Cognitive Skills You Need for the 21st Century

In Cognitive Skills You Need for the 21st Century, Stephen Reed discusses a Future of Jobs report that contrasts trending and declining skills required by the workforce in the year 2022. Trending skills include analytical thinking and innovation, active learning strategies, creativity, reasoning, and complex problem solving. Part One on Acquiring Knowledge contains chapters on cognitive processes that are critical for learning. Part Two on Organizing Knowledge explains how matrices, networks, and hierarchies offer contrasting methods for visualizing organization. Part Three on Reasoning discusses visuospatial reasoning, reasoning from imperfect knowledge, and reasoning strategies. Part Four on Problem Solving focuses on the knowledge and strategies required to solve different types of problems, including those that involve design and dynamic changes. Part Five on Artificial Intelligence contains chapters on the Data Sciences, Explanatory Models, the Information Sciences, and General AI. Part Six on Education consists of three chapters on educating 21st century skills at all levels of instruction. Research in Cognitive Psychology, Education, and AI provides the foundation for acquiring these skills.

"There is a bookshelf labeled 'Popular Science' in the Geisel Library on the University of California, San Diego campus that provided inspiration for writing this book. I admire those authors who can explain science to a general audience and I continue their tradition in this book on cognitive skills. My objective as a professor emeritus of cognitive psychology is to write a book that does not require specific background knowledge to understand it. I therefore define terms when discussing research and include personal anecdotes that I hope inspire readers to think of related experiences in their own life. I also occasionally include problems to encourage reflection"--