Running Head: STEAM and the 6Cs 1

The Importance of STEAM and 6C Skills in Today’s Education

Eryn Watson

Lamar University

EDLD 5315
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The Importance of STEAM and 6C Skills in Today’s Education

21st century skills, career readiness skills, the 6Cs, timeless or life skills, whatever

you may call them, these are the skills students need in today’s career field to success in

the classroom and beyond, in any path they take. This literature review will discuss the

importance of teaching these skill sin the school setting, the importance of a growth

mindset and how STEAM, a possible way to integrate these skills, is playing a key role in

preparing students for their futures and furthering their academics. The literature

reviewed used a diverse range of vocabulary for these skills. This paper will refer to these

skills as the 6C skills, which combines the importance of both the 21st century skills as

well as content knowledge.

6C Skills

The 6C skills were introduced by Michnick and Hirsh-Pasek (2016) in their book

Becoming Brilliant based on the latest evidence from child development. The 6Cs stand

for collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation and

confidence. Collaboration is described by how we build relationships and work with

others towards a similar goal. Communication skills are reflected in out reading, writing

and listening skills. Content is the math, reading and writing content students are learning

but also the skills of learning how to learn and knowing what to do with what we are

learning by applying the content across disciplines. Critical thinking is the ability to solve

complex problems in a new way. Innovative creativity is one of the most needed and

wanted skills by fortune 500 companies today and helps people to solve these complex

problems in a new and innovative way. Lastly is confidence. Confidence is continuing to

learn and problem solve, even when things become difficult, and persevering after
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making mistakes. The 6Cs are skills meant to be taught and used together, building off of

each other to deepen understanding and prepare students for college and their careers.

Importance in Learning and Education

When teaching the 6C skills, students are learning about life skills as well as

content knowledge, which will prepare them for their futures throughout school as well as

beyond the classroom. The issue we face as a nation today is we are still being out scored

in academics and innovation when it comes to national ranks (William, 2010). In the US

we are feeling pressure to teach to a standardized test due to school funding, yet we are

still not seeing success in this format of teaching when we compare our scores to others.

When researching what the top scoring countries are doing, Micnick and Hirsh-Pasek

(2016) found they were focusing on the 6C skills. By learning these skills students will

have a base to deepen their learning and understanding of the content. These skills are the

building blocks of deep collaborative learning. Also, when students are working

collaboratively, they are building their social and cognitive skills, improving learning

outcomes and showing more growth in academics as compared to the traditional (book

and practice) lecturing teaching style (Ahonen, Hakkinen & Tarhonen, 2017; Ah-Nam &

Osman, 2017).

Career and College Readiness

Xu (2011) found, many students today are continuing their education either to go

into a career they are passionate about, or one where they feel they will make more

money. But research has also showed the companies who hire college graduates are the

ones looking for 6C skills. The students who have developed these skills are the ones that

will get promotions as compared to students without these life skills.

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Growth Mindset & Grit

Having a growth mindset means changing the way you view and handle

challenging situations. It is a mindset that helps you to take on challenges enthusiastically

and to persevere when things get tough. It means having the mindset of continued

learning and growth, rather than a fixed mindset of completing a task for understanding

and mastery and then moving on. A growth mindset also looks at the effort as the driving

factor rather than completeness of a task (Dweck, 2006). To have grit according to

Duckwork (2016), means being able to dig down deep to persevere during challenging

tasks and not giving up. The growth mindset and grit are very similar pieces of a mindset

and each complement each other well when changing thoughts and ideas when it comes

to challenging tasks at school, work or in life.

Importance in Learning

Yeager et al. (2016), found when students were transitioning into high school, by

introducing a growth mindset to students thought interventions, they were able to handle

the challenging transition better than students who did not receive the growth mindset

interventions. Students with a growth mindset and grit are more likely to take risks in

learning, make mistakes and learn from their mistakes and to persevere with passion

(Dweck, 2006; Duckworth, 2016).

College and Career Readiness

When in class, students with a growth mindset were able to handle the increased

work load better than students with a fixed mindset. They were more successful

academically throughout their time in school (Yeager et al., 2016). When introducing
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growth mindset skills to students before they enter high school level, teachers may be

able to better prepare students throughout all of their education.

By teaching students about growth mindset, their transitions between grade,

college and into careers will be smoother. Growth mindset interventions have shown to

increase student grades and lower the number of D/F GPAs (Yeager et al., 2016).

Michnick and Hirsh-Pasek (2016) say that part of confidence (one of the 6C skills) is

having a growth mindset and showing grit. By teaching our students these skills about

learning and how to learning, we are preparing them to be successful in their futures,

using the 6C skills not only in academics but also in their careers and in life.

