commodity for the 21st century is refined thinking skills. In The Future of Jobs Report (World Economic Forum, 2016), interviewers asked chief human resources and strategy officers from leading companies what employment skills they require. Table I.1 (page 2) highlights the changing needs industry experts expect as we transition from 2015 to 2020. Notice the increasing value of the bolded skills.
Table I.1: Top-Ten Skills for Employment
| In 2015 | In 2020 |
| 1. Complex problem solving 2. Coordinating with others 3. People management 4. Critical thinking 5. Negotiation 6. Quality control 7. Service orientation 8. Judgment and decision making 9. Active listening 10. Creativity | 1. Complex problem solving 2. Critical thinking 3. Creativity 4. People management 5. Coordinating with others 6. Emotional intelligence 7. Judgment and decision making 8. Service orientation 9. Negotiation 10. Cognitive flexibility |
Source: World Economic Forum, 2016.
Clearly, skills related to critical thinking are increasing in importance. Similarly, in a Hart Research Associates (2013) survey, 93 percent of employers agreed a job candidate’s “demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems [was] more important than their undergraduate major” (p. 1). Job expectations are changing!
In the Wall Street Journal, reporter Kate Davidson (2016) writes, “Companies have automated or outsourced many routine tasks, and the jobs that remain often require workers to take on broader responsibilities that demand critical thinking, empathy or other abilities that computers can’t easily simulate.” In researching qualities of Google’s top employees, surprisingly, Washington Post education reporter Valerie Strauss (2017) finds the company regards STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) expertise to be less important than six other key identifiers: (1) being a good coach, (2) communicating and listening effectively, (3) valuing different perspectives, (4) demonstrating compassion toward colleagues, (5) exhibiting strong critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, and (6) formulating connections between complicated concepts.
Despite all this, schools are not consistently preparing students for this world. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation (n.d.) states, “Somewhere along the road from education to employment, the system is not routinely equipping all students with all the skills they need to succeed” (p. 2). The skills the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation (n.d.) cites as necessary align very closely with those that business leaders noted in table I.1.
• Teamwork and collaboration
• Problem solving and critical thinking
• Organization
• Interpersonal communication
• Leadership
• Work ethic and persistence
• Creativity
• Relationships and conflict resolution
These findings are not just common to the professional world. In The Role of Education in Building Soft Skills, researchers Alan D. Greenberg and Andrew H. Nilssen (2014) find that when teachers, administrators, parents, and students are asked about what qualities are most important, problem solving caps the list, with 65 percent finding it very important, followed by collaboration (56 percent), persistence (50 percent), creativity (37 percent), academic knowledge (33 percent), and leadership skills (35 percent).
The question that naturally evolves from this is, How do we move from knowing there is a need for cognitive engagement to ensuring our education system can deliver on it?
Policy and Assessment Systems Changes
These demands for student competencies are shaping national and international assessments. The Central Committee of the Communist Party states that education in China must begin to “emphasize sowing students’ creativity and practical abilities over instilling an ability to achieve certain test scores and recite rote knowledge” (Zhao, 2006). The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, n.d.), whose focus is to enhance economic progress and world trade, defines global competence as the ability to evaluate global and culture challenges from many viewpoints through a critical lens and comprehend how perceptions shape differences, so to effectively communicate with others from various backgrounds. The foundation of this global competence resonates on well-developed analytical and critical-thinking skills—interpreting the meaning of information, approaching problems logically, and evaluating the validity and reliability of information. To this end, the organization established the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa), a cognitive assessment program to measure understanding (along with analytical and critical thinking) while engaged in real-world problem solving on international issues.
Similarly, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (https://parcc-assessment.org) and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (www.smartbalanced.org) are designing rigorous assessments to evaluate college and career readiness through critical-thinking tasks measuring analysis skills instead of rote memorization. Stanford professor emerita and president and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute Linda Darling-Hammond (2012) avows:
Performance tasks ask students to research and analyze information, weigh evidence, and solve problems relevant to the real world, allowing students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in an authentic way. The Smarter Balanced assessment system uses performance tasks to measure skills valued by higher education and the workplace—critical thinking, problem solving, and communication—that are not adequately assessed by most statewide assessments today. (p. 2)
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; 2015) also transfers the focus from remembering and recitation to higher-level thinking, as shown in one of the ESSA major areas directed toward access to learning opportunities focused on higher-order-thinking skills. Authors Channa M. Cook-Harvey, Linda Darling-Hammond, Livia Lam, Charmaine Mercer, and Martens Roc (2016) write:
Rather than the rote-oriented education that disadvantaged students have regularly received, which prepares them for the factory jobs of the past, ESSA insists that states redesign education systems to reflect 21st-century learning. The new law establishes a set of expectations for states to design standards and assessments that develop and measure high-order thinking skills for children and provides related resources for professional learning. (p. 1)
The evidence of the need for developing a thinking-based culture in all classrooms is clear. With all this in mind, let’s examine how this book will help you build critical-thinking skills in your students and what it will take to make a thinking culture an everyday part of your classroom.
About This Book
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