| 3. Compulsory modules in transferable skills: the Plymouth approach
|
Brian Chalkley
|
Introduction
The traditional method of teaching what we now call Transferable Skills has often been to bury and conceal them within a curriculum overtly concerned only with subject-based information. If taught and practised at all, skills were delivered without the students (and sometimes the staff!)being aware of it. Skills teaching was like an unseen drip-feed where both the patient and the doctor were at best only partly conscious of what was going on. At Plymouth the geographers' approach to skills, as described and evaluated in this chapter, is completely different: we provide modules which are actually entitled Transferable Skills, and which are clearly advertised as such. They are at the core of the Geography curriculum and are compulsory for all single-honours students. Some more cautious departments might fight shy of this design, preferring not to do anything which might apparently separate the skills teaching from the Geography. In practice, the Plymouth experience demonstrates that, if carefully managed, there can be real advantages in having special Transferable Skills modules, and the dangers and obstacles, though real, are by no means insurmountable.
Aims
Our strategy has two principal aims which are accorded equal importance in our course documents. One is to help students develop skills so that their capabilities and performance as geographers can be enhanced. The focus here is, for example, on improving study techniques and presentation skills so that students can extend and enrich their knowledge and understanding of Geography and can therefore achieve higher standards in their Geography essays, reports, practicals, projects and examinations. The second aim is to use the subject discipline as a suitable vehicle for the acquisition of skills which will be of value outside the academic arena. The main rationale here is to prepare students for "life after finals" and to enable them to perform more effectively in their subsequent professional careers.
To an extent these two aims vie for priority. In Plymouth, as no doubt in other departments, the vocational dimension has certainly gained ground of late, but it is important that the skills enthusiasts and supporters of the Enterprise in Higher Education Initiative (EHE) should not neglect the discipline-based arguments. Certainly in my own department, the more conservative staff, who were initially sceptical about Transferable Skills modules, came to accept them, at least partly on the basis that they might improve the quality of the students' work in Geography.
Although having two overall aims does raise the possibility of conflict or tension between them, in practice this is much reduced by the fact that the skills taught - such as word-processing, computing, writing skills, group work and graphics - can generally serve both masters. Group work, for example, is an essential part of many Geography field-trip research projects, but it is also a valuable life-skill; good communication skills improve Geography essays and seminars, but are also of immense importance in most careers. The nature of Geography lends itself to skills teaching and it is possible therefore to incorporate a sizeable Skills Programme without unduly distorting the main Geography curriculum.
Context
The Plymouth Skills Programme, detailed below, has been fashioned not only by these two general aims but also by the departmental and institutional context. Although the programme more or less took on its present size and shape in 1992, when the university modularised and semesterised, skills teaching has been increasingly important within the department since the late 1980s. Its development was helped by an £8,000 Enterprise in Higher Education (EHE) grant which, through part-funding a temporary lectureship, allowed a group of permanent staff the time to prepare new skills teaching and learning materials.
Decisions on teaching methods have been much influenced by our large student numbers. Our 26 academic staff are now responsible for well over 500 FTEs (full time equivalent students) and the single-honours course alone has an annual intake of 120. The need to deliver our skills teaching economically is reinforced by the increased priority now given to research and to doing well in the next research selectivity exercise: time spent teaching skills is time not spent producing refereed papers!
The structure of the skills curriculum
The key feature is three compulsory Transferable Skills modules. In each of the first three semesters (a year and a half) one of the six modules students take is in Transferable Skills. These modules have identical weighting to the other Geography modules and, like them, must be passed before students can proceed to the next stage of the course.
The unusually large size of our Skills Programme is both a measure of our commitment to skills and a response to the recent opportunities for change stimulated by modularisation and semesterisation. This university-wide reorganisation, by requiring us to rethink our entire curriculum structure, created the opening for an enlargement and a remodelling of our skills teaching to fit the new university framework.
The decision to provide three separate Transferable Skills modules was not unproblematic. There is obviously a case for completely merging skills into the wider Geography curriculum and Healey (1992),for example, has, quite properly, referred to the danger that ''stand-alone'' Transferable Skills courses might be seen as "bolt-ons" and become marginal to and detached from the mainstream Geography teaching. In Plymouth, however, we considered that there were ways of minimising these dangers and that there were indeed a number of definite advantages in having separately identified Transferable Skills modules:
- Such modules represent a clear signal to students that Transferable Skills are a substantial and significant part of the curriculum. There is no longer a "hidden agenda".
- This same message is equally clear to departmental colleagues and also to external academics and administrators. Whether the audience is validation committees, EHE assessors, Higher Education Quality Council auditors, or quality assessors from the Higher Education Funding Council, there is absolutely unambiguous evidence of a commitment to Transferable Skills.
- Likewise, students can furnish clear proof on their curriculum vitae that they have taken and passed courses in a range of skills which employers value.
- With a system of identified modules, it is easier to design and deliver a coherent, balanced and progressive skills curriculum. If the main skills teaching is dispersed across several different areas, there is a danger of fragmentation, repetition or omission.
