Ten New Skills

Chance favours the prepared mind.- Louis Pasteur

"The world is changing at a lightning pace, yet schools remain locked in models developed more than half a century ago. Our grandchildren are being exposed to courses, teaching methods, and school schedules that are remarkably similar to what we experienced. We are preparing our children for a world that is long gone." This was the introduction to the Exchange article, "Preparing Our Children Now for the Future: Five Outcomes to Pursue," which is included in Early Childhood Education Trend Report - Revised Edition. This provides a good lead in to an article "10 New Skills That Every Worker Needs," in Rotman Management (Winter 2013). The skills identified in the article:

1. Computational thinking — making sense of all the data at our disposal
2. Design mindset — shaping the impact of our environments
3. Cognitive load management — filtering and focusing to prevent overload
4. New media literacy — using the new tools
5. Transdisciplinarity — multifaceted problems require transdisciplinary solutions
6. Sense making — high-level thinking that can't be performed by machines
7. Social intelligence — assessing emotions and adapting accordingly
8. Novel and adaptive thinking — responding to unique circumstances
9. Cross-cultural competence — operating in diverse environments
10. Virtual collaboration — working effectively at a distance