21 century skills

Abilitati competente aptitudini talente

21st Century skills are 12 abilities that today’s students need to succeed in
their careers during the Information Age.

21st Century skills are:

1. Critical thinking
2. Creativity
3. Collaboration
4. Communication
5. Information literacy
6. Media literacy
7. Technology literacy
8. Flexibility
9. Leadership
10.Initiative
11.Productivity
12.Social skills

How today’s students can stay competitive a changing job market

Each 21st Century skill is broken into one of three categories:

1. Learning skills
2. Literacy skills
3. Life skills

Each of these categories pertains to a specific part of the digital experience.

Learning skills (the four C’s) teaches students about the mental processes
required to adapt and improve upon a modern work environment.

Literacy skills (IMT) focuses on how students can discern facts, publishing
outlets, and the technology behind them. There’s a strong focus on determining
trustworthy sources and factual information to separate it from the
misinformation that floods the Internet.

Life skills (FLIPS) take a look at intangible elements of a student’s everyday

life. These intangibles focus on both personal and professional qualities.

Altogether, these categories cover all 12 21st Century skills that contribute to a
student’s future career.

Let’s take a closer look at each category.

Category 1. Learning Skills (The Four C’s)

The four C’s are by far the most popular 21st Century skills. These skills are
also called learning skills.

More educators know about these skills because they’re universal needs for any
career. They also vary in terms of importance, depending on an individual’s
career aspirations.

 Critical thinking: Finding solutions to problems

 Creativity: Thinking outside the box
 Collaboration: Working with others
 Communication: Talking to others
Arguably, critical thinking is the most important quality for someone to have
in health sciences.

In business settings, critical thinking is essential to improvement. It’s the

mechanism that weeds out problems and replaces them with fruitful endeavors.

It’s what helps students figure stuff out for themselves when they don’t have a
teacher at their disposal.

Creativity is equally important as a means of adaptation. This skill empowers

students to see concepts in a different light, which leads to innovation.

In any field, innovation is key to the adaptability and overall success of a

company.
Learning creativity as a skill requires someone to understand that “the way
things have always been done” may have been best 10 years ago — but
someday, that has to change.

Collaboration means getting students to work together, achieve compromises,

and get the best possible results from solving a problem.

Collaboration may be the most difficult concept in the four C’s. But once it’s
mastered, it can bring companies back from the brink of bankruptcy.

The key element of collaboration is willingness. All participants have to be

willing to sacrifice parts of their own ideas and adopt others to get results for
the company.

That means understanding the idea of a “greater good,” which in this case tends
to be company-wide success.

Finally, communication is the glue that brings all of these educational qualities
together.

Communication is a requirement for any company to maintain profitability. It’s

crucial for students to learn how to effectively convey ideas among different
personality types.

That has the potential to eliminate confusion in a workplace, which makes your
students valuable parts of their teams, departments, and companies.

Effective communication is also one of the most underrated soft skills in the
United States. For many, it’s viewed as a “given,” and some companies may
even take good communication for granted.

But when employees communicate poorly, whole projects fall apart. No one can
clearly see the objectives they want to achieve. No one can take responsibility
because nobody’s claimed it.

Without understanding proper communication, students in the 21st Century will

lack a pivotal skill to progress their careers.

But the four C’s are only the beginning. 21st Century skills also require students
to understand the information that’s around them.
Category 2. Literacy Skills (IMT)

Literacy skills are the next category of 21st Century skills.

They’re sometimes called IMT skills, and they’re each concerned with a
different element in digital comprehension.

 Information literacy: Understanding facts, figures, statistics, and data

 Media literacy: Understanding the methods and outlets in which
information is published
 Technology literacy: Understanding the machines that make the
Information Age possible

Information literacy is the foundational skill. It helps students understand

facts, especially data points, that they’ll encounter online.
More importantly, it teaches them how to separate fact from fiction.