It is nonetheless important to recognise and minimise the dangers of apparently separating the skills from the substantive discipline. At Plymouth a number of steps have been taken to address this problem. For example, although the identified modules are unique in focusing entirely on Transferable Skills, much of the detailed skills practice takes place in other parts of the degree. Indeed there is sometimes a rather fine line between what is taught in the nominated Transferable Skills modules and what is covered elsewhere. This arrangement encourages a more permeable approach to the curriculum. The links between the Transferable Skills modules and the other modules are in essence the links between theory and practice. These connections are now being formalised by requiring each Geography module to nominate the particular skill(s) in which it provides further guidance or practice. The Periglacial module, for example, focuses on group work, whereas the Urban Policy module provides particular opportunities in debating and making verbal presentations.
Integration is also strengthened by the fact that almost all the teaching in the identified Transferable Skills modules is undertaken by Geography staff. This is a very important feature which adds greatly to the credibility and coherence of the programme. My Geography colleagues have generally been happy to take on skills teaching, particularly in fields such as word-processing and graphicacy in which they already have a good working knowledge. The teaching in less-familiar territory, such as interpersonal and group skills, has been reserved for enthusiasts who were willing to invest in the necessary preparation and staff development.
Integration is further promoted by ensuring that a proportion of the examples and exercises used within the Transferable Skills modules relate closely to Geography. In this way students can see the relevance to the discipline as well as the broader, longer-term reasons for improving their skills.
Content and methods
Having outlined the broad structure and framework, it is now possible to set out in more detail the actual content of the three modules and the related teaching and learning methods. Given that no programme of this kind can be entirely comprehensive, the skills on which it focuses have been selected because of their importance to careers, their relevance to Geography, and the capacity and willingness of our staff to teach them . Topics such as body language, selling and stress control, which appear in some of the Transferable Skills literature, do not feature at Plymouth!
Module one
Introduction
The importance of Transferable Skills and their role in the Geography degree.
Study skills
Content Approaches to learning. Notetaking and reading. Searching for and using information. Examination techniques.
Methods Two lectures, a student handbook of guidance notes plus exercises undertaken in the year-one tutorial groups (e.g. comparing and improving lecture notes, library searches and reviews of good/bad learning experiences).
Writing skills
Content Different forms and styles of communication. Effective writing. Planning, drafting and editing.
Methods Four lectures, a student handbook and tutorial-based exercises (e.g. examining different styles of geographic writing, reviewing anonymous student essays, preparing summaries, word games).
Computing/word-processing
Content Types and uses of computers and their operation. An introduction to Windows and Wordperfect.
Methods Four lectures, a student handbook and exercises with "problem sessions" and tutorial support.
Basic statistics
Content Central tendency and dispersion. Probability and the normal distribution. Hypothesis testing.
Methods Five lectures, student handouts and exercises with "problem sessions" and tutorial support
Each of the four main elements in Module One is assessed by coursework assignments or short tests.
Module two
Graphicacy
Content The importance of presentation. Different forms of visual display. Statistical maps and diagrams. Preparing posters. Line drawing. The use of computer packages.
Methods Six extended practicals and related assignments led by the department's cartographic technicians.
Laboratory skills
Content The importance of safety. The role and organisation of laboratory work in science. Experimental design and operation. Sources of error, means of control. Basic laboratory equipment and its use.
Methods Six extended practicals.
Both elements in Module Two are assessed by coursework assignments.
Module three
Verbal presentations
Content Different forms of verbal presentations. Meeting the needs of the audience. Preparation, delivery and review.
Methods Two lectures and a video on "do's and don'ts", a student handbook, plus each student gives a short talk on a subject of their choice.
Group work
Content The nature and importance of group work. Team roles and inter-personal skills. Leadership. Committees and meetings.
Methods Four lectures, two videos (including John Cleese's "Meetings Bloody Meetings") and group project work.
Career skills
Content Life after finals. What Geographers do. CVs, application forms and interviews.
Methods Three lectures, a student handbook plus small group sessions with a careers advisor (from Student Services) and with personal tutors (Geography staff).
Each element of Module Three is assessed. Peer review is included in the verbal and group work components.
Resources
The Plymouth programme has been designed, as far as possible, to minimise academic-staff contact time. This has been achieved by the use of large lectures, student handbooks, videos and technician support Module One is particularly economic in that it "piggy-backs" on the existing first-year general tutorials. The Module Three careers section includes advice and mock interviews with personal tutors which, being one-to-one, might be thought expensive; in fact, this is not a large additional commitment because personal tutors are already expected to provide careers assistance as part of our pastoral support programme. The skills and pastoral curricula simply come together and reinforce each other. Overall, our Transferable Skills modules are about average in the demands they make on staff time and, in terms of material resources, they are certainly much less expensive than our Physical Geography teaching. It has been necessary, however, in the interests of planning, coherence and efficiency, to ask one member of staff to take on the extra administrative tasks of overseeing, managing and promoting our Skills Programme.
