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Abstract We live in a changeable world which brings to education a heavy load to prepare students’ minds for the future. The aim of educational institutions worldwide now is to prepare learners to adapt themselves to modern technologies and more to adapt to the new conditions of the new millennium. But those educational institutions cannot reach their goals unless efficient teachers take the lead. Teachers are catalyst agents in any educational reform. Their effectiveness outweighs all other factors that would possibly affect the quality of educational reform. With the advent of the 21st century, students’ competencies, and surely their teachers’, have changed to involve a range of skills known as 21st century skills. Several researchers tried to determine the skills at premium in the new century. Some thought that creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration are the most important ‘skills’ in the new century (Wagner, 2010). Others considered learning and innovation skills, information, media and technology, and life and career skills as the skills learners should master to succeed in work and life in the 21st century (The American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE, undated) and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), 2010). However, more and more researchers have concluded that life in the 21st century is so complicated that no one type of skills is sufficient; rather ‘a mix of skills’ is urgently needed (Huang; Leon; Hodson; La Torre; Odregon and Rivera, 2010; Kereluik, Mishra, Fahnoe and Terry, 2013; Noweski, Scheer, Buttner,Von Thienen, Erdmann, and Meinel, 2012;Trilling and Fadel, 2009). Therefore, a call for a balanced focus on a blend of three key competences: professional knowledge base, practical or instrumental skills, and professional characteristics which form the first. |