ABSTRACT
This booklet includes a major emphasis on key 21st century skills (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, n.d.) in overall orientation as well as in activities and assessments employed in the examples. Several of these skill sets overlap with the differentiation emphases discussed below in relation to the gifted standards. The skills receiving major emphases include:
Collaboration: Students are encouraged to work in dyads and small groups of four to carry out many activities and projects, to pose and solve problems, and to plan presentations.
Communication: Students are encouraged to develop communication skills in written, oral, visual, and technological modes in a balanced format within each unit of study.
Critical thinking: Students are provided with models of critical thought that are incorporated into classroom activities, questions, and assignments.
Creative thinking: Students are provided with models of creative thinking that develop skills that support innovative thinking and problem posing and solving.
6 Problem solving: Students are engaged in real-world problem solving in each unit of study and learn the processes involved in such work.
Technology literacy: Students use technology in multiple forms and formats as a tool in solving problems and to create generative products.
Information media literacy: Students use multimedia to express ideas, research results, explore real-world problems, and evaluate information presented in media (graphs and diagrams) for mathematical accuracy.
Social skills: Students work in small groups and develop the tools of collaborating, communicating, and working effectively with others on a common set of tasks.
