About two years into my teaching career, I was introduced to a large bright multicoloured circle, and written in the centre was “21st Century Learner”. The principal held up this poster at a staff meeting and with no explanation of what it was about, told us to pick one up on our way out and put it up in our classrooms. Being relatively new to the school and the profession, I did as I was told, but was too embarrassed to ask what it was about. After about two weeks I figured that if it was supposed to hang in my class as a reminder of something, then I needed to find out what it was.

I remember standing in the department office looking at that annoying circle and deciding to finally asked an experienced teacher what 21st century learning meant. She responded by pointing  to that blasted poster and saying that’s what it is! Well, it took a while for me gain a pretty superficial understanding of the topic.

The skills and competencies of this frame work are designed to help students become ethical citizens and engaged thinkers with entrepreneurial spirit. These include:

• Creativity and Innovation
• Critical Thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making
• Collaboration and Leadership
• Lifelong Learning, Personal Management and Well Being
• Digital and Technological Fluency
• Communication
• Social, Cultural, Global, Environmental Responsibility

I decided a good start in my quest to gain a deeper insight of the topic is to look at Alberta Education’s framework of 21st century learning and go from there. This journey will to allow me to look at each of the skills individually, find practical examples of their use, and reflect on my own professional context.