Lesson 1 - Skills Needed in a Digital Age

2. The Growing Importance of Skills Development

Knowledge involves two strongly inter-linked but different components such as content and skills. Content includes facts, ideas, principles, evidence, and descriptions of processes or procedures. Most instructors, at least in universities, are well trained in content and have a deep understanding of the subject areas in which they are teaching. Expertise in skills development though is another matter. The issue here is not so much that instructors do not help students develop skills, they do help, but whether these intellectual skills match the needs of knowledge-based workers, and whether enough emphasis is given to skills development within the curriculum.