The world keeps turning and time waits for none. To stay integrated and competitive in the future, learners must be equipped with a skill set that is time relevant — and teachers have a role to play in it. Therefore, to explore the teaching of 21st-century skills, the Erasmus Plus: KA2 – Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practice – Strategic Partnerships for School Education has compiled the Handbook of Methodology and Tools. The handbook features several intermission works by the participating teachers that have been organized as case studies categorized by the 6 C’s: Creativity, Collaboration, Citizenship, Character, Communication, and Critical Thinking. Some of the case studies address more than one C and will thus be categorized under all the relevant C’s. The case studies are intended to serve as an inspiration to teachers all over the world; They will need to be adapted to the relevant subject, age group, and national context.
+ Plastic Waste in the Ocean (Citizenship, Creativity, Collaboration)
Plastic waste in the ocean is a significant global environmental challenge. To raise both awareness of this problem and empathy for all the creatures in the oceans, the learners explored the global problem of plastic waste in the ocean, brainstormed ways to communicate and depict it in art, and proposed possible solutions to such a complicated global issue as a global citizen with global responsibility. The learners collected plastic waste and turned it into an art exhibition.
>> https://www.21cskills21cneeds.com/case-studies/uols47i2lxk73r6bmsml12jnjy8ujg
+ Mindsets (Character, Critical thinking, Citizenship)
Mindset influences the way one perceives and navigates the world — with fixed or growth mindsets, and this case study sees its goal in turning the former into the latter. The learners discussed how abilities, skills, and personal traits can be developed to better understand themselves and others and accept differences, and reflected on how they learn to re-learn to learn, how they are influenced by others and media, and how they can set personal boundaries.
>> https://www.21cskills21cneeds.com/case-studies/auvbmy5tf5newm266e4kf320qlgs8o
+ Communicating Through Music (Communication)
Music is a form of communication that musicians use to convey messages and emotions as much to audiences as among themselves. The learners learned and practiced playing “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” on the guitar, gradually adding other instruments as they got better at playing the song, listened to one another and tried to create a form of musical interaction, and presented their work and message to the audiences, all this with the focus being placed on communication between the learners in the learning process to make them more aware of their roles in the group.
+ Advertising Philosophy/Arts (Citizenship, Creativity, Critical thinking, Communication, Collaboration, Character)
The learners had the option of creating an advertisement for an airline of Philosophy or an airline of Art as a means of “learning to learn” how to think globally as well as to foster empathy and interest in finding solutions to global problems. The learners brainstormed ideas, shared knowledge, came up with relevant and exploratory questions, imagined and considered solutions, explored means of communication to better communicate with others, and then reflected upon ideas and praxises in real life.
>> https://www.21cskills21cneeds.com/case-studies/2xshv0wuv5o9s2qlyloraz8sh942nk
+ Future Classroom (Citizenship, Creativity, Critical thinking, Communication, Collaboration, Character)
This case study challenges the learners to come up with new ideas and innovative ways of thinking by working on a hypothetical future classroom. The learners worked in groups to brainstorm possible ideas for a “future classroom” that would address the problems the conventional classroom was having, as well as how to translate ideas into models and create and present the most potent model in a different language, thus allowing doing class twinning on the assignment.
>> https://www.21cskills21cneeds.com/case-studies/ifichbz2pq80wgs85bcuo5244xv8m4
