A Workshop on Teaching Transferable Skills and Work integrated Learning from Middle School to College

Learn techniques for teaching transferable skills (e.g., teamwork, critical thinking) and work-integrated learning through re-imagining the nature of human competency, how people best learn complex skills, and how to re-design teaching activities accordingly. After a brief introduction to sociocultural learning theory and limitations with the dominant notion of generic "soft skills" you will learn how to articulate and then teach key skills relevant to your courses that are embedded in disciplinary content and cultural contexts. Strategies for incorporating work-integrated learning (WIL) via authentic workplace problems, job search strategies and career exploration will also be discussed. This 3-week course is designed for educators teaching grades 6-12 and instructors at the college or university level.

Learners will work on each module one week at a time at their own pace, engaging Dr. Hora and classmates in discussions about course readings and assignments within Canvas. Each module will include videotaped lectures from Dr. Hora and other experts in skills- and work-based teaching, readings from the research literature, brief activities and quizzes, and an assignment where new concepts are applied to a lecture, lesson, or activity relevant to your own work. Each week should take approximately 2 hours for all course readings, activities and assignments for a total of 6 hours for the entire workshop.

The workshop culminates in a final project where learners will apply insights from the course to completely revise a teaching or training activity from your workplace so that it prominently features transferable skills and/or work-integrated learning. This online course is self-paced and asynchronous, but there will be three optional Zoom sessions with the instructor each Thursday at 7pm CST during the course where you can ask questions and discuss ideas with the rest of the class. Dr. Hora will also be actively moderating the course and responding to discussions and email inquiries during the 3 weeks of the course. All students will also have access to the course materials for 3 months after the end of the 3 week moderated workshop.

At the conclusion of the course, students will demonstrate:

• An in-depth and critical understanding of the nature of transferable skills and limitations with generic "soft skills" views of human competency as ignoring how skills are inextricably linked to content, context and culture
• New perspectives on important transferable skills within their own disciplines and/or professions and how to articulate them so they can be easily incorporated into a lesson or activity
• How people best learn these skills through the "sociocultural learning sequence" of lecturing, modeling, active learning and feedback
• Different active learning techniques for teaching oral communication, teamwork, critical thinking or self-regulation
• How to use a planning template to revise a lesson or activity to highlight transferable skills
• Techniques for easily incorporating WIL via authentic workplace problems, job search strategies and career exploration in ways that do not interfere with course content and goals

By participating in this class you will earn:

Instructional Hours	9
University of Wisconsin Continuing Education Units	.9
National Career Development Association	9

Explanation of Continuing Education Hours