Bridging the gap between 20th century teachers and 21st century students Premium

Life skills are as important as academics, but are teachers equipped to impart them?

The traditional chalk-and-talk method of teaching not gel with the way students think and learn today. | Photo Credit: Freepik

The pandemic showed us that there is much more to work success than just good academics. Professionals who were able to stay engaged with their colleagues and teams and excel despite working remotely were those who had good life skills (also known as soft skills).

The term ‘Life Skills’ includes an array of qualities and abilities such as critical thinking, problem-solving, adaptability, creative thinking, communication skills and more. While there is no debate that students should be exposed to critical life skills such as leadership, innovation, decision-making, self-awareness, empathy, and emotional intelligence, most are not included in the curricula or not taught satisfactorily. Today, technological skills — such as knowledge of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Internet of Things, Data Science and Cybersecurity — have also joined the essential skills club.

While most higher education institutions want to teach these modern skills, they are not able to do so successfully mainly because the faculty doesn’t have the right training to teach them. This means that students are either left to their own devices, literally and figuratively, or don’t learn them at all.

Teach the teacher

A lot has changed in the classroom: from blackboards to digital boards, from offline to online mode of learning and so on. The gap between students’ needs and educators’ skills has also widened. How can we expect students to be ready for 21st-century careers when they are not being taught 21st-century skills?

How will this change? When teachers know how to teach these 21st-century skills. How will teachers learn? By undergoing the necessary training at regular intervals. Our educators need to be trained and upskilled sufficiently and regularly in both domain-specific knowledge, abilities and skills (KSA) as well as in new teaching methodologies. Not all of yesterday’s subjects are relevant to today’s students. Similarly, yesterday’s teaching methods, strategies and techniques will not be as effective with today’s students because the way students receive, assimilate and process information has changed. Students’ attention spans, cognitive processes, and intrinsic motivations have also changed. The traditional chalk-and-talk methods of teaching and assessment system that encourages students to memorise and regurgitate do not gel with the way students think and learn or with the new tech domain areas and soft skills that require more real-time and real-life teaching and learning processes.

When educators are upskilled, the benefits are many. Higher engagement with students leads to greater interest and higher intrinsic motivation to learn, which leads to better learning outcomes. Thus, it is clear that, more than ever before, our higher-ed institutions must focus on upskilling their teachers. 

The writer is the co-founder of Learning Matters, an ed-tech start-up based in Bengaluru.