Page 15 - 21st Century Competencies: Foundation Document for Discussion

Section Two: Defining 21st Century Competencies 13
3. Collaboration – Collaboration in a 21st century context requires the ability to “work in teams, learn from and contribute to the learning of others, [use] social networking skills, [and demonstrate] empathy in working with diverse others” (Fullan, 2013, p. 9). Collaboration also requires students to develop collective intelligence and to co-construct meaning, becoming creators of content as well as consumers. New skills and knowledge are necessary to enable team members to collaborate digitally and contribute to the collective knowledge base, whether working remotely or in a shared physical space.
4. Creativity and Innovation – Many studies demonstrate the importance of creativity for social development, the ability to compete in business, and the ability to generate economic growth. PISA 2012 results (OECD, 2014b) note the connection between high academic achievement, problem solving, and creativity. Creativity is often described as the pursuit of new ideas, concepts, or products that meet a need in the world. Innovation contains elements of creativity and is often described as the realization of a new idea in order to make a useful contribution
to a particular field. Creativity includes concepts of “economic and social entrepreneurialism . . . and leadership for action” (Fullan, 2013, p. 9). The People for Education’s “Measuring What Matters” report Creativity: The State of the Domain (Upitis, 2014) suggests that creativity in schools gives “students experiences with situations in which there is no known answer, where there are multiple solutions, where the tension of ambiguity is appreciated as fertile ground, and where imagination is honoured over rote knowledge” (p. 3).