How teachers can evaluate “soft skills” when carrying out projects

As teachers, we provide feedback to students as to how we evaluate their soft skills or competencies such as creativity, team-work or autonomy. Here is a simple and effective method to carry this out.

The term 21st century skills refer to the “soft-skills” (though Seth Godin has called to stop calling them soft, as they are “hard” to acquire), such as critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity, that schools should teach students to later thrive and succeed in today’s world. Another frequently used term is the 4Cs of education. These core competencies are the backbone of any education. This is essentially what we are teaching in subjects such as mathematics, languages, PE and art — how to analyse information, how to solve problems, how to collaborate with peers, creativity, etc...

Whilst this article will not go into HOW to teach these skills, I will delve into suggestions and methods of how to evaluate these skills, defining a simple, effective and proven method, through the use of online tools such as Google Docs and Classroom, explained through a real-life example. When we evaluate, we want to give timely feedback to students about their progress in…