Quality education delivery through Soft SkillsS G Deshmukh
FDP on Promoting Quality in Higher Technical Education , 18 Jan 2016
ABV-Indian Institute of Information Technology & Managementwww.iiitm.ac.in
Basic tenets
• Students need to be engaged
• Students need to participate
• Students to be viewed as co-producer
• Students need to be mentored and developed
• Students to be viewed as learners
• Role of soft skills assume significance for quality delivery !!
Observation
• Traditionally we focus on “only teaching”
• We neglect other aspects– Social relationships (significant others, parents, and peers)
– Environment (students are not conscious that they need time to adopt to a new environment, they should also be aware of environment)
– Physical health
– The best that can be realistically achieved may be to facilitate the development in students of the understandings, skills and attributes that will help them to make a success of their careers.
Skills Expected
• Technical skills : Subject matter
• Ability to ask questions
• Ability to work independently
• Ability to identify with the community
• Soft skills: Leadership, Communication, team work, perseverance , tenacity etc.
Soft Skills
• Communication
• Enthusiasm and Attitude
• Team work
• Networking
• Problem solving & Critical thinking
• Professionalism
Skill Set ..
Hard Skills
• Domain knowledge
• Problem solving aptitude
• Ability to use/handle technology
• Ability to analyze
• Ability to synthesize
• Ability to innovate
Soft Skills
• Ability to communicate
• Ability to work in a team
• Ability to lead and inspire
• Ability to have a positive frame of mind
Basis for need of Soft skill
• Employability surveys (McKinsey, Nasscom etc.)
• Feedback from employers
• Observations from faculty/experts
Soft Skill : Working Effectively as a Team
• Working through and with people
• Thinking “we”, not “I”
• Getting the Team to work together by:– Giving the team the big picture
– Dividing work fairly
– Assigning responsibility to achieve accountability
– Giving recognition
Use of Soft Skills for…
• Developing competencies
• Identifying weak areas
• Predicting the capabilities of students
• Assisting in competency mapping
• Developing positive frame of mind
• Enhancing the pedagogy
• Enhancing Employability of stduents
Insights gained
• Retention span of students is not more than 12 minutes –Thanks to gadgets such as Mobile, Laptop, Internet, TV etc.
• They need to be engaged and teaching learning process to be made more interesting and challenging
• Student need to be engaged in many activities
• New generation expectations and aspirations are different and at times difficult also !
• Soft skills are hard to impart !!
Interventions to promote soft skills• Student forum
• Student festivals
• T&P Activities
• Expert sessions
• Documentary making
• Blogs,Newsletter
• Annual Publication
• Celebrations like – Technology day, Science Day, 15th
Aug, 26th Jan, World Environment Day
• Hindi Pakhwara and so on..
Family of Skills expected
• Coherence : Being consistent with oneself and the surrounding environment , identifying oneself with the
subject, institution and community
• Competency: Technical proficiency, domain knowledge
• Creativity: Nurturing spirit of innovation, doing something novel, out-of-the-box
• Collaboration: with others, similar minded individuals, groups, networking etc.
Premises
• Peer-to-peer interaction facilitates nurturing of soft skills
• Informal mechanisms work !
• An element of creativity /novelty is desirable
• Rather than teachers, mentors play an important role
• Teaching needs to be reduced, Learning needs to be emphasized !