Education Week: ‘Soft Skills’ in Big Demand

This link has been bookmarked by 10 people . It was first bookmarked on 13 Apr 2008, by Sharon Elin.

29 Mar 09

Jane M
digitallearners
31 Jul 08

Ludmilla Smirnova
An article that emphasizes the skills needed in the 21st sentury

education 21stcenturyskills global economy future
- - Ludmilla Smirnova on 2008-07-31
    
    Would be interesting to know the results today?
- The approach to learning is one response to national concern among policy and business leaders that teenagers are emerging from high school without the set of skills they need to thrive in college and the workplace. Some experts refer to those competencies as “soft” or “applied” skills. Some call them 21st-century skills.
  
  In an increasingly global, technological economy, they say, it isn’t enough to be academically strong. Young people must also be able to work comfortably with people from other cultures, solve problems creatively, write and speak well, think in a multidisciplinary way, and evaluate information critically. And they need to be punctual, dependable, and industrious.
  
  “This skills set is the ticket to economic upward mobility in the new economy,” says Ken Kay, the president of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, a Tucson, Ariz.-based coalition of business and education groups that advocates infusing such skills into education.
  
  Work Ethic
  - Ludmilla Smirnova on 2008-07-31
    
    What are the results today?
  - Ludmilla Smirnova on 2008-07-31
    
    What are the results today?
  - 1 more sticky notes...
  - Ludmilla Smirnova on 2008-07-31
    
    What are the results today?
- 2 more annotations...
- - In an increasingly global, technological economy it isn’t enough to be academically strong.
  - Project-Based Learning
    
    Project-based learning offers the best way for students to acquire the range of skills the modern economy demands of them, says Bob Pearlman, the director of strategic planning for the New Technology Foundation, a Napa, Calif.-based group that supports Napa New Technology High School, which opened as a model for the project-based approach in 1996.
    
    The foundation now supports the design’s use at 24 additional schools, including Sacramento New Tech High, which is in its fourth year. All schools also feature intensive, advanced use of technology. (The foundation’s work is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which helps underwrite Diplomas Count.)
    
    “For kids to master 21st-century skills, you need a system which embeds the skills in the projects they do, and they need to be assessed on them,” Pearlman says. “Collaboration is important, so you’ve got to work in teams. You don’t get critical thinking unless you have complex projects that go in a lot of directions and have very serious content and rigor.”
04 Jun 08

Mike Ratkaj
21st_century education success_learning
03 Jun 08

Erica Hartman
of soft mind the education habits
Angela Maiers
Soft skill matter-academics not enough for 21st Century Success

21st Century Skills
Nancy Jones
21stcenturyskills Information collaboration criticalthinking
Barb Perlewitz
Interest in teaching students habits of mind for success in life is on the rise.

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Lisa Burkhalter
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