Category Archives: 21st century skills

In an opinion piece for Forbes Csaba Toth, Founder of ICQ Global, comments on the recent “buzz” on LinkedIn about personality tests being pointless, biased and bad for diversity, equity and inclusion. Toth says that personality tests should not be used for performance evaluation or recruitment as they measure preferences and not skills. So the …

“Are personality tests “bad” for DEI? An interesting article for Forbes by Csaba Toth, Founder of ICQ Global “

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Why are women still underrepresented in many high-profile fields like finance and STEM? The reasons behind this are complex and may include gaps in education, lingering gender stereotypes, lack of role models, and concerns over work-life balance. Findings from a recent study titled “Decoding bias: …

“Recent research shows that the language used in job postings may be holding women back from work”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village “Edutopia Online” is produced by the George Lucas Education Foundation (GLEF), a nonprofit organization that documents and disseminates stories about best practices in K-12 public education. Edutopia has reviewed hundreds of educational studies carried out in 2020 and singled out 10 to be the most …

“Edutopia’s review of top 10 education studies in 2020 covers topics from virtual learning and racial bias in grading to impact of air pollution”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village   Researchers and practitioners in the “Social and Emotional Learning” (SEL) field refer to intrapersonal and interpersonal characteristics as “social and emotional skills” (SE skills), while those in the personality psychology field refer to these as “personality traits.” These terms are often used interchangeably by …

“Are “social and emotional skills” and “personality traits” completely distinct, distinct yet similar, or one and the same?”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, turned 20 on January 15. With its 55 milion articles in 300 languages it is the 13th most visited page on the web. Wikipedia entries are generally in the forefront of preliminary web research on almost any topic. The very feature …

“Wikipedia’s 20th anniversary revives debate about its reliability and the need for critical thinking skills in students”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village “Planet Word”, opening up in Washington DC on October 22, 2020, will be an interactive center dedicated to language arts. Its mission is to inspire a love of words and language and the project is grounded in the belief that language and literacy are the …

““Planet Word”, an interactive museum dedicated to language, opening up soon in Washington DC”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village A group of major names in UK entertainment, politics and technology has launched a campaign called “Turn On The Subtitles” calling on broadcasters and technology companies to include same language subtitles in all programming. If English-language subtitles were to be run along the bottom of the …

“Same language subtitling in programming could improve reading literacy in children, claims UK campaign “Turn On The Subtitles””

Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The debate on whether skills training could emerge as a viable and scalable future alternative to college is long standing and heated. There appears to be, however, a mounting consensus that colleges and universities have not come close to keeping up with the skills demanded by …

“Opportunity@Work and Accenture call on employers to tap into the hidden pool of talent of “Skilled Through Alternative Routes” (STAR) workers”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Over 11.000 students aged 13 to 19 took part in Cambridge International’s first ever “Global Perspectives” survey. The results, announced on March 2, reveal that students are keener than ever before to learn about global issues like climate change in school, but almost a third …

“Cambridge Assessment International’s new survey reveals that students want to learn more about climate change in school”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The 2018 “Digital Education Action Plan” is the last in a long series of initiatives taken by the EU in the field of digital education. It warns of the persistent divide between and within EU Member States, in particular regarding digital infrastructure and skills, all …

“The EU’s “Digital Education Action Plan” is currently being updated to address the growing global skills challenge”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village UNICEF released today the results of an online poll it conducted in February 2020 on 40.000 young people in over 150 countries. The poll revealed the major limitations of current education sytems in preparing young people for the skills needed for future work. Almost a …

“UNICEF teams up with PricewaterhouseCoopers to help equip young people around the world with the skills they need to get jobs”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Much has been said and written about the so called “21st century skills” but there is no real consensus on what is meant by this term and how these skills are included, if at all, in countries’ curricula. A new study by the IEA (International …

“New IEA study on schoolchidren will map how 21st century skills are defined and integrated in curricula across the world”