Developing Life Skills, webinar

Developing Life Skills

Mickey Rogers

Interviews are not like they used to be…

Think about the last time you worked in a group…

What was your role? How could you have performed better ?

Think about a problem you had at work recently…

How did you solve it?

Describe a situation where you showed amazing speed of thought and self control in the face of persistent and irrelevant questioning.

What skills are required outside the classroom?

Make a guess: What percentage of employers place high importance on each of the following things?

• • • •

The ability to appreciate an alternative point of view Communication skills and the ability to work in teams The ability to grasp complex information The right academic qualifications

Source GRADdirect, 2008

What skills are required outside the classroom?

Make a guess: What percentage of employers place high importance on each of the following things?

• • • •

The ability to appreciate an alternative point of view Communication skills and the ability to work in teams The ability to grasp complex information The right academic qualifications

Source GRADdirect, 2008

42%

What skills are required outside the classroom?

Make a guess: What percentage of employers place high importance on each of the following things?

• • • •

The ability to appreciate an alternative point of view Communication skills and the ability to work in teams The ability to grasp complex information The right academic qualifications

Source GRADdirect, 2008

42% 62%

What skills are required outside the classroom?

Make a guess: What percentage of employers place high importance on each of the following things?

• • • •

The ability to appreciate an alternative point of view Communication skills and the ability to work in teams The ability to grasp complex information The right academic qualifications

Source GRADdirect, 2008

42% 62% 68%

What skills are required outside the classroom?

Make a guess: What percentage of employers place high importance on each of the following things?

• • • •

The ability to appreciate an alternative point of view Communication skills and the ability to work in teams The ability to grasp complex information The right academic qualifications

Source GRADdirect, 2008

42% 62% 68% 27%

The Four Cs of the Business World Critical thinking

Communication Collaboration

Creativity

Critical thinking

Categorizing Establishing priorities Making choices Estimating and guessing Problem solving Thinking creatively Thinking logically Identifying opportunities

Evaluating arguments Developing empathy Comparing & contrasting Being aware of yourself Evaluating explanations Organizing an argument Recognizing contradiction Identifying bias

Communication Understanding forms Making a clear plan Taking effective notes Active listening Persuading others Reporting information plagiarism Protecting digital privacy Identifying information sources

Doing research Focusing a presentation Preparing a presentation Using graphic organizers Synthesizing information Recognizing Evaluating claims

Collaboration Managing time & schedules Making plans Brainstorming Working in a team Having cultural awareness Listening actively Discussing alternatives Reaching a compromise Giving & receiving feedback

Motivating a team Developing empathy Building communities Maximizing potential Understanding decisionmaking styles Understanding rights & responsibilities Persuading others

Creativity Doing research Brainstorming Estimating & guessing Thinking “out of the box�

Avoiding stereotypes Developing empathy Turning problems into opportunities Maximizing your potential

Developing curiosity Categorizing creatively Making personal change Solving problems Preparing an argument or a presentation Contributing ideas to a team

What skills do you need in your profession?

Congratulations!

You have been promoted!

You have been asked to help recruit someone for your present position.

Think about the kinds of things you do every day and list the key skills your successor will need.

What skills do you need in your profession?

Congratulations!

You have been promoted!

You have been asked to help recruit someone for your present position.

Think about the kinds of things you do every day and list the key skills your successor will need.

Decide which main skill area each sub-skill in the green list corresponds to.

Group 1: Organization and planning skills Group 2: Collaboration skills Group 3: Information and research skills Group 4: Thinking and problem-solving skills Group 5: Self-direction and learning skills

 Reaching a compromise  Being assertive  Managing your time  Thinking creatively  Understanding statistics  Persuading others  Identifying resources  Preparing presentations  Being self-aware  Establishing priorities

Organization and planning skills • •

Managing your time Preparing presentations

Collaboration skills • •

Reaching a compromise Persuading others

Information and research skills • •

Identifying resources Understanding statistics

Thinking and problem-solving skills • •

Thinking creatively Establishing priorities

Self-direction and learning skills • •

Being assertive Being self-aware

Is education keeping up?

