The routine jobs of yesterday are being replaced by technology and/or shipped off-shore. In their place, job categories that require knowledge management, abstract reasoning, and personal services seem to be growing. The modern workplace requires workers to have broad cognitive and affective skills. Often referred to as '21st century skills', these skills include being able to solve complex problems, to think critically about tasks, to effectively communicate with people from a variety of different cultures and, using a variety of different techniques, to work in collaboration with others, to
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The routine jobs of yesterday are being replaced by technology and/or shipped off-shore. In their place, job categories that require knowledge management, abstract reasoning, and personal services seem to be growing. The modern workplace requires workers to have broad cognitive and affective skills. Often referred to as '21st century skills', these skills include being able to solve complex problems, to think critically about tasks, to effectively communicate with people from a variety of different cultures and, using a variety of different techniques, to work in collaboration with others, to adapt to rapidly changing environments and conditions for performing tasks, to effectively manage one's work, and to acquire new skills and information on one's own. This workshop was intended to delve more deeply into the topic of assessment. The goal for this workshop was to capitalise on prior efforts and explore strategies for assessing the skills identified earlier. It was intended to review the assessments and related research for each of the skills with special attention to recent developments in technology-enabled assessment of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The workshop was held in two parts. The first, convened in Irvine, California in January 2011, was more technical in focus. The second, held in Washington DC in May 2011, was more policy focused. This report provides an integrated summary of the presentations and discussions from both parts of the workshop.
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