Writing equips us with communication and thinking skills. Writing expresses who we are as people. Writing makes our thinking and learning visible and permanent. Writing fosters our ability to explain and refine our ideas to others and ourselves.

Active Listening is the ability to show the speaker that you are listening for the purpose of understanding through verbal and nonverbal messages.  

The Big 6 Active Listening Skills listed by the Center for Creative Leadership, Leading Effectively in the article, “Use Active Listening Skills to Coach Others” are:

Paying attention, Withholding judgment, Reflecting, Clarifying, Summarizing, and Sharing.

Taking initiative is integral to excelling in both the classroom and a career. This characteristic is the ability to own our future and the decision-making skills necessary to reach goals.

Institute of Museum and Library Services, “Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills”)

*Manage Goals and Time:

Set goals with tangible and intangible success criteria;

Balance tactical (short-term) and strategic (long-term) goals;

Utilize time and manage workload efficiently

*Work Independently:

Monitor, define, prioritize, and complete tasks without direct oversight

*Be Self-Directed Learners:

Go beyond basic mastery of skills and/or curriculum to explore and expand one’s own learning and opportunities to gain expertise;

Demonstrate initiative to advance skill levels towards a professional level;

Demonstrate commitment to learning as a lifelong process;

Reflect critically on past experiences to inform future progress

Social studies is the ideal staging ground for taking informed action because it uniquely prepares students for civic life. In social studies, students use disciplinary knowledge, skills, and perspectives to inquire about problems involved in public issues; deliberate with others about defining and addressing issues; take constructive, independent, and collaborative action; reflect on their actions; and create and sustain groups. It is important to note that taking informed action intentionally comes at the end of Dimension 4, as student action should be grounded in and informed by the inquiries initiated and sustained within and among the disciplines. In that way, action is then a purposeful, informed, and reflective experience. (College, Career and Civic Life C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards). 

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. Its exemplary form is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.

~Michael Scriven & Richard Paul, presented at the 8th Annual International Conference on Critical Thinking and Education Reform, Summer 1987

Communication is appropriately interacting with others to convey meaning and gain understanding for multiple purposes, settings, and audiences.

In her article “Communication Skills for Workplace Success,” Alison Doyle outlines 10 effective communication skills. 

Listening, Nonverbal Communication, Clarity and Concision, Friendliness, Confidence, Empathy, Open--Mindedness, Respect, Feedback, Picking the right Medium

Confidence is your belief or trust in something. It can be your belief in yourself to carry out your job and your belief in your own abilities. You know your own skills, expertise, and what you're capable of. This quality can help you in various aspects throughout school and your professional career.

The impact of confidence--

It increases work and job performance, Improves your engagement at school and work, creates a Happier mindset, Reduces stress, Helps you solve problems, and Improves your leadership skills.

For more about confidence at work and/or school, check out this article

Research skills encompass several different skill sets that work together to allow individuals to identify and interpret information and come to viable solutions. These skills transfer to the workplace in a variety of ways. According to the Glassdoor Team, in their article “Career Development Tips Research Skills: What They Are and Why They’re Important,” identify the following research skills that are necessary for the workplace that allow individuals and companies to:

Identify problems that are hindering performance or the ability to complete tasks. Come up with viable solutions to those problems. Evaluate resources and the best way to utilize those resources to promote increased efficiency. Come up with new services or products. Identify the needs of a company’s target customer to better meet those needs through products and services. Stay up-to-date with industry trends and market demands. Learn new ways of doing things to adapt and evolve to meet workplace demands.

Collaborative problem-solving is a joint activity where two or more people work together to contribute resources they control to progress through a series of cognitive states that involve collecting and analyzing information and formulating a hypothesis that they jointly set out to test. (Hess, Care, Buder, Sassenber, & Griffin, 2015)

Several collaboration skills are consistently repeated across the research literature to operationalize these three fundamental aspects for instruction and assessment purposes. These include the knowledge, skills, and disposition to:

Plan and make group decisions

Communicate about thinking with the group

Contribute resources, ideas, and efforts and support group members

Monitor, reflect, and adapt individual and group processes to benefit the group

Carla Evans, Center for Assessment, “Instructing & Assessing 21st Century Skills:  A Focus on Collaboration”

Individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in (1) diagnosing their learning needs,(2) formulating learning goals, (3) identifying human and material resources for learning, (4) choosing and implementing appropriate learning strategies and (5) evaluating learning outcomes (Knowles, 1975, p. 18).

There are four dimensions of self-directed learning:

Self-Regulation, Motivation, Personal Responsibility, and Autonomy

Creativity is seeing new opportunities, producing original ideas, adapting to changing situations flexibly, and applying one’s imagination to solve complex problems.

Seven reasons to cultivate creativity  

Creativity drives innovation. 

Creativity drives prosperity. 

Creativity solves “VUCA” problems. You don’t always have a procedure manual for problems, especially those that are volatile, unpredictable, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). 

Creativity tips the scales toward success. 

Creativity increases employee engagement. 

Creativity makes you “future-proof”. 

Creativity promotes well-being and happiness. 

DevelopIntelligence, “Creativity:  A Skill to Cultivate in the 21st Century.”

The skills that develop students while participating in inquiry-based programs like We the People, History Day, and Project Citizen are too numerous to list. Research on each of these programs shows the growth of students while participating…but even more powerful are the anecdotal stories of our alumni who are serving their communities & excelling in college and careers.