Dive Brief:
- Infusing the development of AV and media skills into curriculum can bolster students growth in the "Four Cs" — critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity — promoted as imperative by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning, eSchool News reports.
- Some ways that schools can do this include the use of group presentations, report building, cross-curricular projects, virtual meetings and video development.
- All examples use the "Four Cs" in a variety of ways, such as thinking critically and creatively about content and the intended audience, considering the best ways to communicate ideas, using teamwork and delegating the roles played by each student working on the project.
Dive Insight:
Soft skills like the "Four Cs" are among those in the highest demand by employers, and finding ways to impart them along with some useful technical skills is a win-win. In many modern office settings, the AV and media skills promoted here, for example, can be of particular benefit when it comes to crafting proposals and presentations for a variety of meetings.
While a straight focus on STEM has been criticized for overlooking the value of many soft skills, the increasingly popular STEAM approach (with the added "A" for the arts) can help reframe lessons to include creativity, critical thinking, design, teamwork and more via project-based learning. That approach, of course, can also be further optimized when educators give them a test run with their peers to identify any particularly problematic areas.
