Innovative Pedagogies in Higher Education to Become Effective Teachers of 21st Century Skills: Unpacking the Learning and Innovations Skills Domain of the New Learning Paradigm

Abstract

As today's graduates engage with the demands of the current Knowledge Age, the skills that they need to succeed in their lives after college, or any other institution of higher learning, are 21 st century skills rather than 20 th century skills. Kivunja (2014) calls this "the new learning paradigm" (p.85). Unfortunately, those skills are not yet included in many of the learning outcomes prescribed by most educational jurisdictions or required to be assessed in high-stakes state and national examinations. It is essential that policy makers, across all nations, and in particular higher education providers, have a firm understanding of the skills most in demand in the 21 st century Digital World, how those skills relate to the orthodoxy academic standards, and how those skills can be effectively taught. So, it is imperative to ask and answer the questions: what are those skills, and how can they be taught effectively to present and future students in higher education to improve their Digital Economy readiness? This paper answers these questions in four ways. First, it gives a brief review of literature that highlights the meaning of effective teaching and its importance in pedagogy. Second, it reviews literature on the new learning paradigm that will equip learners with 21 st century skills and explains what the 21 st century skills are. Third, arguing that those skills constitute a new way of effective teaching and learning, the paper articulates the different domains of the new learning paradigm which comprise these skills. Fourth, it discusses the first of the domains-the Learning and Innovations Skills domain-so as to explain how the skills in this domain can be effectively taught to enable higher education students to graduate well equipped with the skills most in demand for success in today's knowledge-based, Digital World.

Teaching Students to Learn and to Work Well with 21st Century Skills: Unpacking the Career and Life Skills Domain of the New Learning Paradigm

“…(P21, 2009, p. 1) Thus, the rationale for the new learning paradigm is the understanding that the core academic subject knowledge and skills need to be supported with the essential skills for 21 st century success from the Learning and Innovations Skills (LIS) domain, the Career and Life Skills (CLS) domain, and the Digital Literacies Skills (DLS) domain. The first of these three essential skills domains (the LIS) was discussed by Kivunja (2014b). This article discusses the CLS domain.…”

Unpacking the Information, Media, and Technology Skills Domain of the New Learning Paradigm

“…As well explained in Kivunja (2014c) the New Learning Paradigm comprises "the skills, knowledge and expertise, which need to be effectively taught, and which students must master to be well prepared for success in the Digital Economy" (p. 40). Those skills fall into four domains, which the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), (P21, 2009; P21, 2011), identify as the Traditional Core Skills domain, the Learning and Innovation Skills domain, the Career and Life Skills domain, and the Digital Literacy Skills domain; also known as the "Information, Media, and Technology Skills" (P21, 2009, p. 5), domain.…”

“…Those skills fall into four domains, which the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), (P21, 2009; P21, 2011), identify as the Traditional Core Skills domain, the Learning and Innovation Skills domain, the Career and Life Skills domain, and the Digital Literacy Skills domain; also known as the "Information, Media, and Technology Skills" (P21, 2009, p. 5), domain. The Learning and Innovations Skills domain and the Career and Life Skills domain were discussed at length in Kivunja (2014c) and Kivunja (2015a) respectively. This section unpacks the Information, Media and Technology Skills (IMTS) domain in two subsections.…”

The Efficacy of Social Media Technologies in Academia: A Pedagogical Bliss or Digital Fad?

“…These skills were identified by the Partnership for 21 st Century Skills (P21, 2015) as the super skills that students need in order to be successful at school and to find gainful employment on their graduation. Several articles have been published to explain what the Partnership for 21 st Century Skills is (see for example, Kivunja, 2015a;2014a;2014b). Essentially, it is an organization that was formed in Washington, DC, in 2002, to look at the extent to which graduating students had been equipped with the skills to find gainful employment in the Digital Economy.…”