Teaching 21st-Century Skills

Today’s education system deals with irrelevance if we do not link the break between how the students experience and they learn. Schools are wrestling to maintain tempo with the surprising pace in students’ live outside the school. Students will occupy their adults live in a multitasking, various, technology –driven, dynamic world – and they must show up supplied to do so.  Literacy in the 21^st- century means more than just reading, writing and computing skills. It means understanding on how to apply the learning and talents in a situation of modern life. To deal with the expectation of the21st century, students have to understand more than the core subjects. They have to know on how apply their learning and talents – by reasoning sharply, using learning to new circumstances, evaluating material, assimilating new ideas, corresponding, working together, solving problems, and making decisions.

Productive educators always have integrated learning skills into their instructional methods. Today, educators have the chance to assimilate learning skills, 21^st century tools, and core subjects to create a dynamic education for their students. When we integrate learning skills like thinking and problem solving skills with the 21^st century tools like problem solving tools (such as software, decisions support, design tools), it means we have the ICT literacy because we are using ICT to handle complexity, solve problems and analyse sharply, creatively and systematically.

In order to organize intense inquiry and in order to be fully qualified for long life learning, students must comprehend a whole range of skills. Dr. David Thornburg (2010) shared the skills needed to thrive in the 21^st century. They are critical thinking, problem solving, communication skills, teamwork and collaboration, information technology and leadership. Within their learning throughout the school programme, my students get and use a set of transdicisplinary skills: social skills, communications skills, thinking skills, research skills and self-management skills (Primary Years Programme Making the PYP Happen: A curriculum framework for international primary education, 2007, 2009).  In my class, I found out that teaching the students on how to analyse (thinking skill) is quite challenging. My students do not know on how to separate the information into parts and see the relationships. For example, we had the unit about history and geography. After the students had understood the meaning of history and geography, I asked them to show me the impacts of history and geography to a country that they chose. They found it hard to find the impacts. Therefore, I gave them some examples. I created a short clip using Windows Movie maker. The clips showed some pictures about Indonesia history and geography. I used Indonesia as the example. Then, I asked my students to analyse the country’s history and geography. This way, they could show the impacts of history and geography. Recently I created some guiding questions that can be used to improve their analytical thinking. I provided them with some pictures. I asked them to choose one picture. Then, I provided them with some guiding questions. The students needed to answer the questions in related to the picture that they chose. This learning engagement could improve their analytical thinking.                

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (Thornburg, D.). (2010). Skills for the 21st Century, MD: Author.

Making the PYP Happen: A curriculum framework for international primary education. Cardiff, Wales GB CF23 8GL, United Kingdom. International Baccalaureate Organization. Retrieved from http://occ.ibo.org/ibis/documents/pyp/p_0_pypxx_mph_0912_2_e.pdf