There is a great deal of talk
in education these days about 21st Century learning. A quick Google
search of this topic produces thousands of hits. Much of it focuses on 21st
Century skills. These are often referred
to as the ‘soft skills’ in education. According to much of the research and online
discussion, these so-called ‘soft skills’ are really the skills students will
be required to have in order to be successful both in school and in life beyond
school. The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) makes
a compelling case for this ( http://www.oecd.org/general/thecasefor21st-centurylearning.htm ). While there is general agreement that these soft
skills are important, there is less clarity about how we incorporate those
skills into our teaching and learning, and into our assessment and reporting. In
my work with schools and districts on building and improving their Professional
Learning Communities, a new question has been bubbling up: “How can we
incorporate the 21st Century soft skills into our work as a PLC?”
There are three big ideas
that drive the PLC process: a focus on learning, building a collaborative
culture, and a results-orientation. Collaborative teams of professionals with
PLC schools and districts focus their collective inquiry on four essential
questions:
1. What is it we want our students to learn?
2. How will we know each student has learned it?
3. How will we respond when some students don’t know it?
4. How do we extend and enrich the learning for those
students who have learned it?
Most collaborative teams
initially focus on the ‘hard skills’ of academic learning outcomes. This is
important work. Schools and districts that have used these guiding questions and
collaborative PLC structures and processes, have successfully created a
professional culture focused on student learning with measurable results. Now,
as we must pay more attention to the new soft skills of 21st Century
learning, it seems to me that we can use the same framework to focus our new
efforts.
Each organization and
jurisdiction has slightly different terms for these soft skills, but most of
them are similar to the work of the Partnership for 21st Century
Skills (P21). According to P21 ( http://www.p21.org/our-work/4cs-research-series ), these skills are the “Four Cs” – Communication,
Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity. Regardless of where you work
in education, some form of the Four Cs will be coming your way. The challenge
and opportunity for us as educators is to find a way to incorporate these new
skills within the work we already do, not have it as an add-on or
after-thought. Fortunately, the structures and strategies we already use in a
PLC have prepared us well to move into the realm of 21st Century
skills.
This is a global movement,
with many countries and jurisdictions exploring the same themes. In the
Province of British Columbia, Canada (where I live and work) we are engaged in
a similar journey. We are now working to embed the soft skills of 21st
Century learning into an already existing successful educational program. We
refer to these skills as the Core Competencies ( https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies ). Slightly different words and names, but
essentially the Four Cs of P21. We will be using the same approach with the new
Core Competencies as we have already been doing with academic content. What does that look like? We have to go back
to the four essential questions.
1. What is it we want our students to learn? Within our PLC school, we need to get clarity on what
these new skills are, why they are important, and then come to consensus on
what it is we expect to see in our students at different age and grade levels.
2. How will we know each student has learned it? In collaborative teams, we need to work on ways to
define, observe and assess students’ progress on these new ‘soft skills’. In
many jurisdictions, including British Columbia, work is underway to create
rubrics and other authentic performance-based assessment tools that will help
us with this. The power of these rubrics is not the words in each box, it is in
the professional conversations and collaborative inquiry of the educators as we
co-develop and co-refine our understanding of these skills and our ability to
teach and assess them.
3. How will we respond when some students don’t know it? As with all things in education, not every student
will be at the same place at the same time. Students learn in different ways
and at different rates and we need to find responsive ways to both honor and
support that. Similar to the academic support model of Response to Intervention
(RTI), we will need to find ways to help kids develop these soft skills
alongside the essential academic skills. The rubrics are a great starting
point. Using student exemplars (in print, video and other forms) will enhance
this work. Being overt about these skills, with both adults and students, and
talking about why they are important and what they look like in the ‘real
world’ will make it more meaningful.
4. How do we extend and enrich the learning for those
students who have learned it? If
kids learn in different ways and at different rates, it should be expected that
some of our students will already have many of these skills and aptitudes. The
challenge for educators will be to find ways to tap into those existing student
strengths and help them find ways to extend their learning. In terms of the
soft skills of 21st Century learning, enrichment should be easy.
These are the real-life skills that business and industry are looking for. They
are also the skills that set people apart from the crowd in just about any
workplace or endeavor. There are many opportunities both within the school and the
outside community, where students can use their talents in these areas to
shine.
Interestingly, these
so-called soft skills, are also required of the adults within a successful PLC.
Educators in a Professional Learning Community will be much more successful if
they are able to articulate and demonstrate the Four Cs themselves. Powerful
collaborative teams require all four: Communication, Collaboration, Critical
Thinking and Creativity. So, as we work to develop these 21st
Century skills within our students, we can be co-developing them within
ourselves and our colleagues at the same time. We can all be learning together.
