Through their studies, all students will need to develop and extend their skills to enable them to succeed in their studies, subject related work, and to equip them for their futures. While most courses will identify essential skills for their students and capture these within the course content, students will need to take responsibility for expanding their skills as will enable them to flourish and succeed, both during their studies and in their future. Course teams, in partnership with other University departments, work with students to identify and signpost opportunities for the development of skills both within the course and through further University and external provision.
Through the pages within this theme we explore the different types of skills and attributes which might be incorporated into courses' curriculum, and how this might be done, often in partnership with other University support departments and external stakeholders.
Many subject specialist skills will be captured in course learning outcomes, and students will learn and and develop these through course delivery and assessment. Some specialist skills can only be explored and practiced within an appropriate setting such as placements or work settings (particularly for apprenticeship students), and the responsibility for developing and assessing students skill acquisition and proficiency will sometimes be taken on by placement staff, mentors or trainers. Supporting the diverse student aspirations and interests usually present within any single cohort, some courses will provide optional or extra-curricular opportunities for students to explore particular skills, possibly in conjunction with employers or visiting sector specialists
Considerations:
Each course team will need to identify which skills and attributes they will need to include within their curriculum, and also determine the level at which these will need to be explored to enable students to employ them within their learning and assessment. The QAA Subject Benchmark statements are a valuable resource in identifying the skills that graduates within each subject area are expected to have gained through their studies.
While some skills are relatively simple to learn, there will be some that are more complex and require prolonged effort to accomplish a good level of competence. For example, all Honours degree courses will expect their graduates to have developed the ability to use critical thinking skills, but such development requires the student engaging in a significant amount of learning, practice, refinement and reflection before they are able to demonstrate good competence.
Many courses will consider the need to include elements of learning that take the form of training. There are often skills sets that students are required to attain which need to be learned and practiced before they can be deployed more critically to support vocational or academic activity. Typically, where students will be required to employ specific software or practical techniques, course teams will need to schedule opportunities for students to be trained on these. It is important that such training is not assumed to be sufficient for students to make best use of the tools or techniques, and that further opportunities are integrated into the curriculum to equip students to make decisions on when and how to deploy their skills, and to make judgements on the quality of their application of the associated skills, the validity of any results, and the impact of their actions.
The University's Graduate Attributes cover a wide range of areas of student development and achievement including both practical skills and competencies, and more behavioural and attitudinal attributes. While including skill and competency development within the curriculum is relatively easy to plan, incorporating opportunities to focus on and develop behaviours and attitudes will be more difficult, and require an approach that allows and encourages each individual student to take ownership of their personal development through opportunities for practice and critical reflection. It is anticipated that the role or personal academic coach that is being adopted throughout the University will be pivital in supporting students' graduate attribute development, and the exploration and evaluation of skill development is a central aspect of apprentice course provision focussed on students' work with skills coaches.