Although the Plymouth example demonstrates that Skills Programmes need not be prohibitively costly to deliver, it must be admitted that we have benefited from the particular advantage of the EHE award to help produce the various module handbooks. However, in the four years since this award, there has been at least a modest increase in the amount of published and unpublished skills materials which other departments could adapt for their own use; in this respect, producing skills materials is becoming a little easier.
In looking to the future, it is likely, of course, that more computer software will become available in this field. The Plymouth department, for example, currently has an EHE award to produce interactive screen-based Transferable Skills material. This work is in its early stages but on completion should yield another still more cost-effective and attractive method of encouraging students to develop their Transferable Skills.
Evaluation
Students' reactions to our Transferable Skills modules, both informally and in evaluation surveys, have been very encouraging, as have been their results in assignments and tests. Our undergraduates recognise the practical value of skills such as word-processing and public-speaking and they appreciate the department's efforts to enhance graduate employability. Perhaps because so much of the teaching is done by Geography staff, there have been very few complaints of the "this isn't Geography" variety.
Likewise, all the staff now see the Transferable Skills modules as making a valuable contribution. Even colleagues who initially saw them as "emblems of Thatcherism" have now accepted their central place in the curriculum. That the department's Skills Programme has been well regarded by the university and external validators has also helped to silence the critics and convert the sceptics.
However, there have undeniably been some disappointments and problems; not everything in the garden is rosy and some of the weeds and thorns have deep roots! For example, while student work has improved substantially in terms of graphicacy and word-processing, we are still awaiting evidence of a significant improvement in the quality of English. For students who do not write well, perhaps it is simply too much to hope that a few hours of additional instruction can mend years of neglect or under-achievement.
A second problem lies in promoting, organising and monitoring skills teaching and learning outside the three key modules. We have recently tried to "map" skills work throughout the degree and have asked other Geography modules to nominate which skill(s) they intend to nourish. However, we are still well short of our ultimate target, namely a planned and co-ordinated approach to skills teaching and assessment across the entire curriculum.
A third problem relates to joint-honours students. Given that they have less time to study Geography than their single-honours counterparts, the department has decided that in the first year their time must be devoted exclusively to "mainstream" subject-based Geography modules. This is to enable joint-honours students to acquire enough information and knowledge to qualify them for the widest possible range of specialist options in later years of the course. But, as a consequence, they miss out on the Transferable Skills modules. We are now compensating for this to an extent by issuing our skills handbooks to joint-honours students. This is obviously an imperfect solution - a patch rather than a real remedy.
The Plymouth example illustrates, therefore, the particular difficulties which can arise in relation to skills teaching for joint or combined degrees . Time pressures from the two (or more) disciplines can squeeze out Transferable Skills. Moreover, with the multitude of subject combinations now possible under modularisation, it might be genuinely difficult to organise cross-disciplinary skills curricula which could achieve coherence, avoid duplication and be relevant to the needs of each of the students' academic disciplines. Certainly at Plymouth, and perhaps elsewhere, the problems of skills teaching in joint degrees need further attention.
Conclusions and suggestions
The skills curriculum outlined in this chapter succeeds in operating effectively within the context of a reasonably representative Geography department experiencing, like many others, the twin pressures of high student-staff ratios and increased research expectations. The Plymouth approach is not presented as a "tablet-of-stone" blueprint or an "off-the-peg" solution to the skill needs of other departments. Nonetheless, there are certain lessons to be drawn from the Plymouth experience which may have a wider application:
- There are academic and political advantages in providing separate modules which deal exclusively with Transferable Skills.
- These modules must, however, be carefully linked to the subject-based areas of the curriculum in which the skills are used and practised.
- In so far as possible, the identified Transferable Skills modules should be taught by geographers and not by imported specialists.
- With imaginative organisation, many aspects of skills teaching can be delivered economically and without heavy additional burdens on academic staff time.
- It is important to plan, co-ordinate and monitor skills teaching across the entire curriculum.
- It is advisable to have one identified member of staff responsible for the management and encouragement of the overall Skills Programme.
- There can be special difficulties in ensuring appropriate skills provision for students on joint-honours degrees.
- Modularisation and semesterisation can provide a window of opportunity for enlarging and reorganising skills teaching.
Higher education as a whole is steadily placing more emphasis on Transferable Skills and it is certainly in our students' interests that the Geography curriculum should make a substantial and unambiguous shift in this direction. The Plymouth model shows one way in which this might be achieved without raising staff stress levels or reducing their time for research.
Correspondence: Brian Chalkley, Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, Devon PL4 8AA.
Reference
Healey, M (1992) "Curriculum Development and 'Enterprise' - Group Work, Resource-based Learning and the Incorporation of Transferable Skills into a First Year Practical Course." Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 16, 1, 7-20.
Further reading
The full set of Plymouth handbooks on group work, careers skills, writing skills, presentational skills and computing and word-processing are available from Brian Chalkley at the address above. In order to meet postage costs, please include a cheque for £10 payable to "The University of Plymouth".
Page created 13 January 1998
GDN pages maintained by Phil Gravestock
