How are schools preparing students for a workplace that does not exist yet?
According to the Hechinger Report, automation threatens 47% of jobs. As many as 800 million people worldwide could be displaced and need to find new jobs jobs by 2030.
Many of the fastest-growing jobs and emerging industries rely on workers with creative ability. The Conference Board- Ready to Innovate says that 97% of employers agree that creativity and creative problem solving skills are of increasing importance in the workplace. Yet, 85 % of employers seeking creative employees said they were having difficulty finding qualified applicants.
We live in a rapidly developing, global digital society. Renzulli Learning supports the development of 21st Century Learning skills in your classroom every day. Increase your students’ communication and collaboration skills, as well as their problem solving, critical and creative thinking.
Problem Solving and Critical Thinking Skills
Teachers use the Renzulli Learning Enrichment Database of student-friendly, online resources that have been hand-curated by our educational experts. The Renzulli Enrichment Database includes a broad variety of critical thinking and problem solving activities. Teachers can create assignments using the available resources that are based on students’ interests, learning styles, and expression styles to promote and assess critical thinking skills. Renzulli Learning provides a wide array of curriculum templates to get you started.
Problem Based Learning increases student engagement through self-directed research, within your curriculum or driven by student interest, either independently or through collaborative learning groups. Teachers can use PBL in Renzulli Learning to provide students with deeper opportunities for critical thinking and analysis, as well as cross-discipline and real-world problem solving.
Communication and Collaboration Skills
Renzulli Learning builds collaboration skills through the use of Collaborative Groups. Collaborative Groups can improve students’ social skills and helps students learn to work together for success in a team setting, developing respect for other people’s ideas as well as leadership and group decision making skills. Students use their individual talents within groups to find solutions to questions and reach common goals.
Global Collaboration offers teachers the opportunity to connect students with peers around the globe in order to collaborate on common pursuits, integrating 21st Century Learning Skills all along the way!
Creative Thinking Skills
Creative Thinking Skills are paramount to success for 21st century learners. The careers of the future will demand that employees can think on their feet and be fluent, flexible, original, elaborate thinkers. In his Ted Talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity,” Sir Ken Robinson concludes:
And the only way to we’ll do it is by seeing our creative capacities for the richness they are and seeing our children for the hope that they are. And our task is to educate their whole being, so they can face this future. By the way – we may not see this future, but they will. And our job is to help them make something of it.
– Sir Ken Robinson.
Click here to watch the Ted Talk
The Creativity Training category in the Enrichment Database enables students to develop their creative thinking skills by focusing on the creativity domains of fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration. Teachers can build environments that encourage creative expression by assigning activities based on a student’s interests and emphasizing the importance of creative contributions.
When combined with the Cebeci Test of Creativity (CTC), the Creativity Training activities become your solution for creativity development in the classroom. Schools are able to assess students’ creativity within the four creativity domains, and then direct students to the appropriate resources.
Is your School 21st Century?
| 20th Century Learning | 21st Century Learning |
|---|---|
| Needs of Industrial Age Employers | Needs of globalized high-tech society |
| Time-Based | Outcome-Based |
| Textbook Driven | Research Driven |
| Memorization of Facts | Students’ Analysis, Evaluation, and Creation of Information |
| Teacher-Centered | Student-Centered |
| Little or No Freedom | Great Deal of Freedom |
| Classroom is within 4 walls | Global Classroom |
| Individual Learning | Students Work Collaboratively |
| Students Work in Isolation | Students Work with Classmates and Others from Around the World in Global Classrooms |
Source: http://www.21stCenturySchools.com/
There is an economic imperative for countries to invest in highly creative, highly motivated, highly reached-oriented young people who are going to create the ideas, inventions, and businesses that improve not just the economic conditions of their nations but also the social, cultural, educational, and even political leadership of their nation. This is a very important responsibility for all people that work with young people.
Joseph S. Renzulli
View the Research: