This article extends the literature on 21st-century learning skills needed for workplace success by providing an empirical examination of employers' direct communication to potential employees via job advertisements. Our descriptive analysis of 142,000 job advertisements provides two contributions. First, this is one of the first studies to…

Creating inclusive classrooms, and especially creating inclusive and diverse working groups, can be a challenge in the advertising curriculum. The ad industry values diversity, and employers in general value students who know how to effectively work in groups. This article reports survey data of what makes students feel not included in classroom…

Some years back, the author found the following problem in a spatial puzzle book: how many ways can you put four blocks together, face to face (with no vertical rotation symmetry)? He gave each student just four blocks and they collectively tried combinations to eventually agree on the answer of 15. He used to think it was a halfway decent task,…

Ethnic diversity in the advertising industry could be a solution for culturally insensitive advertising. Insights from advertising professionals, obtained via in-depth interviews, reveal minorities are hindered by bias, resulting in low hiring ratios and lack of retention. Large segments of minorities may not consider advertising for a career.…

Industry and authors of 21st Century Skill Frameworks are calling for student proficiency in creativity, problem-solving, innovation, collaboration, and communication skills. This project involved 13 fifth grade gifted students in inventing products for a specified audience with a set of given materials, time limit, and topic constraints. The…