Individuals of today are required to renew themselves constantly to be able to adapt themselves to the developing and changing world. Everyone needs the skills called ‘The 21st Century Competences’. The fact that children develop these competences in their early ages will make a great contribution to them in their social and business lives in the future. In March – April 2021, we carried out the program ‘The 21st Century Competences’ from this point of view in cooperation with Bilim Virüsü and Norm.
The children aged 10-13 who participated in the program upskilled themselves in terms of ‘Creativity and Innovation’, ‘Access to Information’, ‘Ability to Analyze and Synthesize’, ’Attention, Focus Skills’ and ‘Analytical Thinking’ as the children aged between 14-17 gained the competences of ‘Inquiry and Curiosity’, ‘Lifelong learning’, ‘Self–direction and personal management’. With the Creativity and Innovation training, they discovered their own world of creativity and gained the ability to think innovatively. Thanks to the opportunities offered by developing technology, we can access scientific information everywhere. But how to use this information also requires special training.
The children participating in the program developed their ability to interpret, analyze and synthesize information by being trained on ‘Access to Information’, ‘Ability to Analyze and Synthesize’. In this event, the participating children were trained on “Attention, Focus Skills’ and “Analytical Thinking Competences’. They were provided with the information and skills they would need to focus their attention on one point and stayed focused for a long time and were taught applicable techniques. Abilities of analytical thinking and problem solving were conveyed by use of awareness and meditation techniques. As the participants learned fundamental competences with the ‘Questioning and Curiosity’ training, they also were informed about how to deepen their interests with questioning techniques.
93 children who participated in the program, which continued online for two months, received the training sessions of lifelong learning, self-direction and personal management. Thus, they learned to be lifelong learners and gained insight of the importance of gaining self-awareness. They were introduced to the competences in the field of how they would convert the information via technology into learning.