Helping schools teach and assess essential skills with confidence

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) has released the 2 new frameworks in its latest contribution to fostering 21st century skills.  

The release coincides with a global interest in social-emotional learning, ensuring the frameworks – that highlight the skilful elements that can be taught and assessed – will be a timely and beneficial resource for educators and systems.   

The addition brings to 5 the number of essential skills frameworks developed by ACER, which now cover: 

• critical thinking
• creative thinking 
• collaboration 
• communication 
• self-regulation.  

These skills were identified by ACER – through work with more than 30 countries – as having a high impact on learning, a strong presence across policy globally, and the ability to be taught and measured across different learning contexts. 

While these skills are widely acknowledged as essential, ACER’s frameworks are unique in providing practical examples of student thinking and behaviour that reflect different levels of skill development.   

Based on evidence and classroom observation, the frameworks are designed to make it easier to teach for learning growth, improve that growth and monitor it effectively to sustain achievement. 

Lead author Dr Claire Scoular says she is excited to introduce the new frameworks and hopes they will be as popular and useful to educators as the previous 3, which, collectively, have been downloaded more than 29,380 times. 

Narrowing the focus for more effective teaching 

‘Over the last few years, the “21st century skills” agenda has expanded outward to the point of including almost anything that isn’t academic content,’ Dr Scoular says.  

‘It isn’t manageable for educators to embed so much into their practice, so these frameworks narrow the focus to the essential skills that have a high impact on student learning and life.’ 

The frameworks break down the skills into manageable ‘bite-sized’ aspects that can be easily embedded into existing learning content. They also provide consistent terminology in relation to skills within and across learning areas, schools, and systems, and progressive reference points, to help sustain the approach. 

Classroom-ready  

The skills and related aspects are presented in a relatable way for the classroom, reflecting observable behaviours expected of students at different levels of proficiency in each skill.  

‘This means educators can make connections between what they observe students doing and saying, and identify how this reflects their skill ability,’ Dr Scoular says.  

‘We can observe how students are currently performing in relation to their skill development, but also use our skill progressions to identify what we need to do next to move students to the next level of proficiency.’ 

What the new communications framework offers 

Being able to communicate well is important to learning, improving relationships, participating in social and community life and having an influence. 

Communication skills are also highly sought after in the workforce, Dr Scoular notes, pointing to a global survey that found communication to be the single most important skill, both to employers and in each global region. 

Learning is facilitated by a capacity to accurately articulate ideas, form explanations, ask pertinent questions, listen to instructions and respond appropriately, she says. 

‘These are the key components of communication and learners who are unable to demonstrate these skills in class often see negative impacts on their academic output as a result, and find it difficult to request the appropriate help they require from their educators.’  

The communication framework looks at the way young people consider context and delivery of their communication, convey what they want to say or write, and digest others’ communication to clarify their understanding. 

What the new self-regulation framework offers 

In education, self-regulation is said to involve students taking responsibility for learning by continuously ‘planning, monitoring and evaluating’ their cognitive, behavioural and emotional responses. 

The framework looks at the way students think, including appraising tasks, reflecting and setting goals.  It also considers behaviour – including managing resources, monitoring progress and seeking help – as well as emotions, including self-motivation and restraint. 

‘A key goal for education systems is to produce world-ready citizens, and developing self-regulation in learners equips them with key skills that are necessary to navigate this world, including the ability to manage distractions, attend to important information, and persevere on tasks despite competing interests,’ Dr Scoular says. 

‘Developing student agency, seeking appropriate help, and making sure emotions are appropriate within context are also key aspects of self-regulation. These aspects support our overall wellbeing and are critical for regulating learning related stress and anxiety, such as navigating exams.’ 

What’s next?  

Teachers will soon be able to access a revised problem-based learning assessment with 5 tasks measuring each of the essential skills.  Modules covering humanities and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) will be available for years 6 to 10.

Download the research and frameworks 

Essential skills for learning by Claire Scoular

Collaboration: Skill Development Framework. 2nd edition by Claire Scoular, Daniel Duckworth, Jonathan Heard and Dara Ramalingam

Communication: Skill development framework by Claire Scoular, Jonathan Heard, and Adam Wardell

Creative Thinking: Skill Development Framework. 2nd edition by Jonathan Heard, Dara Ramalingam, Claire Scoular, Prue Anderson and Daniel Duckworth

Critical Thinking: Skill Development Framework. 2nd edition by Jonathan Heard, Claire Scoular, Daniel Duckworth, Dara Ramalingam and Ian Teo

Self-regulation: Skill development framework by Claire Scoular, Ian Teo, Jonathan Heard, and Adam Wardell

All frameworks can be accessed from this page: Teaching and assessing essential skills - ACER

Learn more  

This 2021 report gives an overview of an online course delivered to 16 Asia Pacific countries to support systems to build an aligned and sustainable approach to integrating 21st century skills.  

Developing strategic plans for an aligned approach to 21st century skills integration