21st Century Skills

Campbell, Margaret

Trilling, B. & Fadel, C. (2009). 21st century skills: Learning for life in our times. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

From Iris Eichenlaub, Fall 2010

This title was referenced on the official site of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and is co-authored by the chairs of the Standards, Assessment, and Professional Development Committee. The beginning chapters were especially helpful to build my understanding of what P21 is and how it was developed. The authors cite a study that asked four hundred human resources executives to answer whether they thought the average graduating high school student was ready to enter the workforce; their answer was a decided "no" (as quoted by Trilling and Fadel, "Conference Board, Partnership for 21st Century Skills," 2006). Missing from the graduates' toolkit of applied skills were the following: oral and written communication, critical thinking, a strong work ethic, collaboration, the ability to work in a diverse team, applied technology, and leadership and project management (Trilling and Fadel, p. 7). 

The text came with an accompanying DVD and I was curious to see 21st century skills in action, particularly since I do not work in a school. The first example of project-based learning was from the Metropolitan Arts and Technical High School in San Francisco where a high school class was taking an innovative approach to understanding local elections through an assignment called the California Propositions PSA project. Students worked in small groups to study one of the upcoming ballot propositions and then created a 30 second promotional video clip to convince the voters to support their view. There were so many interesting components of the project: the teamwork among students of diverse ideas, skills and background; the development of key ideas as the groups explored the issues in depth; the way that technology was integrated seamlessly into the project; the continuous loops of feedback that the groups received throughout their learning process, from their teacher and peers in the class. This helped to bring life to the ideas that I have been reading about this semester that look so great in print, and into a real-life situation in a classroom. The second video on the disc was a breakdown of the same assignment by the 21st century skills that were involved, which this school refers to as their "leadership skills." It was a great review to see the actual skills broken down after seeing the overview of the assignment. I would definitely recommend this book and accompanying DVD to other students who are not currently working in a school because it helps to "see" the applications of concepts in a classroom setting.