Transferable skills are skills that transfer across disciplines. They include hard skills, such as coding or data analysis, as well as soft skills, like communication and problem-solving. While hard skills are explicit and easy to measure, soft skills are expected from students but often not explicitly stated or taught, and employers are noticing. In a recent survey, hiring managers described their new employees as having weak critical thinking, interrelated problem solving, and written communication skills (Flateby & Rose, 2022). This finding suggests that in order to prepare our students for success in the workplace, opportunities to build transferable skills, especially soft skills, need to be part of the course design process.
The best way to develop students’ foundational skills is to spend time explicitly teaching these skills. Consider writing course goals that state the transferable skills you will teach in your course. To illustrate this, take a look at the six learning objectives from The Immigrant Justice Lab (IJL) course:
Learning Objectives
By working with MIRC students in the Immigrant Justice Lab will learn how to:
- research asylum law and country conditions;
- engage in creative problem solving;
- maintain respectful and equitable professional relationships;
- write and edit persuasive legal arguments;
- engage in critical reflection about the US immigration system, the ethical practice of legal advocacy, and responsible depictions of violence and injustice in foreign cultures.
- Reflect on the demands and opportunities of a career in immigration law
While all of the above course goals are relevant to the legal field, the skills students acquire — such as research, relationship building, writing, and critical reflection — have transferable applications across various disciplines and careers. To effectively teach said skills, the IJL instructors used a team-based learning approach. In collaboration with an attorney from the community partner organization, students in this course work in teams of four to write a legal brief for a real client. Collaborating as a team to achieve a shared goal increases opportunities for students to build transferable skills that are relevant to the discipline; skills like relationship building with attorneys and crafting effective written arguments (Hora, 2023).
If you feel including team-based learning in your course could help students develop valuable transferable skills, you don’t have to redesign your entire course right away. Consider starting with one team activity designed to focus on teaching a transferable skill. For example, an engineering course with the learning objective: “Students will be able to translate technical jargon to non-specialists” might have a team activity where students are organized into teams of four with two students acting as engineers and two students acting as clients. Students in the role of engineer could practice communicating a project to non-specialists before swapping roles. During the activity debrief, students would receive feedback from their teammates to help them assess how effective they were at communicating the project.
While this type of activity takes time and effort to design and implement, collaborative learning is how students develop relevant transferable skills. One misconception that instructors sometimes have is that class time is not the appropriate place for coaching students in soft or foundational skill development. To help challenge this way of thinking, consider the skills you expect students to employ in your class. If you expect students to be able to manage conflict during collaborative activities, but you have not made this expectation known, instructional time is likely needed to make your request explicit and to provide students with strategies to be able to successfully manage conflict in their team.
One tool that supports the development of soft skills during teamwork is Tandem. Tandem explicitly teaches teamwork concepts through tailored content. Students complete regular check-in surveys to report on how their team is doing. Based on the survey data, content is delivered to students to help support the development of a healthy team. Tailored content includes learning exercises to help students create project plans, assess their progress toward shared goals, and reflect on their behaviors. Students also receive a summary of peer feedback so that they can reflect on their strengths and make necessary adjustments to support the success of their team.
The impact of Tandem on students’ teamwork skills are best exemplified through their own words.
“I think Tandem did a great job highlighting team dynamics. I especially appreciated the graph of how my team felt as the weeks went by. Usually it was very accurate according to how I felt about my team, so I've learned to trust my inner instincts regarding group relationships.”
Students also appreciate the option to receive direct support from their instructor if they felt unprepared to resolve an issue occurring in their team as you can see from the second student reflection.
“I think Tandem does a good job of serving as a subtle check in. I also like how it prompts the student that they have the choice to talk to the instructor about certain conflicts but there is no necessity.”
Tandem is now available to every U-M instructor and is fully integrated with Canvas. This tool is most appropriate for a course where students work in permanent teams for a longer period of time. With TANDEM, instructors can:
- Form teams: Tandem uses the instructor’s team formation criteria along with the student-provided Information Form the Beginning of Term Survey to form optimized teams
- Check on the health of teams using “team checks” to assess team health across five categories: workload, idea equity, logistics, confidence, and work well
- Help teams develop teamwork skills through catered content
- Direct students to give specific and actionable feedback with customizable team evaluations
- Assess teams through regular team checks, a midterm survey, and an end of term survey
Developing learning objectives to teach students transferable skills will ensure your students leave your course prepared for future academic and professional success. If you decide that having students work in teams will help students meet your learning goals, then consider redesigning your course or portions of your course to align with team-based learning practices. For more information about Team-based Learning, visit our TBL web resources and check out the Immigrant Justice Lab Faculty Panel recording and our Team-based Learning Faculty Panel recording.
Interested in Team-based learning or Tandem, but not sure where to start? Contact an LTC Consultant for guidance, resources, and support.
References:
Tandem Presentation, James Alexander CAI
