The document emphasizes the importance of 21st century skills—critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration (the 'four C’s')—for students to thrive in a technology-driven world. It outlines how these skills not only prepare students for academic rigor and future job markets but are also essential for effective teamwork and problem-solving. Furthermore, it advocates for teachers to integrate these skills into their teaching practices to ensure students are equipped for challenges in an ever-evolving global landscape.

1. Learning the digital age Developing critical creative and collaborative skills.
As teachers, we believe that every child deserves an education that prepares them for life.
This education should be built on a foundation of technological skills that will secure our
students throughout their lives. There are four crucial areas that must be learned and
practiced by our children if they are to tackle the rigorous school work that the new
Common Core Standards promote.
It is through these 21st century skills that our young adults will find the power to be globally
competitive in a worldwide workforce and find the ability to face career challenges in an
ever- changing world of technology.
Critical Thinking, Creativity & Communication Collaboration. These fundamental
skills are gained through experience, and they include Collaboration, Communication,
Creativity, Critical Thinking.
The 4 C’s Learning and Innovation Skills Learning and innovation skills are being
recognized as the skills that separate students who are prepared for complex life and work
environments in the 21st century. A focus on collaboration, communication, creativity and
critical thinking is essential to prepare students for the future.
COLLABORATION
What is Collaboration?
Collaboration occurs when two or more people work together to accomplish a shared,
common goal-teaming up to meet that defined goal.
Collaboration, literally, consists of working together with one or more individuals.
To build good team collaboration skills, students must learn to: • Work effectively with
different groups of people, including people from diverse cultures. • Be flexible and willing
to compromise with team members to reach a common goal. • Demonstrate responsibility as
a team member working toward a shared goal.

2. Delegating means assigning duties to members of the group and expecting them to fulfill
their parts of the task.
Decision-making requires sorting through the many options provided to the group and
arriving at a single option to move forward.
Brainstorming ideas in a group involves rapidly suggesting and writing down ideas without
pausing to critique them.
Allocating resources and responsibilities ensures that all members of a team can work
optimally.
COMMON COLLABORATIVE ABILITIES
 Leading a group means creating an environment in which all members can
contribute according to their abilities.
 Goal setting requires the group to analyze the situation, decide what outcome is
desired, and clearly state an achievable objective.
 Evaluating the products, processes, and members of the group provides a clear
sense of what is working well and what improvements could be made.
 Team building means cooperatively working overtime to achieve a common goal.
 Resolving conflicts occurs from using one of the following strategies: asserting,
cooperating, compromising, competing, or deferring.
 Managing time involves matching up a list of tasks to a schedule and tracking the
progress toward goals.
COMMUNICATION
Expressing thoughts clearly, crisply articulating opinions, communicating instructions,
motivating others through powerful speech…these skills have always been valued in the
workplace and in public life. But in the 21st century, these skills have been transformed and are
even more important today. Communication cannot be effective unless the message is received
and understood. Communication

3. Students communicate daily by texting and posting on Face book pages and other social
media avenues to stay in touch with friends.
Teachers can help students make the connections between their recreational writing and the
kinds of writing they need to become successful beyond the classroom.
It’s important to stay aware of the digital world students live in as we design learning
experiences to cultivate important skills. Following conventions means communicating using the
expected norms for the medium chosen.
Evaluating messages means deciding whether they are correct, complete, reliable, authoritative,
and up-to-date.
Choosing a medium involves deciding the most appropriate way to deliver a message, ranging
from a face-to-face chat to a 400-page report.
Analyzing the situation means thinking about the subject, purpose, sender, receiver, medium, and
context of a message.
COMMON COMMUNICATION ABILITIES:
 Turn taking means effectively switching from receiving ideas to providing ideas, back
and forth between those in the communication situation.
 Speaking involves using spoken words, tone of voice, body language, gestures, facial
expressions, and visual aids in order to convey ideas.
 Reading is decoding written words and images in order to understand what their
originator is trying to communicate.
 Listening actively requires carefully paying attention, taking notes, asking questions, and
otherwise engaging in the ideas being communicated.
 Writing involves encoding messages into words, sentences, and paragraphs for the
purpose of communicating to a person who is removed by distance, time, or both.
 Using technology requires understanding the abilities and limitations of any technological
communication, from phone calls to e-mails to instant messages.

