Soft Skills
It is important that all students graduates with the skills they will need to flourish in what the World Economic Forum (WEF) describes as the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, and to be effective agents of change in our society. The Curriculum Framework identifies how the WEF Top 10 Soft Skills can be embedded within our programmes.
- Complex problem-solving: Problem-based learning; Enquiry-based learning; Project work; Dissertations; Group-work; Problem-based assignments.
- Critical thinking: Essays; Professional simulations; Reflective logs; Fieldwork; Laboratory reports; Data analysis; Debates; Online assessments; Blogs/Vlogs.
- Creativity: Performances; Creative role play; Blogs/Vlogs; Newspaper article assignment; Group and individual presentations; Portfolios; Data visualisation exercises; Podcasts.
- People management: Group-work in class; Group presentations and performances; Group projects; Placements; Internships; Group portfolios.
- Coordinating with others: Group-work in class; Group presentations and performances; Group projects; Placements; Internships; Managing a student society or subject newsletter; ambassador roles; Peer mentoring; Real-time research tasks with other students in the Library.
- Emotional intelligence: Group-work in class; Group presentations and performances; Group projects; Placements; Internships; Managing a student society or subject newsletter; ambassador roles; Peer mentoring.
- Judgment and decision-making: Dissertations; Projects; Peer assessment; Peer instruction; Peer Mentoring; Developing business plans/treatment plans and clinical interventions.
- Service orientation: Placements; Internships; Volunteering; Developing or refining ‘Wikis’ (e.g. improving Wikipedia webpages).
- Negotiation: Dissertations; Projects; Tailored assignments that reflect students’ prior experiences; Debates.
- Cognitive flexibility: Essays; Debates; In class discussions; Dissertations; Projects; Literature reviews.
Lloyd Gash on Developing Negotiation Skills:
Damian O'Byrne on Students Developing their Creativity:
Practical Skills
Practical skills focus on skills which are of a more practical, or technical nature, as opposed to the ‘soft’ or ‘interpersonal’ skills referred to above. In reality, the boundaries between the two are not ‘fixed’.
- Time management and self-management: Setting clear deadlines for assessments, getting students to plot a timeline or develop a Gantt Chart to monitor progress towards completion of a project/dissertation, requiring students to develop SMART goals.
- Academic writing: Essays, projects, short concise blogs, mock magazine articles etc.
- Referencing/citation: Citation exercises, developing bibliographies, scrutinising ways in which other authors employ academic citation conventions, exploring academic journal citation ‘in-house styles’ etc.
- Mentoring/coaching: Peer mentoring and ambassadorial roles, coaching exercises and assessments.
- Project management: Requiring students to engage with project management theories, concepts and practices. Getting students to design their own projects utilising project management tools employed in varied sectors/settings/professions.
- Professional use of social media: Student vlogs and blogs, social media engagement exercises (e.g. contributing to an online debate via Twitter).
- Research skills: Projects, essays, dissertations. Engagement with research methods modules and assignments embedded within these.
- Critical reflection: Requiring students to reflect critically on their own learning as an aspect of formal or formative assessment(s) – e.g. reflections on metacognition (learning about how they learn). Reflective assignments etc.
- Entrepreneurialism: Engagement with ‘Enterprise and Entrepreneurship’ optional module, undertaking internships, and developing business proposals.
- Presentational skills: Student individual and group presentations. Use of illustrations and visual media (video, vlogs, images etc.) in more visually-focused assessments (e.g. presentations and posters).