I recently returned from a Learning & the Brain® conference in Boston feeling deeply impressed by the number of very smart people who are trying to sort out the kind of education our children need to prepare for an uncertain and rapidly changing future.

The conference was titled Preparing 21st Century Minds: Using Brain Research to Enhance Cognitive Skills for the Future, and it featured many excellent presentations from leading educators, neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, etc. I was surprised to find that within this diverse group, there was actually broad agreement on the types of skills that students will need. Here are some of the themes I heard mentioned repeatedly throughout the weekend:

Critical thinking and creative problem-solving
Many of the jobs we're preparing today's students for don't exist yet. But whatever the employment landscape looks like in the future, knowing how to ask good questions and to think creatively will be essential.

Collaboration
Students must develop social and emotional skills in order to manage themselves and effectively collaborate with others in a highly interconnected world—there is reason to be concerned about the erosion of social skills in today's digital, screen-centered environment.

Communication skills
Effective written and oral communication skills will be essential to success, regardless of the channels through which that communication is carried out.

Curiosity and imagination
In a post-industrial world we must be innovators—we also need to be agile and adaptable in order to effectively utilize the vast amounts of data flowing our way.

I also heard a lot about the need to make content and ways of teaching relevant to students' lives. Several speakers stressed bringing state-of-the-art technology into learning as a means of engaging, motivating, and inspiring students. One very exciting example of this is a project from the Harvard Graduate School of Education called EcoMUVE which uses a 3-D, video game-like environment on computers to teach students about ecosystems and causal relationships.

Another theme was the need for us to change our emphasis from K–12 (or even K–16) education to life-long learning. It is up to all of us to keep learning and using our brains in the rapidly changing and interconnected world of the 21st century. To that end, I intend to continue exploring an amazing website of educational resources called Curriculum 21: Mapping the Global Classroom of the Future.

So do you agree that these are the key skills students need to be productive citizens in the 21st century? How well are we teaching these skills? Are there other skills you would add to the list?
 

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