In an age of chronic misinformation, finding truth online has become a job all
on its own. It’s crucial that students can identify honesty on their own.

Otherwise, they can fall prey to myths, misconceptions, and outright lies.

Media literacy is the practice of identifying publishing methods, outlets, and

sources while distinguishing between the ones that are credible and the ones that
aren’t.

Just like the previous skill, media literacy is helpful for finding truth in a world
that’s saturated with information.

This is how students find trustworthy sources of information in their lives.

Without it, anything that looks credible becomes credible.
But with it, they can learn which media outlets or formats to ignore. They also
learn which ones to embrace, which is equally important.

Last, technology literacy goes another step further to teach students about the
machines involved in the Information Age.

As computers, cloud programming, and mobile devices become more important

to the world, the world needs more people to understand those concepts.

Technology literacy gives students the basic information they need to

understand what gadgets perform what tasks and why.

This understanding removes the intimidating feeling that technology tends to

have. After all, if you don’t understand how technology works, it might as well
be magic.

But technology literacy unmasks the high-powered tools that run today’s world.

As a result, students can adapt to the world more effectively. They can play an
important role in its evolution.

They might even guide its future.

But to truly round out a student’s 21st Century skills, they need to learn from a
third category.
Category 3. Life Skills (FLIPS)

Life skills is the final category. Also called FLIPS, these skills all pertain to
someone’s personal life, but they also bleed into professional settings.
  Flexibility: Deviating from plans as needed
 Leadership: Motivating a team to accomplish a goal
 Initiative: Starting projects, strategies, and plans on one’s own
 Productivity: Maintaining efficiency in an age of distractions
 Social skills: Meeting and networking with others for mutual benefit

Flexibility is the expression of someone’s ability to adapt to changing

circumstances.

This is one of the most challenging qualities to learn for students because it’s
based on two uncomfortable ideas:

1. Your way isn’t always the best way

2. You have to know and admit when you’re wrong
That’s a struggle for a lot of students, especially in an age when you can know

any bit of information at the drop of a hat.

Flexibility requires them to show humility and accept that they’ll always have a
lot to learn — even when they’re experienced.

Still, flexibility is crucial to a student’s long-term success in a career. Knowing

when to change, how to change, and how to react to change is a skill that’ll pay
dividends for someone’s entire life.

It also plays a big role in the next skill in this category.

Leadership is someone’s penchant for setting goals, walking a team through

the steps required, and achieving those goals collaboratively.
Whether someone’s a seasoned entrepreneur or a fresh hire just starting their
careers, leadership applies to career.

Entry-level workers need leadership skills for several reasons. The most
important is that it helps them understand the decisions that managers and
business leaders make.

Then, those entry-level employees can apply their leadership skills when they’re
promoted to middle management (or the equivalent). This is where 21st Century
skill learners can apply the previous skills they’ve learned.

It’s also where they get the real-world experience they need to lead entire
companies.

As they lead individual departments, they can learn the ins and outs of their
specific careers. That gives ambitious students the expertise they need to grow
professionally and lead whole corporations.

Leadership alone isn’t enough to get ahead though.

True success also requires initiative, requiring students to be self-starters.

Initiative only comes naturally to a handful of people. As a result, students need

to learn it to fully succeed.

This is one of the hardest skills to learn and practice. Initiative often means
working on projects outside of regular working hours.

The rewards for students with extreme initiative vary from person to person.
Sometimes they’re good grades. Other times they’re new business ventures.

Sometimes, it’s spending an extra 30 minutes at their jobs wrapping something

up before the weekend.

Regardless, initiative is an attribute that earns rewards. It’s especially indicative

of someone’s character in terms of work ethic and professional progress.

That goes double when initiative is practiced with qualities like flexibility and
leadership.
Along with initiative, 21st Century skills require students to learn
about productivity. That’s a student’s ability to complete work in an
appropriate amount of time.

In business terms, it’s called “efficiency.”

The common goal of any professional — from entry-level employee to CEO —

is to get more done in less time.

