21st Century Skills

This is a cross post from www.irishmathclass.com, my classroom blog.  Tonight I was getting caught up on email and Internet reading when I cam across this - A Parent's Guide to 21st Century Learning. This guide got me to thinking about how important 21st Century Skills are and that it we as educators really need to help educate parents on this topic.  

The skills that the students today need in order to be successful in future jobs are not necessarily the same skills that we needed or learned about in school.  This new set of skills is referred to as 21st Century Skills.  One of the simplest definitions comes from Curriculum 21 where they define 21st Century Skills as "skills students need to be successful in the 21st century. They include: cross-curricular skills and learning to learn skills".  This doesn't mean that the core content - reading, writing, math, science, and history to name a few are no longer important, it means that students need to learn that and more.  They need to learn how to interact with a world that is always changing and will mostly be digital.  The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has a fantastic overview of 21st Century Skill.  The following video summarizes the rapid shifts that are occurring in the world around us.  Our task is to prepare our students the best that we can so that they can be critical thinkers and problem solvers.  

Here is a list of possible ways that you can help at home to enhance your child's 21st Century Skills