| 21st Century Skills

COMMUNICATION

As a citizen of the 21st century,
you should be able to

Communicating clearly in a variety of spaces, environments, cultures, and contexts.
Actively listening to decipher meanings, intentions, attitudes, etc.
Receiving and transmitting messages using any available resources.
Exchanging knowledge or opinions.
Articulating ideas effectively, using oral, written, and non-verbal resources in different forms and contexts.
Determining the best communication strategy according to your objectives.
Sharing information that is understood, as well as using media and technology to communicate.
Using communication for a variety of reasons: to inform, instruct, motivate, persuade, question, entertain, etc.

Competence
Area

Skills

Identifying the itended message’s outcomes (what you want to convey with the message)
Competence in mother tonge and other languages (e.g., ability to employ appropriate vocabulary, grammar, and logical structures); visual literacy (communication through non-linguistic visual modes); effective use of bodily gestures; providing the exact amount of information required; presenting relevant information; being concise and avoiding ambiguity and obscurity; avoiding false information; making questions; questioning; explaining
Self-regulation (goal-setting, planning, and reflection)
Perspective taking; theory of mind or audience analysis
Adherence to conventions (accounting for diversity in the conventions or norms of different disciplines; professions; and communication channels)
Intercultural sensitivity; awareness and androitness; curiosity about other cultures; dealing with cultural differences and uncertainties; resistance to stereotyping
Adaptation and empathy
Navigating through different channels (email, video chat, instant messaging, blogs, wikis, websites, and social media, in addition to more traditional forms of communication such as papers, presentations, or face-toface conversation)
Digital skills, use of information and communication technology

Linguistic and visual competencies for encoding and decoding linguistic and nonlinguistic symbols
Modeling senders’ mind to reliably recover intended meanings
Intercultural communication skills
Being aware of the conventions governing communication in various contexts and channels to accurately interpret the message
Determining senders’ outcomes when receiving and processing the message
Active listening (being an active receiver by actively attending to the messages, monitoring their understanding, and considering the senders’ background, emotions, and intentions); paying attention; withholding judgment; reflecting; clarifying; summarizing; sharing
Critical-thinking, inferential and deductive reasoning, analogical skills, critical analysis, and insight
Digital skills, use of information and communication technology

Creating of a strategy, theory, method, or argument based on a synthesis of evidence
Creating an argument that goes beyond available information
Synthesis, dialectic debating, designing, planning
Computational thinking: abstractions and pattern generalizations; systematic processing of information; symbol systems and representations; algorithmic notions of flow of control; structured problem decomposition (modularizing); iterative, recursive, and parallel thinking; conditional logic; efficiency and performance constraints; debugging and systematic error detection

Judging the quality of content, information, procedures or solutions
Being able to criticize a work product with respect to their credibility, relevance, and bias using a set of standards or specific framework
Criticism, auditing, appraisal, authentication

Sources: Based on PEARSON framework
(Metusalem, Belenky & DiCerbo, 2017; Griffin, McGaw & Care, 2012).

SKILLS IN ACTION

Habilidades para el siglo XXI - Comunicación

Communication - Basics and Importance

10 Communication Skills for Your Life and Career Success

Listening

RESOURCES

Griffin, P., McGaw, B. & Care, E. (2012). Assessment and teaching of 21st century skills (pp. 1-15). Springer, Dordrecht. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789400723238
Hargie, O. (Ed.). (1997). The handbook of communication skills. Psychology Press. https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203007037
Metusalem, R., Belenky, D. M., & DiCerbo, K. (2017). Skills for today: what we know about teaching and assessing communication. Pearson. https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/one-dot-com/one-dot-com/global/Files/efficacy-and-research/skills-for-today/Communication-FullReport.pdf
Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2009). 21st century skills: Learning for life in our times. John Wiley & Sons. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/21st+Century+Skills%3A+Learning+for+Life+in+Our+Times-p-9781118157060

#SKILLS21

21st century skills help individuals of all ages to reinvent themselves throughout life, adapt to changing and diverse circumstances, and identify opportunities for growth amid differences.