21st Century skills

On this post, I will talk about which are the 21st century skills and examples of how implement them in a Secondary Biology class.

We can divide these skills in four categories:

• 4 C's
• Technology
• 21st Century themes
• Life and career skills

I think that integrate the 4 C's (Creativity, Critical thinking and problem solving, Collaboration and Communication) in a science area is essential. After the students have the basic theorical knowledge, they can start to work in groups, trying to solve problems and come up with a solution. This type of learning will be more satisfactory for the students and will increase their motivation about the subject; They will see that all the "boring" processes and definitions have an apllication in the real life. This kind of activities can make some students get interested in develop his/her career in this field.

For example, after a brief introduction to enzymes, the teacher asks the students to develop a experiment that could help us to know which of two enzymes work faster in a determinated process. This activity will develop the creativity of the students, they have to design an experiment, will increase their critical thinking and problem solving, they have to review all their knowledge about enzymes and create a logical step by step process, taking in consideration the possible problems and solutions. They have to collaborate with their peers, share ideas and points of view. They also will need to increase the communication, collaboration without communication is doomed to failure.

This activity also help to improve life and carrer skills, like flexibility and adaptability,they have to adapt themselves to the conditions and the available material. They have to develop initiative, self direction, leadership and responsability, they are in charge of the experiment, and won't have a person to guide them. They have produce a good experiment because this will be graded.

21st century skills also include some themes apart from the academic content. These themes are:

• Global awareness
• Financial, economic, bussiness and entrepreneurial literacy
• Civic literacy
• Health literacy
• Environmental literacy 

These topics could be included in the subject in some research activities. The students could complete their learning in a determined topic looking for some information or introduce a global/local new and ask the students to find more information about it.

Nowadays all of us now the importance of technology in our lifes, so it is very important to teach children how to use it properly. They should know how to find information and use the media, so it is a good practise to use the school's computer lab and give them a topic to find some information, so in case they need, the teacher can give them some advice.

Some examples of non 21st century skills' activities are:

• Grading the knowledge of an area based on tradicional skills (usually a test)
• Lessons based on teacher's explanation only.
• Lessons based only in the theorical explanation, without talking about possible applications in real life or benefits for the community
• Learning by heart test or assignments

Resources

• 21st Century skills (2015) Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/about-us/p21-framework
• What are 21st Century skills? (2015) Retrieved from http://thoughtfullearning.com/resources/what-are-21st-century-skills