STEAM

STEAM education is rapidly growing in the United States. STEAM stands for

Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics. Sometimes know as STEM, the

Arts were added to the acronym as contributions to the arts lead to cognitive gains and an

improved reasoning skill explains Taljaard (2016). Rather than teach the four disciplines

as separate and discrete subjects, Hom (2014) suggests STEM integrates subjects into a

cohesive learning theory based on authentic real-world problems. According to

Sneideman (2013) STEAM is much more than an acronym. STEAM is a philosophy.

STEAM is a way of thinking about how educators at all levels, including parents, should

be helping students to integrate knowledge across disciplines, encoring them to think in a

more connected holistic way. STEAM and problem-based learning are based on the

principle of learning by doing, a powerful and memorable way of learning.

Importance in Learning
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STEAM is a helpful way to cover content knowledge from a range of subjects, as

well as linking these skills together to help students solve a specific problem (Basham &

Marino, 2013). While Beck and Kyungsuk (2013) did not see significant growth in

mathematics test scores, they did find that after implementing STEAM lessons, students

showed growth in linking math concepts to real world problems as STEAM promoted

their problem solving and critical thinking skills. Au (2011) shared another important

reason to teach STEAM is the pressure in which standardized testing is putting onto our

current teaching styles. He found that 71% of districts reported to cutting other subject

areas in order to focus more time towards math and reading, to improve scores on

standardized tests. By implementing STEAM activities, teachers are now covering

multiple, integrated content areas, as well as the 6C skills, in an authentic learning

experience and moving away from this past industrialized way of teaching. Some districts

are now moving towards the skills students need to be successful in today’s digital age

careers.

College and Career Readiness

Today the US is shifting more and more towards STEAM related careers and

further aways from traditional manufacturing careers (Basham & Marino, 2013). When

teaching STEAM, more students are likely to choose STEAM related careers such as

engineering, computer science, science, agriculture, and mathematics where employees

are in high demand to keep up with these expanding and developing fields (Reeve, 2015).

Talijaard (2016) found that the US is becoming less competitive in STEAM fields

as compared to other innovative countries such as the Asian countries. At the college

level, according to William (2010), there are major concerns as the United States is losing
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technology and engineering leadership as compared to other countries. And at the high

school level, the Department of Education finds that only 16% of high school students are

interested in STEAM related careers and are proficient in mathematics (Hom, 2014).

With advances in technology, STEAM careers are growing exponentially. It is important

for teachers to integrate these skills into their classrooms from a young age until college

in order to prepare student for future careers.

The US Department of Education’s federal STEM education goal for K-12 is “to

prepare all students with the science, technology, engineering and mathematic skills

needed to succeed in the 21st century’s technological economy, whether in postsecondary

education or the workforce, and graduate students with the capability and motivation to

become STEM professionals, educators and leaders” (Becker & Kyungskuk, 2013).

Becker & Kyungskuk (2013) found that 75 % of the fastest growing occupations require

significant math or science training. Therefore students should have an understanding of

STEAM as well as the 6C skills to be ready for college and employment. STEAM

integration improves students’ interest and learning in these subject areas and prepares

them for college and their careers.

STEAM, the 6Cs and a Growth Mindset

One study found that students of a 2-year college are better prepared for their

careers as compared to student who went to a four-year institution because they are

getting training specific to their profession. This shows that four-year institutions need to

rethink the curriculum being taught (Xu, 2011). Would teaching STEAM and 6C skills

along with a growth mindset better prepare students for a range of careers?
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By integrating STEAM skills, students’ motivation will increase in these subject

areas (Becker & Kyungsuk, 2013). When students are motivated, this will encourage a

classroom environment where students are supportive, have a growth mindset and show

grit in their learning. The 6C skills need the environments within the classroom to be set

up in order to further develop these skills (Michnick & Hirsh-Pasek, 2016). When giving

students a project such as STEAM to work on together and scaffolding to teach the 6Cs,

this helps student of various academic backgrounds to solve real word problems,

deepening their content knowledge (Ah-Nam & Osman, 2017; Basham & Marino, 2013).

Conclusion

This literature review has shown as a country, we are scoring lower than others on

our nationally ranked tests. We know what is working for other countries and the skills

companies are looking for in today’s digital age. The literature shows that by using

STEAM activities, students will be learning the 6C skills and will be more likely ad

prepared to enter the STEAM related professions that are advancing in our country and

the world. Teaching students the 6Cs in an authentic way will better prepare students for

their futures in school and beyond, as well as move our country towards a more

innovative future.

Further Research

The action research that will be completed in response to this literature review

will be to collect qualitative and quantitative data to find if implementing STEAM

thinking activities creates a positive classroom environment, where students feel

comfortable taking risks and making mistakes in their learning, promoting deeper

learning of content and skills. Research will also help to collect data to see if by
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implementing STEAM activities into the classroom daily, if students show growth in

their 6C skills and growth mindset, the timeless skills we know prepare students for

careers and college.

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References

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