By understanding productivity strategies at every level, students discover the

ways in which they work best while gaining an appreciation for
how others work as well.

That equips them with the practical means to carry out the ideas they determine
through flexibility, leadership, and initiative.

Still, there’s one last skill that ties all other 21st Century skills together.

Social skills are crucial to the ongoing success of a professional. Business is

frequently done through the connections one person makes with others around
them.

This concept of networking is more active in some industries than others, but
proper social skills are excellent tools for forging long-lasting relationships.

While these may have been implied in past generations, the rise of social media
and instant communications have changed the nature of human interaction.

As a result, today’s students possess a wide range of social skills. Some are
more socially adept than others. Some are far behind their peers. And some
lucky few may be far ahead, as socializing comes naturally to them.

But most students need a crash course in social skills at least. Etiquette,
manners, politeness, and small talk still play major roles in today’s world.
That means some students need to learn them in an educational setting instead
of a social setting.

For them, it’s another skill to add to their lives.

Now that we’ve established what 21st Century skills are, let’s answer the next
big question.

Do employers actually want people with 21st Century skills?

What’s the Demand for 21st Century Skills?

While 21st Century skills have always been important, they’ve become essential
in a worldwide market that moves faster by the day.

These skills all double back to one key focus.

Someone’s ability to enact and / or adapt to change.

This is because any industry is capable of changing at a moment’s notice.

Industries are now regularly disrupted with new ideas and methodologies.

Those industries that haven’t been disrupted aren’t immune though. They just
haven’t been disrupted yet.

With that in mind, the world has entered an era where nothing is guaranteed.

As a result, students need to learn to guide the change that’ll inundate their
lives. At the very least, they need to learn how to react to it.
Otherwise, they’ll be left behind.

This is especially true as customer demand accelerates in all industries along

with expectations for newer features, higher-level capabilities, and lower prices.

In today’s marketplace, falling behind means becoming obsolete.

That’s a familiar concept to all of today’s students as tomorrow’s advancements

make today’s miracles quaint or unimpressive.

Today, the only consistency from year to year is change.

With 21st Century skills, your students will have the adaptive qualities they
need to keep up with a business environment that’s constantly evolving.
How Does Business&ITCenter21 Help Students with 21st Century Skills?

Business&ITCenter21 uses a tried-and-true approach to help you teach students

about 21st Century skills.

We’ve hand-crafted specialized curriculum modules that fit into any teacher’s
career prep course.

For example, we have pre-made modules about:

 Digital responsibility

 Digital citizenship
 Computing systems
  Professionalism
 Written communication

These five modules only scratch the surface.

In each one of them, your students can learn valuable 21st Century skills that
they’ll use in their careers for the rest of their lives.

With you at the helm, Business&ITCenter21 supplements your expertise by

giving students the ability to work at their own paces.

Plus, it saves you time since you can integrate pre-made modules into your own
lesson plans.

This also gives you a blended classroom, which is proven to save time, promote
tech literacy, and cut costs all at once.

It even gives your students the chance to go back and review on their own
time. That means you can concentrate on helping the students in your class who
are furthest behind while others move forward on their own.

That’s a lot of value from a single learning management system.

Still, it’s important to note that Business&ITCenter21 isn’t intended to replace

your teaching expertise — Business&ITCenter21 works best as a supplement.

After all, you’re the one with the experience, and that’s something your
students can’t learn from software alone.

But with Business&ITCenter21, you get to save time, money, and stress all at
once.

Teaching is a tough job — Business&ITCenter21 makes it a whole lot easier.

This goes double for 21st Century skills.

