Active Learning for Soft Skills Development

This course provides a practical learning path on how to foster the development of soft and digital skills while teaching specific subjects. Soft skills, as defined by Haselberg (2012), are “a dynamic combination of cognitive and meta-cognitive skills, interpersonal, intellectual and practical skills that help people to adapt and behave positively”, and are a vital component of any course.

Not only are they “most wanted” competences indicated by the corporate sector, but they are also essential life skills for all. This MOOC is mainly for higher education teachers and trainers who recognise the importance of potentiating such skills in students and who want to improve their effective support for students to help them achieve this aim. It is also for those who have already actively engaged students in their lessons, but still want to re-think the proposed activity and enhance the results of this interaction working on soft and digital soft skills even further. Through this MOOC you will discover how an active learning method, i.e. any instructional method that engages students in the learning process, can effectively be designed and implemented in a curricular course to support students’ in their soft skill development.

This MOOC is part of the MOOCs for Teachers series, which is devoted to pedagogical innovation and is aimed at giving the chance to teachers and people involved in instructional design to develop skills in the didactical area.

The Forum section represents the core of this MOOC community. Use it to contribute to all MOOC activities and to exchange opinions and discuss open questions with peers. Have a look at it every time you enter the course to see what’s new! Throughout the MOOC, over and above consulting the content, in the form of videos and additional web-based resources, you will, through the forum or other digital tools that support sharing and comparing, work on reflecting on your own experience and improving it taking into consideration the inputs emerged from discussions with peers. To obtain the certificate, you should complete the whole MOOC and the Weekly quizzes at the end of each week, but we strongly encourage you to take part in the peer assessment activities and discussions that you find most useful and relevant for your own professional development. These activities guide you in:

  • focusing or reflecting on specific inputs individually
  • working collaboratively with the others through external tools, like Padlet and Answer Garden
  • sharing and discussing experiences, challenges, doubts with the aim to help and supporting own’s professional development
  • designing the experimentation of new methods to be implemented in the class through peer assessment.

The final grade for the course is based on your results from your responses to the weekly quizzes (at the end of each week), peer assessment (week 6) and your contribution to the self-assessed activities, such as, for example, discussions in the forum or contributions on other digital tools. The weighting of these activities to your final score quizzes (70%), peer assessment (20%) and self-assessed activities (10%). Scoring for the Weekly quiz equals 1 point per question. Remember, the system will record the result of your final attempt, not the best of your attempts. Scoring for the peer assessment is equal to the average of the points assigned to your work by two peers. The course is considered successfully completed if the participant reaches 60% of the total score.

The course’s total score will be calculated by averaging the scores of the quizzes for each individual week. After completing the course, if you have surpassed the threshold score of 60% then you can download and print a certificate of accomplishment. You can check your points earned at any time on the Progress page. The course releases a Certificate of Accomplishment to anyone who successfully completes the course by reaching 60% (or more) of the total score by the end of the edition. You will be able to download the Certificate of Accomplishment directly from the website. Once you have successfully passed the course, you can request the Certificate of Accomplishment without waiting for the end of the edition. The Certificate of Accomplishment does not represent any academic credit, grade or degree.

Provided ByPolitecnico di Milano
Type of providerHE Institution
Provided atonline
Learning opportunity typeMOOC
Languageen
Home pageAbout Active Learning for Soft Skills Development | POK (polimi.it)
Admission procedureOpen to all
Entry requirements noteno requirements
Price detailsfree
Type of credentialCertificate of participation
Contact formpok@polimi.it

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