Seven Survival Skills for 21st Century Students

Interesting list of required survival skills from Tony Wagner co-director of the Change Leadership Group at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. These were delivered as part of Wagner's November 18th keynote address to the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA). I really like this list. In particular, I like #2, which points to Web 2.0 and social networks and their ability to influence, and #4, which encourages entrepreneurship - I think every college and university should have a school of entrepreneurship. Agility and adaptability is an interesting skill to include. I agree that these are important 21st Century skills, but wonder how our colleges and universities - probably the least agile and slowest to adapt - can encourage agility and adaptability. eSchoolNews

Wagner presented a list of seven "survival skills" that students need to succeed in today's information-age world, taken from his book The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need--And What We Can do About It. It's a school's job to make sure students have these skills before graduating, he said:

1. Problem-solving and critical thinking;
2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence;
3. Agility and adaptability;
4. Initiative and entrepreneurship;
5. Effective written and oral communication;
6. Accessing and analyzing information; and
7. Curiosity and imagination.