. Then, each student will be graded accordingly. In doing this activity, the students learn the meaning of a “greater good”. Finally, communication. It is the glue that brings all of these educational qualities together. Communication skill is the basic requirement to everything. In 21st century, communication is a game- changer because text-based communications like SMS, emails, social media, etc., student must learn how to convey their thoughts in a way that others can understand them. In instances where vocal tone is required, students need to learn to communicate effectively. Effective means speaking directly to an idea and making sure that the listeners are engaged. Student must be good in both oral and written communication because it is the first skill, they need in reaching their goals. When student communicate poorly, they fail to show their clear objective on a certain scenario. Without understanding proper communication, student in the 21st century will find it difficult to adjust in their chosen field. The 4 C’s are only the beginning of the process. You still need to master the next skills in order to become more equip in these 21st century. Literacy skills are the next category of 21st century skills. These are information literacy, media literacy, and technology literacy. Information Literacy. It is the foundation skill. It helps students understand facts, especially data points, that they will encounter online. Social media is the home of many information, it may be fake or truth. It is important to teach the student on how to separate fact from fiction. It is important that student can identify legit information on their own. Otherwise, they can be a victim of misconceptions, myths and lies. Media literacy. It is the practice of identifying publishing methods, outlets, and sources while distinguishing between the ones that are credible and the ones that aren’t. Students learn to identify credible sources in the internet or any platforms. Last, technology literacy goes another step further to teach students about the machines involved in the Information Age. Student must learn to identify different gadgets and their functions. What are its different uses. What is appropriate technology must be use in a certain scenario. What are the skills they can develop using technology. What are the different helpful software and applications that can be useful in their daily life using different kinds of technology. Technology literacy can help the student to become prepare in whatever chosen field they want. They can also easily adapt to the evolution of the world. Literacy skills are no yet enough to mold you become successful because you need the third category to become stronger. 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 flexibility, leadership, initiative, productivity, and social skills. Flexibility. It is the expression of someone’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances. This skill is difficult to achieve for a student or for everyone as a whole. That is because, you must admit that you need more learnings and knowledge even though you are experienced. Since change is inevitable, one must learn how to be flexible in order to adapt to any changes one has to encounter. This is a very helpful skill in order to succeed in the next skill. Leadership is someone’s penchant for setting goals, walking a team through the steps required, and achieving those goals collaboratively. The school is the fresh training ground for leaders. As early as possible, student must master this skill because it is about setting direction, taking responsibility, relationship building, camaraderie, adaptability, motivation, negotiation, critical thinking, and many wore. In this skill, you can use all the skills you master at the previous categories. Having a leadership skill will make the student an effective role model in the future. True success also requires initiative, requiring students to be self-starters. It is the ability to do work without being told to. This skill is one of the hardest skills one can learn and practice. So as young as the student, educators must encourage their learners to practice initiative by giving examples like showing them what works independently and willingly is. 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. This means efficiency. Productivity in students varies at their own time and pace. Some students are more productive during daytime, some during night time, or when they full or starving, or even when they listen to music or outside. So as educators, we must learn their individual differences to understand the right approach in handling our learners. In this century of technology and innovative learnings, educators must practice modern teaching style where outputs are the sole basis in grading system. In this matter, we help the student to reach their ultimate productivity with the help of the previous skills. Social skills are crucial to the ongoing success of a professional. It is the skills we use everyday to interact and communicate with others. It includes verbal and non-verbal communication or trough social media platforms. As educators, we must teach or introduce these different social platforms to our student to develop their social skill. 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 must be teach manners, proper etiquette, politeness and proper communication and use these effectively in different situations with people. For example, socializing with friends differs from family, teachers, workmates, etc. They must know proper social skills depending in any situations. In the drastic change of the world, educators must be able to adapt to the evolution of innovations and technology. If there are changes, it means there are progress. In order to provide effective teaching and learning styles, educators must also be progressive. The education system design different teaching and learning skills in order to prepare students for an increasingly globalized world. Having early positive experience in the school will influence how children will develop their perceptions of other in the future. As students develop these skills, they will be more attentive, flexible, and adaptable in the constant changes in their environment.
