"Staying on top of soft skills such as critical thinking and time management while maintaining expertise in hard skills such as widely-used software programs provides candidates and employees with a necessary edge, " says Christian Idiodi, director of CBInstitute.com, a division of CareerBuilder.com that offers online courses and certifications.

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And even if those educated in the sciences pursue employment in other areas, learning the scientific method in an accessible manner helps to cultivate critical thinking skills that are useful as a consumer and citizen.

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All of this boosts self-confidence as students gain critical thinking and creative skills.

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The competition allows young people in schools and youth organizations to build critical thinking skills about heritage conservation in their own country as well as to transmit their message to their peers around the world.

UNESCO: MEDIA SERVICES

Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa in their great book Academically Adrift have taken data from a respectable indicator of critical thinking and problem solving skills, the Collegiate Learning Assessment, as well as the National Survey of Student Engagement and have concluded, roughly, that typically students neither work very hard nor learn very much.

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The current discussion about 21st century skills leads classrooms and other learning environments to encourage the development of core subject knowledge as well as new media literacies, critical and systems thinking, interpersonal and self-directional skills.

UNESCO: EDUCATION