Durable Skills
Durable Skills:
The rapid evolution of AI highlights the importance of K-12 students developing critical thinking and reasoning, communication, collaboration skills. These durable skills are not automatable, and will remain relevant as careers, technology and eras change.
Wendy Hedeen
Teacher, English and Computer Science, Northside Christian School, FL
“This generation is going to have to become detectives.They're going to have to become truth seekers. Any app on a phone can create things that never occurred. And so I think we really have to teach them how to look for the truth of things. What kind of sources can they use to help find out, ‘Is this true? Is this real?”
Jean-Claude Brizard
CEO, Digital Promise
“Looking at what teaching [and] learning ought to be in the age of AI, or in the age of human intelligence, there are four [things] that we've identified: agency, purpose, curiosity, connection. With agency, we're talking about action through choice and voice. With purpose, we're talking about authentic and meaningful contributions. Curiosity talks about exploring new ideas so our learners better understand the world. And connection leans on collaboration across differences, connection with people, ideas, and cultures.”
Jessica Lamm
Math and STEAM Department Head
“It's not so much about memorizing or knowing facts or skills. It's - what can we do with them? How do you create with them? And that's where, as teachers, we're going to have to change. Like we're not necessarily going to be teaching them content anymore.”
Jaime (Jennifer) Ervin
Special Education Teacher, Wyoming Connections Academy, WY
“It's all about research. I believe research skills are so critical. Through what lens am I looking at this information? Where did it come from? How credible is it? Is it reliable?”
Kaya Henderson
Executive Vice President and Executive Director, Center for Rising Generations at the Aspen Institute
“We talk about critical thinking being an important skill for young people to have. It's going to be even more important now, because you've got to be able to analyze and discern whether the things that you're seeing before your eyes are really real, and you need to have skills to know how to figure out how to do that. You can use the tool to summarize things, but the winners are going to be the people who can actually go and read the whole book and come up with some things that Chat GPT didn't.”
David Coleman
CEO, College Board
“We talk a lot about durable skills like teamwork and leadership but one that can really help you build a good life for yourself is if you can sell. I think a lot of kids who are otherwise disconnected from high school could get really excited about that, and I think AI offers amazing opportunities to make that come alive in classroom learning.”
Timothy Knowles
President, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
“In a world when the economy and technologies are changing at warp speed, skills like critical thinking, communication, and collaboration will matter more than ever. They are literally the skills that machines can't replace. Lots of indicators connect directly to the development of [these] skills, ranging from health indicators to participation in democracy [and] voting indicators, but more palpable for the individual – also success in the workplace and success in post-secondary school.”