21st Century Learning Skills

21st Century skills are 12 abilities that today’s students need to succeed in their careers during the Information Age.

The twelve 21st Century skills are: 

1. Critical thinking
2. Creativity
3. Collaboration
4. Communication
5. Information literacy
6. Media literacy
7. Technology literacy
8. Flexibility
9. Leadership
10. Initiative
11. Productivity
12. Social skills

These skills are intended to help students keep up with the lightning-pace of today’s modern markets. Each skill is unique in how it helps students, but they all have one quality in common.

They’re essential in the age of the Internet.

On this page, we’ll take a look at what’s included in 21st Century skills, how they help students, and why they’re so important.

Ultimate Guide of 21st Century Learning Skills 

The Three 21st Century Skill Categories

Each 21st Century skill is broken into one of three categories:

1. Learning skills
2. Literacy skills
3. Life skills

Learning skills (the four C’s) teaches students about the mental processes required to adapt and improve upon a modern work environment.

Literacy skills (IMT) focuses on how students can discern facts, publishing outlets, and the technology behind them. There’s a strong focus on determining trustworthy sources and factual information to separate it from the misinformation that floods the Internet.

Life skills (FLIPS) take a look at intangible elements of a student’s everyday life. These intangibles focus on both personal and professional qualities.

Altogether, these categories cover all 12 21st Century skills that contribute to a student’s future career.

This is not an exhaustive checklist of career readiness skills — but they're the career readiness skills that overlap with 21st Century skills!

The four C’s are by far the most popular 21st Century skills. These skills are also called learning skills.

More educators know about these skills because they’re universal needs for any career. They also vary in terms of importance, depending on an individual’s career aspirations.

The 4 C's of 21st Century Skills are:

• Critical thinking: Finding solutions to problems
• Creativity: Thinking outside the box
• Collaboration: Working with others
• Communication: Talking to others

Arguably, critical thinking is the most important quality for someone to have in health sciences.

In business settings, critical thinking is essential to improvement. It’s the mechanism that weeds out problems and replaces them with fruitful endeavors.

It’s what helps students figure stuff out for themselves when they don’t have a teacher at their disposal.

Literacy skills are the next category of 21st Century skills.

They’re sometimes called IMT skills, and they’re each concerned with a different element in digital comprehension.

The three 21st Century literacy skills are:

• Information literacy: Understanding facts, figures, statistics, and data
• Media literacy: Understanding the methods and outlets in which information is published
• Technology literacy: Understanding the machines that make the Information Age possible

Information literacy is the foundational skill. It helps students understand facts, especially data points, that they’ll encounter online.

More importantly, it teaches them how to separate fact from fiction.

In an age of chronic misinformation, finding truth online has become a job all on its own. It’s crucial that students can identify honesty on their own.

Otherwise, they can fall prey to myths, misconceptions, and outright lies. 

Resources. Learning Skills 

Presentation

Article 

Student's outcome

Videos Learning Skills 

Extended Learning - Learning Skills 

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