Twentyfirst Century Skills and Competencies

Synonyms

Twenty-first-century competencies; Twenty-first-century learning

Definition

Twenty-first-century learning, or the twenty-first-century Skills Movement as it is commonly known (Trilling and Fadel 2009), refers to a global movement to redefine education goals and transform learning practice in response to the question, “What do students need to learn for life in our times?” – A world that is rapidly evolving from the industrial to the knowledge and innovation era.

Since this is a global topic, taxonomy matters significantly: the word “skill” may appear as “competencies” in some languages. In others, such as English, some users draw the definition as the formula “Knowledge + Skills = Competencies.” In French, there is the progression from “savoir” (knowledge) to “savoir-faire” (literally know-how; skill) to “competences” (competencies). “Knowledge” here refers to how people store their experiences within their minds as cognitive structures, and “skill” is defined as dexterity in...