OVERVIEW
21st century skills are statements of abilities that all Lethbridge College graduates share. They’re broadly stated and occur within the learning environment formally and informally. In addition to the six 21st century skills, we expect students to acquire a substantial body of content knowledge and skills related to their specific program.
Since the fall of 2009, we’ve engaged internal stakeholders (faculty, staff, and students), as well as advisory committee members, in the process of developing 21st century skills that are aligned with the Board of Governors’ end statements. This white paper outlines where we started, where we are, and where we want to go with this project. Furthermore, it lists and details the 6 21st century skills envisioned at Lethbridge College. |
“[21st century skills] are an ongoing initiative for the college and will provide students with the foundation to contribute to the sustainability of society, the economy and the environment through active engagement in the wider community. These [skills] will also allow students to recognize problems and apply systematic methods or processes to solve problems, create improvements and construct meaning by listening, writing, speaking and reading effectively, using a variety of media and technological tools. Finally, these [skills] will direct students to use existing and emerging sources of information to gain knowledge, to communicate and distribute information, to recognize and take responsibility for their own learning and development and to develop an awareness of their role in society and corresponding effect. They will be life-long learners able to adjust to a changing world; this skill is critical to their continued success throughout their lives.”
(Leadership and Transformation, 2013, p. 16) |
GOALS OF THE 21ST CENTURY SKILLS PROJECT
- Programs will have evidence that 21st century skills are integrated throughout their curriculum.
- Instructors will further integrate 21st century skills in their course outcomes, instructional methods, and assessments.
- Students will develop 21st century skills through formal and informal learning experiences at Lethbridge College and will have documentation that articulates their development of these skills.
- Students will graduate with both discipline-specific skills and 21st century skills, attributes, and attitudes necessary to be successful throughout their careers.
- The college will use 21st century skills as a recruitment/marketing tool.
WHERE WE’VE COME FROM
The Lethbridge College Business Plan 2009–2013: Excellence and Innovation Read states: “Our primary mission is to support our learners in preparing them for career and life success. Learners will be prepared to learn, evolve, and grow through the creation of learning environments focused on excellence, innovation, applied learning, social, and environmental responsibility. The College is further committed to providing learning pathways to position the learner for lifelong learning.”
The college’s previous mission statement, “Creating Futures”, was a mission concept that recognized that students were faced with rapid technological and environmental changes, as well as a growing world population embedded in a global economy with increasing amounts of information. The “Creating Futures” pathway was intentionally planned so that Lethbridge College programs could deliver and provide learning opportunities to students, who would graduate into the 21st century with skills, knowledge, and attitudes that would allow them to be successful in their future, and more importantly in their careers. The previous College Wide Outcome statement included the following: employability skills; technology; entrepreneurship; internationalization. The development of the New College Wide Outcomes (CWO) began with focus groups, which were carried out in 2009/2010 with advisory committees and Lethbridge College faculty and students. |
At the time, the guiding question was posed: “What knowledge, skills and attitudes do you see as essential for a graduate at Lethbridge College to have to succeed in their career and life?” The responses were organized into themes, and Academic Council approved them in February 2011.
College Wide Outcomes, now called 21st century skills, are skills that all graduates of Lethbridge College share. To document the college’s starting point, we started an audit of the programs’ integration of 21st century skills. It became evident in late 2012 that chairs and instructors weren’t seeing the value in the documentation process. In response, we changed the approach to make it more future focused and integrated into teaching and learning initiatives at the college. This white paper is the first step in communicating what has been done on the project and its future focus.
College Wide Outcomes, now called 21st century skills, are skills that all graduates of Lethbridge College share. To document the college’s starting point, we started an audit of the programs’ integration of 21st century skills. It became evident in late 2012 that chairs and instructors weren’t seeing the value in the documentation process. In response, we changed the approach to make it more future focused and integrated into teaching and learning initiatives at the college. This white paper is the first step in communicating what has been done on the project and its future focus.
WHERE WE ARE“At this point, we are working on establishing 21st century skills into Lethbridge College’s academia. This process is guided by our Comprehensive Institutional Plan (CIP). The CIP, which describes our plan for the next 3 years, is strongly grounded in our vision of leading and transforming education in Alberta. It outlines how we plan to lead in initiatives related to programming, activities, research and international students. 21st century skills is one of these initiatives."
