Proposal Title
Sharing resources and experiences in growing soft-skills in large enrollment undergraduate classes.
Session Type
Presentation
Room
Somerville House, room 3315
Start Date
14-7-2023 10:30 AM
End Date
14-7-2023 10:50 AM
Keywords
soft skills, reflection, teamwork, study skills, metacognition
Primary Threads
Teaching and Learning Science
Abstract
University students often show a lack of experience with soft-skills, such as diverse study methods, note taking, team dynamics and reflection. Due to the pandemic learning environment, student access to formative materials likely suffered. Rarely are these skills provided as part of course curricula - instead they are often found at student help centres on campuses. The need for these skills has grown as workload issues have become paramount in the undergraduate experience. Fostering these foundational skills can help students experience a sense of belonging at university. To welcome all learners, we sought to explicitly include a skill building process in our courses. Through the pandemic (online learning) and the return to on-site learning we implemented a working model to incorporate these skills as formative activities in a number of large enrollment courses. This model focuses on:
- providing resources targeting soft-skills,
- student reflections on current habits and goal-setting,
- discussion with peers as part of classroom groupwork,
- rotational roles in their groups to foster better team dynamics
- student self-assessment and revision of their learning plans over the course of a term.
The method and resources shared are discipline-agnostic and viable for classes with enrollment numbers into the low hundreds without additional instructional support, with low-stakes completion-based assignments to encourage buy-in. This session will share resources used, experiences from the authors and seek to discuss with attendees their own experiences incorporating soft-skills into their course curricula. Our research study has ethics approval by University of Waterloo Office of Research Ethics REB# 42969 and 42524.
Elements of Engagement
Mentimeter (bring your device) & Think - Pair - Share: will be used for various questions through out the presentation that may include: "Is soft-skills development important for undergraduates?"; "Do you feel soft-skills development is even more important post-pandemic?"; "How do you think Students perceived the soft-skill activities - positively or negatively?"; "What is your prediction on the affect of performance with incorporation of study skills and personal lesson plan creation?"
Discussion: Question prompts will focus on - "Do you think you can utilize and incorporate some of the shared activities/resources?'; "What other activities/resources have you used to foster soft-skills development" - a collaborative document will be used to capture the group think.
Sharing resources and experiences in growing soft-skills in large enrollment undergraduate classes.
Somerville House, room 3315
University students often show a lack of experience with soft-skills, such as diverse study methods, note taking, team dynamics and reflection. Due to the pandemic learning environment, student access to formative materials likely suffered. Rarely are these skills provided as part of course curricula - instead they are often found at student help centres on campuses. The need for these skills has grown as workload issues have become paramount in the undergraduate experience. Fostering these foundational skills can help students experience a sense of belonging at university. To welcome all learners, we sought to explicitly include a skill building process in our courses. Through the pandemic (online learning) and the return to on-site learning we implemented a working model to incorporate these skills as formative activities in a number of large enrollment courses. This model focuses on:
- providing resources targeting soft-skills,
- student reflections on current habits and goal-setting,
- discussion with peers as part of classroom groupwork,
- rotational roles in their groups to foster better team dynamics
- student self-assessment and revision of their learning plans over the course of a term.
The method and resources shared are discipline-agnostic and viable for classes with enrollment numbers into the low hundreds without additional instructional support, with low-stakes completion-based assignments to encourage buy-in. This session will share resources used, experiences from the authors and seek to discuss with attendees their own experiences incorporating soft-skills into their course curricula. Our research study has ethics approval by University of Waterloo Office of Research Ethics REB# 42969 and 42524.