In today’s world , information and knowledge are increasing at such an

astronomical rate that no one can learn everything about every subject , what
may appear true today could be proven to be false tomorrow, and the jobs that
students will get after graduate may not yet exist. For this reason, students need
to be taught how to process,parse and use information, and they need adaptable
skills they can apply in all areas of life just teaching them ideas and facts
without teaching them how to use them in real life settings is no longer enough

anchored in the 4Cs: critical thinking, collaboration, communication and

creativity) in early learning experiences for young children in order to build the
skills they need not only when entering school, but also in life.

emphasizes the 4Cs – communication, collaboration, critical thinking and

creativity – skills that all learners need for success in school, work and life.
 Children have early opportunities to develop the foundational skills
that will help them reason, think creatively, analyze data and work
collaboratively in the future.

Window of opportunity

Preparing a child for the world that doesn’t yet exist is not an easy task for any
teacher

No pupil in the history of education is like today’s modern learner. This is a

complex, energetic, and tech-savvy individual. They want to be challenged and
inspired in their learning. They want to collaborate and work with their peers.
They want to incorporate the technology they love into their classroom
experiences as much as they can. In short, they have just as high a set of
expectations of their educators as their educators have of them.

Twenty-first-century skills are a hot topic in education today; some even call
them the new building blocks for learning. Our children will need to survive and
thrive in an increasingly competitive global landscape, and at the same time be
able to collaborate with others from all over the world. Creativity and
innovation will be highly prized, both for developing technology and new
media, and for solving challenges with more limited resources. So how do we
prepare our children for the jobs of the future?

What new skills will kids need?

 Experts worldwide acknowledge that today’s children need more than the
traditional 3 Rs (reading, writing and arithmetic) to prepare for 21st century
careers. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (PS21), for example, is working
with state educational leaders on a new classroom curriculum that adds the 4
Cs:

 Collaboration
 Creativity
 Communication
 Critical thinking

Increased urbanisation, an ageing population, and technological leaps have left

20th century life imagined as ‘a simpler time’, while the future remains an
exponential unknown. The 20th century is remembered as a time of “jobs for
life”, while we are reminded that the US Labour department expects today’s
students to have had 10-14 jobs by the age of 38. Whereas information used to
be bound up in libraries, Google now processes 1.2 trillion searches every year.
The accelerating pace of change means that, for students starting a technical
degree, half of what they learn in their first year will be outdated by their third
year.

The 3 R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic) are undoubtedly as essential as they
ever were but now the skills needed to adapt, collaborate and continuously learn
have become vital as well. The 21st century skills advocated by this movement
include resilience, multilingualism, collaboration, meta-cognition,
communication, implicit memorisation, setting smart goals, creativity and
critical thinking.

We need to be careful not to set 21st century skills up in opposition to – or as a

distraction from – skills that are typically the focus of exams. The development
of 21st century skills is complementary and enhancing to core academic skills.
Ohio State University recently ran a study on students taking a “learning and
motivation strategies” course that focuses on many 21st century skills. The
study showed that students taking this course are six times less likely to drop
out in their first year of study, 45% more likely to graduate and that they score
significantly higher-grade point averages.
Today we are immersed in a bewildering array of subjects, extra-curricular
activities, multiple intelligence theories and pedagogies. It is immensely
difficult to cut through the chatter and address the core questions: What skills
should we equip our children with, so that they may excel in life, and be fruitful
contributors to society? How do we empower today's youth to cope with the
ocean of knowledge around them, and achieve in the hyper-competitive,
technology-driven, global economy? The answer lies in the term “21st Century
Skills”, an umbrella of well-identified skills that we must equip our children
with.

An important shift has occurred in the workplace of the 21st Century. Tony
Wagner, Innovation Education Fellow at Harvard University says, “The world
doesn't care anymore what you know; all it cares is what you can do with what
you know.”

This is what training in 21st Century skills can help our students become: the
inventors, solution-finders and thinkers of tomorrow. And training must start
from the K-12 level. for kindergarten to 12th grade
It may be a truism that the future will be different, but human expectations have
rarely been so high about the degree of imminent change. This century’s rapid
development of artificial intelligence and digital systems has convinced us that
almost every aspect of our children’s and grandchildren’s lives will be different
to ours.

