Book Review: 21st Century Skills - Learning for Life in Our Times

21st Century Skills (ISBN 978-0-470-47538-6) was published in 2009 by Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, California, United States. The book has a total of 206+xxxi pages. The authors of the book are Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel. Bernie Trilling is founder and CEO of 21st Century Learning Advisors, and the former global director of the Oracle Education Foundation. He has worked on various pioneering educational products and services and he is an active member of a number of organizations dedicated to bringing 21st century learning methods to students and teachers around the world. Charles Fadel is founder and chairman of the Center for Curriculum Redesign and the Fondation Helvetica Education, and the former Global Education Lead at Cisco Systems. He has engaged with a wide variety of education ministries or boards and has worked on education projects in more than thirty countries. The book aims to provide insight into education in the 21st century. It offers practical advice and comprehensive information on 21st century skills, and collection of skills, knowledge, and attitudes required in this age for educators, policymakers, school administrators, parents, and students. The idea behind the book is that there have been so many drastic transformations in the last few decades and the shifts in how skills like critical thinking and problem solving are learned and practiced in everyday life have been inevitable. The book comes with a video DVD aimed at helping readers illustrate and support the main themes in it. The video DVD contains authentic examples of classrooms and educational programs selected to highlight how teachers and students can tackle real-world problems, learn content knowledge, and build proficiency of 21st century skills.