21st Century Classroom in Assessing Student's Learning

 The 21st Century Skills 

Preparing a student for the world exist is not an easy task for any teacher. Step back and look at that picture from a broad perspective. What are the essential 21st-century skills that every learners need to survive and succeed in today's world? 

The term 21st century skills refers to a broad set of knowledge, skills, work habits, and character traits that are believed—by educators, school reformers, college professors, employers, and others—to be critically important to success in today’s world, particularly in collegiate programs and contemporary careers and workplaces. Generally speaking, 21st century skills can be applied in all academic subject areas, and in all educational, career, and civic settings throughout a student’s life. A 21st century classroom must engage and energize both natives and non-natives, preparing all students to be active participants in our exciting global community.

The Four Cs of 21st century learning, also known as the Four Cs or 4 Cs, are four skills that have been identified by the United States-based Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21) as the most important skills required for 21st century education: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

Communication is about sharing thoughts, questions, ideas, and solutions. In the technological age, it’s much easier and, at the same time, harder to communicate. Technology has provided us with more convenient ways to communicate, but sometimes the various ways can become overwhelming. In addition, the communication can become more about the tech being used than the message you’re trying to send. Without effective communication, there’s no way to get anything done inside the classroom or anywhere, which is why this is an essential 21st Century skill.Collaboration is about working together to reach a goal and putting talent, expertise, and smarts to work. Just like with communication, technology has made collaboration easier. Actually, technology takes collaboration a step farther, making types of collaboration possible that weren’t before technology. Just like with communication though, the same breakdowns can happen. The number of choices can get overwhelming, and the actual collaboration can get lost while we pay too much attention to the tool we’re using to collaborate. As the world goes more interconnected, collaboration will become a more and more essential skill than it already is, which is why it makes the list of the 4Cs for 21st Century skills.Critical thinking is looking at problems in a new way and linking learning across subjects and disciplines. Just like with the previous two ideas, critical thinking has been an essential skill in every century and profession. However, technology has changed the critical thinking platform. The more technology makes menial tasks such as memorization null and void, the more room that gives us to spend time on more complex thinking skills. However, it’s too easy to let technology do the thinking for us, or thinking that it does. In order to succeed in the 21st Century, you have to remember that, no matter how high tech the machine, it’s useless without a person telling it what to do and thinking critically about the result.Creativity is trying new approaches to get things done, innovation, and invention. The 21st Century is a fun time to be creative thanks to technology. Not only are the traditional ways of creativity still available, but there are tons of new possibilities made available. 

You may be asking how as a teacher are you going to develop these skills to your students?

   As a running future facilitator in the future, I believe that learning is activated when we help our students uncover information, not simply cover it for them.Technology is a perfect vehicle for facilitating this. But this isn’t about learning how to use technology or even teaching with technology tools, it is about students creating and constructing with technology.To develop these skills one must think of real-life examples of how people think critically, work in teams, communicate with an audience, and use creativity to create products or solve problems.We can help students build creativity and critical thinking by the types of questions we ask them to respond to.Promoting essential learning and innovation skills. In order for students to be prepared for a more complex life and work environment. Modern realization of best practice in education no longer supports the idea of the teacher as an authoritarian figure standing in the front of the room scrawling on a chalkboard.  As educators, our role can be reshaped so that we work beside students providing support and encouragement for their personal journey.

"Teaching 21st century skills is not a challenge; the challenge is narrowing the scope of focus for each lesson as the skills so seamlessly fall into place within any lesson. That’s the way it should be."