Skills for the New Year and Beyond!
As we begin 2020, we need to ask ourselves, "how can we prepare students for jobs that do not currently exist?".
Many employers state that students come out of school prepared with the hard skills, skills that are teachable and measurable, but lack soft skills. Soft skills also known as power skills or workplace skills, are non-technical skills that involve human interaction or emotional intelligence. These skills include communication, empathy, time management, and other interpersonal skills. To be successful, our workers of tomorrow need both hard and soft skills.
Hard and soft skills provide students with transferable or portable skills. For example, an electrician who has excellent people skills as well as electrical wiring experience could bring these skills to any company. They are not specialized for just one workplace. If students are taught workplace skills, then it does not matter what type of job they have, because such skills apply to any career, including careers that do not even exist yet.
How can workplace skills be instilled into any curriculum?
Have students work together to solve a problem and present their solution to the class.
Example topics for problem-solving:
How do we make college affordable for all?
How can we reduce the amount of garbage produced?
How do we prevent the number of animals in shelters from increasing?
How do we reduce sugar consumption in the U.S.?
Teach the students the importance of being able to think creatively.
Activity Examples:
Have students use a form of art to showcase a concept taught in class.
Have students write a story round-robin style.
Have students create a new product and market that product through a marketing campaign.
Have a brainstorming session for ways to teach difficult content.
Ensure your students have the skills they need to get a job.
Activity Examples:
Have students go to an online job site to look up the skills and qualifications required for a career they are interested in pursuing.
Discuss how they plan to get the required skills and education for the job.
Have students identify the differences between hard and soft skills.