4. How can they be used or leveraged effectively?
The power of modern media and the ubiquity of communication technologies in all aspects of
life make teaching strong communication skills even more important.
Which ones are not? Which information sources are accurate?
Students must be able to effectively analyze and process the overwhelming amount of
communication in their lives today.
To build effective Communication Skills students must learn to:
*Communicate using digital media and environments to support personal and group learning.
*Share information efficiently and effectively using appropriate digital media and environments.
*Communicate thoughts and ideas clearly and effectively to different audiences using various
media and formats.
These skills are at the core of every organization. It is crucial that we as teachers help
students build this vital set of 21st century skills. Effective communication skills are important in
many walks of life. Today’s employers look for individuals with effective communication skills
in reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. After graduation students will realize that these
basic communication skills are essential in attaining their life’s goals. It is imperative that
tomorrow’s graduates communicate clearly and effectively in a variety of languages.
CREATIVITY
What Is Creativity?
Creativity is the bringing into being of something which did not exist before, either as a
product, a process or a thought. Creativity is the ability to produce new, diverse and unique ideas.
Thinking creatively means looking at things from a different perspective and not be restricted by
rules, customs, or norms.
Entertaining others involves telling stories, making jokes, singing songs, playing games, acting
out parts, and making conversation.

5. Designing something means finding the conjunction between form and function and shaping
materials for a specific purpose.
Creating something requires forming it by combining materials, perhaps according to a plan or
perhaps based on the impulse of the moment.
Brainstorming ideas involves asking a question and rapidly listing all answers, even those that
are far- fetched, impractical, or impossible.
Main creative abilities
 Overturning something means flipping it to get a new perspective, perhaps by
redefining givens, reversing cause and effect, or looking at something in a brand new
way.
 Innovating is creating something that hasn’t existed before, whether an object, a
procedure, or an idea.
 Improvising a solution involves using something in a novel way to solve a problem.
 Imagining ideas involves reaching into the unknown and impossible, perhaps idly or
with great focus, as Einstein did with his thought experiments.
 Questioning actively reaches into what is unknown to make it known, seeking
information or a new way to do something.
 Problem solving requires using many of the creative abilities listed here to figure out
possible solutions and putting one or more of them into action.
CRITICAL THINKING
Critical thinking is focused, careful analysis of something to better understand it. When
people speak of “left brain” activity, they are usually referring to critical thinking.
What is Critical Thinking?
Critical thinking is investigating issues that are not always clearly defined and have no clear-
cut answers by asking significant questions and exploring different solutions. Critical thinking
helps evaluate ideas and add value to them by identifying the most reasonable ones or ones most
likely to succeed.

6. Arguing is using a series of statements connected logically together, backed by evidence, to
reach a conclusion.
Analyzing is breaking something down into its parts, examining each part, and noting how
the parts fit together.
Critical thinking is focused, careful analysis of something to better understand it. When
people speak of “left brain” activity, they are usually referring to critical thinking.
Here are some of the main critical-thinking abilities: common critical thinking abilities:
Describing is explaining the traits of something, such as size, shape, weight, color, use, origin,
value, condition, location, and so on.
Defining is explaining the meaning of a term using denotation, connotation, example,
etymology, synonyms, and antonyms.
Comparing and contrasting is pointing out the similarities and differences between two or
more subjects.
Classifying is identifying the types or groups of something, showing how each category is
distinct from the others.
Tracking cause and effect is determining why something is happening and what results from
it.Problem solving is analyzing the causes and effects of a problem and finding a way to stop
the causes or the effects.
Explaining is telling what something is or how it works so that others can understand it.
Evaluating is deciding on the worth of something by comparing it against an accepted
standard of value.
Critical Thinking Critical thinking involves logical thinking and reasoning including skills
such as comparison, classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning, webbing, analogies,
deductive and inductive reasoning, forecasting, planning, hypothesizing, and critiquing.

7. Teaching critical thinking and problem solving effectively in the classroom is vital for
students. Learning critical thinking leads students to develop other skills, such as a higher level
of concentration, deeper analytical abilities, and improved thought processing.
Critical thinking is quite compatible with thinking "out-of-the-box", challenging consensus
and pursuing less popular approaches. If anything, critical thinking is an essential part of
creativity because we need critical thinking to evaluate and improve our creative ideas.
Today’s citizens must be active critical thinkers if they are to compare evidence, evaluate
competing claims, and make sensible decisions. In everyday work, employees must employ
critical thinking to better serve customers, develop better products, and continuously improve
themselves within an ever-changing global economy.
The teaching of collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking are not new
concepts for educators. In fact, they are the basis of great teaching, and most teachers aspire to
teach in a manner that incorporates these strategies. It is clear that the “Four C’s” need to be fully
integrated into classrooms, schools, and districts around the country to produce citizens and
employees adequately prepared for the 21st century.
Communication Critical Thinking Creativity Collaboration