In 2015/16, we will gather and consider more stakeholder feedback during a review of the current 21st century skills. There’s potential for a revision if feedback warrants it. |
Stuart Cullum, Vice President Academic of Lethbridge College.
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STAKEHOLDER’S FEEDBACK (WINTER 2014)
When you’re in the workforce, one of the things you are going to face is changing ways of doing things, so you have to be open and willing to learn new things. One of the things we do here is to prepare students to learn how to learn!
Nancy Russel Manager of Student Engagement/Retention |
What we need to do with students here to get them ready for [the 21st century] is a whole mixture of things, but the most important of them all is critical thinking, the ability to think outside the box and problem solve when they are in those challenging situations.
Kris Hodgson Instructor - Communications |
We really need to encourage that collaboration. The workplace of the future is a place where people are going to have to be creative. They’re going to have to create opportunities and take advantage of opportunities.
Corene Cozey Reference Services Librarian |
You should be able to obtain [21st century skills] in virtually any program and transfer them to virtually any career path that you may take.
Marty Thomsen Dean - Justice and Human Services |
When a student graduates and looks for employment, employers are looking for students with many skills. Yes, you need the credentials, the diploma, degree or certificate, but what can you do and what have you done? And give us examples of that.
Shelley Carter-Rose Director - Student Services |
Teaching students to become life-long learners and skills that will enable them to take learning on themselves when they leave the college is the most important thing we can teach them.
Karl Rejman Instructor - General Studies |
Paula Burns, CEO and President of Lethbridge College.
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WHERE WE WANT TO GO"The integration of 21st century skills is strongly rooted in Lethbridge College’s vision and mission. Our vision is to inspire and facilitate learning and innovation to achieve economic and social needs, and our mission is leading and transformation education in Alberta. Full integration of 21st century skills through academic transformation commits us to providing opportunity for all students to achieve the essential fundamental skills for success as individuals and as part of a community or organization.”
The next steps include creating awareness and consensus, aligning the Lethbridge College system, building professional capacity and supporting instructors, focusing curriculum and assessment, improving and innovating, and documenting student awareness and achievement. |
SUMMARY
The process of integrating 21st century skills at the college, program, and course levels is a critical component of academic transformation at Lethbridge College. The next steps include collaborating with stakeholders to refine the 21st century skills and creating an implementation plan. The goal is to have the 21st century skills implementation integrated into current teaching and learning initiatives at the college.
One such integrated project is the 21st Century Learning Environments project. It merges work on tablets and mobile learning, active learning classrooms, and curriculum mapping with 21st century skills. “All the initiatives are designed to optimize learning environments, reduce barriers to innovate practice, increase awareness, and generate dialogue across the college community. In addition, they will expand research capacity in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) and offer professional learning opportunities that focus on leveraging space, technology, and curriculum to support students’ development of 21st century skills.” (Leadership and Transformation, 2014, p. 43).
Implementation of these projects will continue along with further support and development of faculty and students, curriculum alignment and assessment, and improvement and innovation in the field. All steps taken will help achieve Lethbridge College’s vision of leading and transforming education in Alberta.
One such integrated project is the 21st Century Learning Environments project. It merges work on tablets and mobile learning, active learning classrooms, and curriculum mapping with 21st century skills. “All the initiatives are designed to optimize learning environments, reduce barriers to innovate practice, increase awareness, and generate dialogue across the college community. In addition, they will expand research capacity in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) and offer professional learning opportunities that focus on leveraging space, technology, and curriculum to support students’ development of 21st century skills.” (Leadership and Transformation, 2014, p. 43).
Implementation of these projects will continue along with further support and development of faculty and students, curriculum alignment and assessment, and improvement and innovation in the field. All steps taken will help achieve Lethbridge College’s vision of leading and transforming education in Alberta.
References
- Leadership and Transformation. (2013). Lethbridge College Comprehensive Institutional Plan 2013–2016. Retrieved from http://lethbridgecollege.ca/sites/default/files/imce/about-us/goals-plans/lc-cip-13-16-lowres_0.pdf
- Leadership and Transformation. (2014). Lethbridge College Comprehensive Institutional Plan 2014–2017. Retrieved from http://lethbridgecollege.ca/sites/default/files/imce/about-us/goals-plans/CIP_14_web.pdf .