As these emerging technologies evolve, and are then quickly replaced by as yet
unimaginable new ones, human society will need to become increasingly
nimble and adaptable with lifelong learning as its modus operandi. In this
digital age, the need for children to learn and memorise facts is diminishing. It
is being replaced by the need to learn how to sieve and assess information
critically for any kernel of “truth”.
 We don’t know exactly what kind of workforce
today’s preschoolers will enter into in 18 years, but there is increasing demand
for people skills.Shutterstock

Today’s pre-schoolers will enter the workforce around 2035. Although we

cannot contemplate exactly what their world will be then, we do know that
children and adults will continue to need the basics of the 3Rs (reading, writing
and arithmetic). They will also need a greater ability to learn how to learn, and
to possess problem solving, critical thinking skills, and to be resilient in the face
of fast-moving change.

Most discussions about “21st century skills” emphasise the need for schools to
focus more on so-called “soft” skills and character traits (such as creative
thinking and curiosity) in addition to cognitive skills such as problem-solving,
critical analysis, the attainment of core subject knowledge, and strong early
literacy and numeracy. Interestingly, early childhood education already includes
a strong focus on these so-called “soft” skills. Early years learning has a
stronger focus on whole-of-child development than school education.

We are heading for an age that requires adaptable “knowledge workers” who
can work collaboratively, independently and creatively. The solution does not
lie in our youngest children spending long periods in screen time. Too much
screen time at an early age deflects children from developing the essential
human skills they need to function in complex social and economic work. Plus,
we already know increased use of digital devices at an early age is associated
with poorer outcomes.

When you think of the skills children need to learn in the classroom, the first
few that immediately come to mind are reading, writing, and arithmetic.
However, children of the 21st century need to know far more than the difference
between a verb and an adverb and the numerous methods of multiplication - in
order to compete in the global economy, they need to know how to think
critically, solve problems, communicate effectively, and work with computers
and technology effortlessly. Those are what educators refer to as 21st century
skills.
To most parents, this might seem like a bunch of nonsense, but it’s important to
realize the world is changing — there’s been a major shift in how students
learn, people get jobs, and how corporations gain business. Our children need to
be prepared in order to survive the dynamic job market of the coming years.
Today’s students still need these skills — but to hold information-age jobs,
they also need to think deeply about issues, solve problems creatively, work
well in teams, communicate clearly through many different forms media, and
master ever-changing technologies.

The Difference Between Hard Skills and Soft Skills

Hard skills are teachable abilities or skill sets that are easy to quantify.
Typically, you'll learn hard skills in the classroom, through books or other
training materials, or on the job.

Examples of hard skills include:

 Proficiency in a foreign language

 A degree or certificate
 Typing speed
 Machine operation
 Computer programming

These hard skills are often listed in your cover letter and on your resume, and
are easy for an employer or recruiter to recognize.

Soft skills, on the other hand, are subjective skills that are much harder to
quantify. Also known as "people skills" or "interpersonal skills," soft skills
relate to the way you relate to and interact with other people.

Examples of soft skills include:

 Communication
 Flexibility
 Leadership
 Motivation
 Patience
 Persuasion
 Problem Solving Abilities
 Teamwork
 Time Management
 Work Ethic
Unlike hard skills, it's hard to point to specific evidence that you possess a soft
skill. If an employer is looking for someone who knows a programming
language, you can share your grade in a class or point to a program you created
using the language. But how can you show that you have a work ethic or any
other soft skill? Just saying you have the skill isn't very meaningful. Instead,
with this — and any other soft skills — your best bet is to demonstrate that you
possess this quality by sharing examples of times when you used it.

Top Skills Employers Look For

While certain hard skills are necessary for any position, employers increasingly
look for job applicants with certain soft skills. That's because it's generally
easier for an employer to train a new employee in a hard skill (such as how to
use a certain computer program) than to train an employee in a soft skill (such
as patience).

