Soft Skills

Though she and her students have dealt with various challenges during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lindsay has found some creative ways to keep them engaged and developing STEM skills. After starting a student podcast last year and adapting it to the current situation, it ended up being a super valuable piece of the learning her students continue to

Jil is committed to providing students with the resources and opportunities they would have access to in a traditional educational setting. She’s chosen to go about facilitating opportunities through the implementation of robotics tools. Jil sees this opportunity as a game changer for her students as she helps them discover hidden talents.

Though the ways in which students submit assignments might constantly be changing, they’re likely still responsible for creating essays, writing reports, or authoring other original content for any one of their classes. For this week’s blog, we explored ProWritingAid, an online writing and grammar resource students can use to enhance their writing.

In what’s rapidly becoming an unprecedented time for those in the education world (as well as other industries that notably include technology and professional sports), the dangerously quick spread of news is something all of us—educators included—have to be weary of and soft skills can play a role for teachers, administrators, and students.

We often preach about the importance of learning coding for students’ futures. As a skill, it might just be the most valuable ability they can possess as they move forward and, on the flip side, they could fall behind peers if they are not literate in coding. What we don’t always talk about, however, are the other benefits of learning

Wouldn’t it be nice if students got everything they needed to know perfect every single time? Things would run so much more smoothly and everyone would be happier. Right? Wrong. Yes, failure is an absolutely critical part of student learning especially in many of today’s hands-on, STEM-focused atmosphere and making mistakes helps students grow.

As educators, we strive to provide our students with the best foundation for success. But, more importantly, we seek to impart skills that students can tap into throughout their academic and professional careers. The days of rote memorization are long gone. Now, students must learn how to ask the hard questions, solve difficult problems, and be creative.

So much of 21st century education often involves getting your students to unleash the creativity they did not even know they had. The challenge is getting them to access it on a daily basis. The solution might be to have them collaborate—daily, nightly, or pretty much whenever possible. Two heads are better than one and collaboration is a crucial 21st

If students and teachers are not developing intellectually every single day, how are they going to succeed in today’s hands-on, project-based world? The importance of the constant presence of growth mindset in education is more important now than perhaps it ever has been—whether students realize it or not—and that’s why it’s our focus topic for this week’s post.

In this edition of “Map of Skills,” Andy Larmand, a blogger at Boston Sports Then & Now, describes the process of writing a post about Boston Bruins statistics for thousands of readers. These processes require patience, knowledge of the game, attention to detail, efficiency and, oftentimes, quick decision making. Keep reading to learn more.