There have been many efforts to identify 21st century skills and propose educational systems that would increase the probability of developing these skills.
Cindy just sent me a link to “the official Google blog” identifying and explaining important characteristics in folks the author argues are likely to be of interest to Google. The characteristics include:
- analytical reasoning
- communication skills
- willingness to experiment
- team players
- passion
The title of the Google blog entry argues potential knowledge workers need to be capable of non-routine problem solving.
The challenge for the up-and-coming generation is how to acquire them. It’s easy to educate for the routine, and hard to educate for the novel.
Seems the development of such skills would be more likely if students had occasional opportunities to collaboratively take on non-routine problems.