Here's a list of some of the top skills employers seek in candidates for
employment. Incorporate these skills into your resume and cover letters, and
mention them during job interviews.

Emphasize Both Hard and Soft Skills

Since they're both important, you'll want to emphasize both your hard and soft
skills during the job application process. This way, even if you lack a hard skill
required by the company, you can emphasize a particular soft skill that you
know would be valuable in the position.

For example, if the job involves working on a number of group projects, be sure
to emphasize your experience and skill as a team player and your ability to
communicate with team members.

How to Highlight Your Skills

To make sure potential employers are aware of your skills, highlight them on
your resume and cover letter. You'll also want to weave in mentions of your
skills during job interviews.

Incorporate skills into your resume. On your resume, you can include a skills
section that lists out relevant skills. As well, you can point to your skills in the
job description. For instance, if you're applying for a job where you'll need to
have legal knowledge, and also communicate with clients successfully, you can
include similar experience in job descriptions.
Include relevant skills in your cover letter. Your cover letter is also an
opportunity to highlight both sets of skills. When it comes to soft skills,
however, rather than saying you have a soft skill, demonstrate that you have it.
For instance, rather than saying "I have leadership skills," you can say, "At my
role at Company ABC, I steered the sales team to record numbers, creating a
bonus structure that generated strong results."

Share your skills during job interviews. During interviews, the STAR
interview response technique can help you show off soft skills.

Review Skills List

But which skills should you highlight? Browse through this list of skills for
resumes, cover letters, and interviews, employment skills for a variety of
different types of jobs, and information on job specific skills, to get inspiration
for which skills to highlight during the job application process.

As well, read the job description carefully to get a sense of which skills the
employer is looking for in applicants. Finally, there are some skills that you
shouldn't include. Review a list of skills not to put on your resume.

When applying for a job, many people tend to emphasize their hard skills – the
specific knowledge and abilities required for a particular job. These are
typically skills that can be clearly defined and measured. It’s also necessary to
highlight the most important soft skills you possess, to show why you’re the
best candidate for the job.

When you are seeking employment, your soft skills can be as important as
the hard skills that are required to achieve success on the job. Soft skills are
much more difficult to define and measure – they are the interpersonal or
“people” skills that help you to successfully interact with others in the
workplace. Regardless of the job, you have to interact effectively with
supervisors and people above and below you on the work chart, as well as
others possibly- such as customers, vendors, patients, students, etc.

Companies seek candidates with both types of skills when hiring for most
positions. That's because if you have a negative attitude, can't get along with
others, don’t communicate well, don't work well as part of a team, and aren't
able to think creatively and critically, it may not matter how well educated and
competent you are. You need to have some set of people skills to get along in
any job, not just those working directly with the public. Indeed.com, the leading
job site, has shared the most valuable soft skills for job seekers and employees.

Top Soft Skills Employers Want

Here are the top seven most important soft skills to have for both interviewing
and in the workplace, from Indeed's Director of Recruiting, Mike Steinerd:

 Acting as a team player – this means not only being cooperative, but
also displaying strong leadership skills when necessary.
 Flexibility – this is an extremely valuable asset to employees. Those who
can adapt to any situation are dependable no matter what's thrown at
them.
 Effective communication – this is paramount to almost any job.
Communication involves articulating oneself well, being a good
listener and using appropriate body language.
 Problem-solving and resourcefulness – no matter what your profession,
these skills are critical when unexpected issues inevitably arise.

 Accepting feedback – not only accepting feedback gracefully but also

applying that feedback, fosters professional growth.
 Confidence is key – that being said, it's also important to always have the
knowledge and skills to support self-assurance. By being confident and
capable, your supervisors, employees, and clients will believe in what
you are saying.
 Creative thinking – being able to come up with unique solutions or
alternatives is invaluable; it drives innovation and increases efficiency.

