A Rubric for Assessing 21st Century Life Skills

There is a lot of talk about ensuring students receive instruction based on 21st Century Skills.  The 21st Century Skills are a collection of skills that educators and business leaders have determined students need to be successful in the 21st century. Below is an illustration from P21 - the coalition of educators and business leader who developed the framework.

P21 

Teachers have long been aware of their  responsiblity for the core subjects (green), the technology skills (purple) and we're beginning to do better on the Innovation skills (orange).

The part that is difficult to teach, measure and assess are the life skills (red).  The life skills that are outlined here are flexibility, self-directedness, time management and working well with others.  These are easy for teachers to observe but very difficult to assess and help students develop strong 21st Century Life Skills.  As a teacher, I know their weaknesses in flexibility and self-directedness directly impacts their learning but I have struggled with the best way to make students aware. Telling them over and over again has not worked for 20 years so this year - the 21st year - I'm trying something different.

I've designed a rubric to assess students' 21st Century life skills. The assessment will take place twice a quarter in a sit down conference with me - much like a reading or writing conference that students are used to doing anyway.  My hope is to be very good at documenting strengths and deficiencies in Power School, Class Dojo and in their conference notebooks on Evernote.  My goal is to use the documentation to drive a discussion with each student regarding their strengths and areas of growth to make them aware of how these untangible foggy skills really do impact their learning.

 I've included the rubric below and would welcome any comments or feedback on the instrument or the approach!

21st Century Life Skill	4	3	2	1
Accept direction and constructive feedback effectively.	Always listens and follows direction. Responds politely to redirection. Seeks feedback on how to improve work.	Listens and follows directions most of the time. Takes redirection without argument. Accepts feedback and uses it to improve.	Sometimes argues with teacher when being redirecteds. Sometimes follows instruction. Sometimes accepts feedback for improvement.	Repeatedly argues when redirected. Rarely seeks feedback on how to improve grades.
Manage time and meet deadline	Always meets deadlines and turns in assignments on time	Meets most deadlines.	Regularly misses deadlines.	Misses most deadlines.
Setting and Working towards goals	Works with teacher to set and meet goals. Seeks out guidance when falling behind.	Meets goals set for them and accepts offered help when teacher notices student is behind.	Misses goals that have been set by student or teacher.	Misses most goals and does not seek help in reaching them.
Be a self directed learner	Always stays on task. Seeks out ways to expand on what they've learned. Makes connections from topics in class to the world around them.	Stays on task most of time. Makes connections when presented to them. Ask thoughtful questions regarding the content.	If off task sometimes. Completes minimum assignment with no connections made or questions asked.	Repeatedly off task and completes little work independently.
Interact effectively with others	Always gets along well with classmates. Solves problems effectively and quickly. Shows tolerance for others' ideas and points of view.	Gets along with others most of the time. Accepts teacher's or counselor's advice on solving problems. Tries to understand other's points of view.	Sometimes has difficulty working with others and does not work with classmates or teacher to solve the issue effectively.	Does not work well in cooperative groups.
Be productive	Always produces high quality work.	Produces high quality work most of time.	Sometimes produces high quality work.	Rarely produces high quality work.
Leadership and responsibility	Always stands up for what is right. Takes responsibility for his/her actions.	Takes responsibility most of the time and usually stands up for what is right.	Sometimes accepts responsibility for his/her actions.	Rarely accepts responsibilty for his/her actions and often blames others for his/her mistakes.