Learning: past, present, and future In the mid-90s: “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist . . . using technologies that haven’t yet been invented . . . in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.”

Richard Riley, Secretary of Education under President Bill Clinton

The future of work and careers Are today’s graduates better prepared to work? “… students graduating from secondary schools, technical colleges, and universities are sorely lacking in some basic skills and a large number of applied skills: • Oral and written communication • Critical thinking and problem solving • Professionalism and work ethic • Teamwork and collaboration • Working in diverse teams • Applying technology • Leadership and project management American Management Association (about 2008)

• Brought up on “teaching to the test”, students can lack the meta-skills – initiative, teamworking capability , etc. – required in the fast moving world of modern business.

• Meta (or transferable) skills such as teamworking, effective communication, and adaptability are becoming increasingly important to employers. They are vital in the modern labour market, as employees are increasingly required to move between quite different projects and roles.

The Mobile Economy, Reform (think tank), 2008

Tradition and innovation

• Noam Chomsky

Linguistic Competence (1965) The system of linguistic knowledge possessed by native speakers of a language

Tradition and innovation • Dell Hymes Communicative Competence (1966) A language user's grammatical knowledge, as well as social knowledge, about how and when to use utterances appropriately.

Innovation UNESCO: Four Pillars of Education, 1996

Learning to‌.

Learning to‌know

Learning to‌do

Learning to‌live together

Learning to…be

Innovation

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The 21st Century Framework Core Subjects:

-Language arts, foreign languages, science, math, history, etc.

21st century topics:

PLUS

-Global awareness, civic literacy -Learning and innovation skills -Information, media, and technology skills -Life and career skills

http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/

The big challenge‌

How do I teach life skills/soft skills/competencies and still teach the present perfect?!

Competency development activities‌ - are content / outcome based and not focused on accuracy or the use of specific language.

- make the process at least as important as the product.

- take into consideration the students’ age and intellectual capacity while keeping the language at an appropriate level.

For example‌

Target skill: thinking creatively (the ability to think in new, innovative ways; “thinking outside the box”)  Understand the problem  Open your mind and be creative  Identify the best solution

To: Product design team Subject: New product features Hi, guys.

As you know, the C-600 has been on the market for some time now. I think we should start thinking about the features for our next cell phone, the C-710 – apart from a camera and text messaging, of course!

I want to hear as many ideas as possible. Please have a meeting to come up with a list of ideas. Then we can get together and discuss possible features.

Good luck, and be creative! Remember – even crazy ideas might work!

Gillian Edgar Product manager

Technique 1: “Random word� technique Open a book at random to any page.

Pick a word from that page (nouns work best).

Focus on that word and use it to inspire ideas.

Technique 2: “Different hats� technique Look at the problem from different perspectives.

Consider each of these people in turn and decide what features each one might find most attractive.

the sports fan

the busy mom the party animal the student

Apply your creative thinking to the real world. Think about the features you have come up with and answer these questions. Then choose three features you want the new cell phone to have.

Which features will… …everyone be interested in? …people use most often? …probably be too expensive or too impractical? …people probably not use very often?

Features to keep: 1 __________________________________________ 2 __________________________________________ 3 __________________________________________

Summary The skills students generally acquire in the classroom may not represent the “whole picture”; i.e., they may not be the skills that employers value most highly and that give students the most flexibility in their future careers.

We can help our students develop both their English-language skills and their “transferable skills,” or “life skills,” by including systematic work on these skills as a part of our regular syllabus.

Here’s how…

The Mind Series for the 21st Century classroom

lifeSkills in openMind Steps / description of what is involved in the skill

Help with phrases & a reminder to use language from the unit

Reflection on the process &/or ways to apply the skill

masterSkills in masterMind

Language competence + general competencies = success!