Employment Skills Differ by Job

When you are seeking a leadership position, either as a manager, or a member

of a team, you will want to highlight different assets than if you are seeking a
technical position, for example. The soft skills you need to be an effective
leader will include things like being able to delegate and offer constructive
criticism. Review this list for examples of soft skills in a variety of categories.

Information Technology positions require soft skills such as creativity and the
ability to present ideas and solutions to individuals as well as groups. Strong
communications skills, both written and oral are an important asset in virtually
any field, at every level.

How to Let Employers Know the Skills You Have

When you're writing resumes and cover letters, it's essential to reference the
skills the employer is seeking in your job application materials. The same is true
when you're interviewing. Review the job posting, and be prepared to give
specific examples of the skills you have (both hard and soft) that are a match for
the job requirements.
Also be sure to present your soft skills to the hiring manager during interviews.
Show off your positive attitude and enthusiasm throughout the interview. Don't
just say that you have the skills the company needs – prove it to them. Prepare
thoroughly for your interview, and have a few examples of instances when you
used your soft skills effectively. Know enough about the position and the
company to converse comfortably and knowledgeably with the interviewer.
Actions can genuinely speak louder than words - especially in a competitive
workplace.

The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years, for students
starting a 4 year technical degree this means that half of what they learn in their
first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study

Self-awareness Label and recognize own and others’ emotions. Identify

what triggers own emotions. Analyze emotions and how they affect others.
Accurately recognize own strengths and limitations. Identify own needs
and values. Possess self-efficacy and self-esteem.
What Is Social and Emotional Learning? Social and emotional learning is the
process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the
knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions,
set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and
maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.1 This
definition identifies SEL as a two-part process: acquisition and application
It is essential to understand simply acquiring a skill does not guarantee it will be
used at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner. Explicit teaching
and continual rehearsal of these skills, across environments, allow students the
opportunity to apply what they have learned. Social and emotional learning does
not mean simply following a curriculum. A

Self-awareness: Know your strengths and limitations, with a well-grounded

sense of confidence, optimism, and a “growth mindset.”

Self-management: Effectively manage stress, control impulses, and motivate

yourself to set and achieve goals.

Social awareness: Understand the perspectives of others and empathize with

them, including those from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
 Relationship skills: Communicate clearly, listen well, cooperate with others,
resist inappropriate social pressure, negotiate conflict constructively, and seek
and offer help when needed.

Responsible decision-making: Make constructive choices about personal

behavior and social interactions based on ethical standards, safety, and social
norms.

 Self-awareness

The ability to accurately recognize one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values
and how they influence behavior. The ability to accurately assess one’s
strengths and limitations, with a well-grounded sense of confidence, optimism,
and a “growth mindset.”

 Identifying emotions
 Accurate self-perception
 Recognizing strengths
 Self-confidence
 Self-efficacy
Self-management

The ability to successfully regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in

different situations — effectively managing stress, controlling impulses, and
motivating oneself. The ability to set and work toward personal and academic
goals.

 Impulse control
 Stress management
 Self-discipline
 Self-motivation
 Goal-setting
 Organizational skills
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Print the Wheel and Competencies

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 Social awareness

The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others, including those
from diverse backgrounds and cultures. The ability to understand social and
ethical norms for behavior and to recognize family, school, and community
resources and supports.

 Perspective-taking
 Empathy
 Appreciating diversity
 Respect for others
 Relationship skills

The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships

with diverse individuals and groups. The ability to communicate clearly,
listen well, cooperate with others, resist inappropriate social pressure,
negotiate conflict constructively, and seek and offer help when needed.

 Communication
 Social engagement
 Relationship-building
 Teamwork
 Responsible decision-making

The ability to make constructive choices about personal behavior and social
interactions based on ethical standards, safety concerns, and social norms.
The realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and a
consideration of the well-being of oneself and others.

 Identifying problems
 Analyzing situations
 Solving problems
 Evaluating
 Reflecting
 Ethical responsibility