Key Skills in the Context of Twenty-First-Century Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This chapter addresses the emphasis on key skills in twenty-first-century teaching and learning. It explores the global context of educational reforms predicated on key skills and identifies key influences such as globalisation, organisations like the OECD and developments in respect of digital technologies. A comparison of key skills frameworks identifies similarities and differences across such frameworks globally and sets the move towards key skills in the junior cycle in this global reform context. The key skills of the junior cycle are set out and discussed. This chapter also addresses the role of digital technologies as both drivers and enablers for the realisation of key skills–based approaches. It explains how in addition to the understood economic imperatives key skills can also support the realisation of social and individual benefits including improved wellbeing. The challenge of achieving digital literacy and the role of digital technologies in supporting ‘innovative practices’ which align with key skills are discussed. Implications of the adoption of key skills are detailed including a shift towards more learner-centred pedagogy, a realignment of assessment practices and an enhanced role for digital technologies. The introduction of formative classroom-based assessments to the junior cycle is considered in this context. This chapter concludes with recommendations for schools and teachers to support students’ realisation of key skills.