Defining a 21st century education: Case study of development and growth course

Abstract

In the last few years there are huge discussions regarding "21st Century Skills" but often it is difficult to identify the ways of which these skills can be improved. There are some ambiguous questions related to the preparation of the students for the new century, such as: the level of course difficulty, the teaching methods, the course objective and achievement of these objectives, the learning outcomes and the contribution to adopt in life and work in the 21st century. This paper covers all these problems and gives some practical solution basing on a concrete course such as the Development and Growth course, since this course is composed by both economic theories and concrete results in the social framework. One of the most important aims of this course is to teach students to think critically, being at the same time one of the main skills in 21st century, in analyzing materials explained in the class, evidences for a large gamma of countries and drawing attention to the changes in the social cellules.