This set of developmental frameworks was created to facilitate discussion within communities of practice and to enhance a shared understanding of the dynamic nature of four essential skills—collaboration, communication, creativity, and self-direction in learning. The frameworks define components inherent to each skill and describe performance across a beginner to emerging expert progression, informed by research on the development of expertise. Unlike discipline-specific learning progressions and rubrics, the developmental progressions reflect components essential to the skill itself and describe growth dependent on many years of active exploration, experimentation, setbacks, and reflection.
Understanding the nature of expertise and how it develops raises implications for the features of supportive learning environments and the role of educators. The frameworks can be used to consider:
- What each skill looks like within different disciplines;
- Ways to enhance learning opportunities for students; and
- Systems-level avenues to support skill development.
Created by the Center for Innovation in Education and the Educational Policy Improvement Center.
Authors: Sarah Collins Lench, Erin Fukuda, and Ross Anderson.
National Center for Innovation in Education
Essential Skills and Dispositions: Developmental Frameworks for Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, and Self-Direction by National Center for Innovation in Education is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
