Artificial Intelligence. Game Designer. Data Scientist. Cloud Computing. Mobile Application Development. Social Media Marketing. These are the the hard skills companies needed most in 2019 according to LinkedIn. Let's face it. When many teachers were born, these jobs didn't exist.
According to Indeed.com, the top 11 skills employers look for in candidates include: communication, teamwork (collaboration), learning/adaptability and problem-solving (creativity and critical thinking).
In The Skills Companies Need Most in 2019 – And How to Learn Them, LinkedIn says that the number one soft skill is creativity. Persuasion (communication) and collaboration follow. Analytical reasoning (critical thinking) is ranked the third most needed hard skill.
Nowhere does it say that employers are looking for students who have read Shakespeare or know how to solve quadratic equations. As one education leader said to me, "Your resume gets you in the door. The interview is all about the soft skills. Those skills get you the job."
The 4 C's were
first introduced as Classrooms for the Future (CFF) was wrapping up in Pennsylvania.
It seemed so simple. That project ended in 2011, and we are still talking about
them. In some cases, they are naturally embedded into what we do in the
classroom. In other cases, we think we are including these skills in our
lessons, but we are just doing it at a surface level.
- What does it mean to be an effective
communicator?
- Does small group work count as collaboration?
- If a student creates a PowerPoint,
does that check off the creation box?
- What are the skills that are needed to solve problems through critical thinking? How skilled are teachers at asking deep questions? Do students transfer those critical thinking stills to their work when their teacher isn't there?
During the CFF years, Andrew Churches redefined Bloom's Taxonomy with a digital spin. It put "create" at the top of the pyramid. I remember working with coaches and teachers on what it means to create. One of my responsibilities during CFF was to plan and organize Student Capitol Day. When submitting an application to attend, teachers had to tell us where the project fell on Bloom's Taxonomy. I can't tell you how many checked create when all the students did was create a PowerPoint.
In 2012, Allan Carrington created the Padagogy wheel, an interactive visual that encouraged teachers to look at how they were using iPads to get to critical thinking skills at the higher levels of Bloom's and SAMR. Kathy Schrock created her Bloomin' Apps. More recently, Med Karbach (2019) created an updated version that goes beyond the iPad.
These are wonderful resources, but let's apply our own critical thinking to these visuals. They definitely make us think about the tools we can have our students use to create, collaborate, communicate, and use critical thinking. However, just because we have a student make a video, does that mean they are creating new ideas to solve problems?
It's not the tool, folks! It's what you do with it.
Some of the best professional development I ever
participated in had me analyzing lessons with an eye toward the 4 C's - albeit with different names. Microsoft
commissioned this research, but the results are not all about technology. It
includes employer responses to the questions of what do the following skills
look like in the workplace:
- Collaboration
- Skilled Communication
- Knowledge Construction
- Self Regulation
- Real-World Problem Solving
- Use of Instructional Technology for Learning
Then, it walks you through a decision tree to determine whether or not some sample lessons are true representatives of the skills. When done in the right way, the conversations this professional development gets started are deep and reflective.
This notebook is a tremendous resource that Microsoft has made available. Although Microsoft has been kind enough to provide some sample lessons, let's come together as a true professional learning community and explore your lessons. Is there a topic you never enjoy teaching? Maybe there is one your students never enjoy learning? Let's apply these tools to your lesson and see what our collective imaginations can do with them.
Over the next few weeks, let's try some creativity exercises when designing lessons. Reimagine something you've been teaching for years. How can you teach it differently? Which of these ideas will you explore?
Together, let's
collaborate, communicate, and use some critical thinking to create lessons that
truly incorporate the 4 C's.
