Transforming and reinventing transferable skills in students Ian Walker Project Manager, Curriculum Team

University of Leicester and transferable skill development Ambition to support the skill development of ALL students Business Psychologist / graduate recruitment Historically: – Quality – but relatively small student numbers e.g. LA – Large numbers through curriculum – but tick box exercise – Or limited contact time through co-curr – is it really development? Process I used, but with collective wisdom of the room, with the aim of taking a fresh look at skill development when return to your institutions

Rules None of this please: “…the problem is…” “…yes, but…”...“hmmm” [scowls]…

Reinvention, Innovation & Transformation “Pairing staff with differing attributes can boost creative thinking” Mark Batey, psychologist & joint chair of the Psychometrics at Work Research Group at Manchester Business School See more at:

“odd couples” helpful to pair up those individuals whose creative capacity worked in opposite ways e.g. HP’s practice of deliberately recruiting candidates in pairs – e.g. matching a 60-year old systems engineer with a 20-year old art and design student

Find someone odd Line up in Career Service years of experience I will then pair you up Sit with your partner at any table

Discussion 1 - WHAT SKILLS? 5 minutes In your pairs: Discuss and list what transferable skills are important for our students to develop? Short-list to a max of 3 priority skills Write each skill on individual post-it note Stick your post-it notes onto the flip-chart at the front when asked

Attach your post-its to the flip chart Interpersonal skillsExploration and Implementation skills Self Management skills Other

Debrief What criteria did you use to prioritise the 3 skills? How do we know which skills we should focus on? Exploring these questions allows us to start to establish a ‘framework’ to develop our students against

Discussion 2 – WHAT EXACTLY ARE WE TRYING TO DEVELOP? - 10 minutes In your pairs: Focusing on the specific skill handed to you, discuss: – What exactly are we trying to develop? How do we know what’s important to develop? – What do you think good looks like? What do students need to be able to know, apply and say? And in which scenarios?

Debrief Views from discussions - what exactly are we trying to develop? To achieve focused and effective interventions we need to define in detail what students need to know, apply and say and in which scenarios

Discussion 3 – HOW TO DEVELOP SKILLS IN ALL STUDENTS? - 10 minutes In your pairs: Again, focusing on the specific skill handed to you, discuss: What would you do in an ideal world to develop that skill to that level? (not limited to university / HE context) What would you do in an ideal university to develop that skill, to that level? NOTE: likely to be multiple solutions

Debrief Why this approach? To avoid the everyday barriers from impinging on us. What would you do to develop skills in all students in an ideal world? And in HE setting?

Conclusion and next steps UoL view: there is no single solution, or quick solution – rather need for a coordinated and progressive development of students across curriculum, co- curriculum and extra-curriculum I will circulate a summary of our discussions, including skills.