Defining 21st Century Skills and Literacies

If you google 21st Century learning, you will get a host of sites and organizations that attempt to define for us the most essential competencies learners, workers, and citizens should have in order to fully compete and engage in a global, technological world.

Just to name a few, we have:

• Core Subject Skills and Knowledge
• Learning and Innovation Skills
• Information and Media Literacy
• Technology Skills
• Life and Career Skills-Emotional Intelligence
• Study Skills
• Global Awareness
• Civic Literacy
• Health Literacy
• Financial Literacy

And the list goes on...

Our task at the Midwest Literacy Institute this past week was to take this list and "make it real". Members of the business community, educational leaders, parents, and community members sat down with my teachers and created a vision of the 21st Century learner-prepared with everything they need to be a success in both the classroom and the boardroom.

Some of my favorite descriptors were:

• Flexitude- Flexible Attitude and Thinking
• QuestiModiCation - Questioning, Motivated, Communication
• Skethical - Skilled & Ethical
• Habitudes - Habits & Attitudes

How about it-what would you add?

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