In our small groups session during the second TASH meeting we looked at a number of resources suggested in this category (rectangles only). Three general points emerged:
• All resources we came across in our group session were generic, i.e., dealing with life skills, communications skills, self-management skills. That these skills are also immediately relevant for somebody’s academic performance goes without saying. In fact, the line between personal skills and academic skills is often far from clear and we wondered whether it makes more sense to incorporate some resources under academic skills and creating a ‘life skills category’ to include for instance the support offered by the Counselling Service.
• Interpersonal skills are – unsurprisingly – above all associated with group activities, and are therefore less likely to be available as an online resource.
• The line between ‘practice’ and ‘resources’ was not always clear: we decided, as a quick definition, that a resource is a practice that is recorded and can therefore be shared.
Web resources:
http://dyslexstudyskills.group.shef.ac.uk
The resource is targeted at students with dyslexia but it is also a very good resource for less essay-savvy Level One students. Some good generic study skills info too.
http://www.compass.group.shef.ac.uk
A valuable resource, aimed at mature and adult learners in particular but it has a reassuring glow about it that could be good for Level One students too.
http://www.shef.ac.uk/counselling/services/skillsforlife
A general resource which probably is not particularly well-know among students who may associated the counselling service too much with ‘problems’ rather than with ‘life skills’ support. The Skills for Life programme is based on workshops and the courses run in small groups.
http://sheffield.ac.uk/counselling
Warmly recommended: the breathing exercise!
Other sources suggested:
Careers Service Employability RLO
We understood this to be Mole courses that could be adopted for a specific purpose. For instance, SOMLAL has adopted Claire Brooke’s Mole course on Work Placements and we are currently incorporating her work into a new SOMLAL Year Abroad Hub
Skill build Intensive Workshops offered by Enterprise at Sheffield, WRCETLE
Series of PowerPoint presentations and exemplars for developing understanding of Belbin team roles and implementing there roles in academic activities (Diane Rossiter and Catherine Biggs, CPE)
For something more immediate on Belbin, please try this link courtesy of Sabine Little.
Henriette Louwerse
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To what extent would a rebranding of "personal and inter-personal skills" as "life skills" solve your concerns I wonder? So far as the issue of cross-cutting skills/themes is concerned, there is always going to be overlap, whatever way we slice the skills cake, so I feel it is important to continue to hang on to the fact that we are looking here at a heuristic framework rather than a totalising typology. In other contexts I've also (special?) pleaded that some of the things we wish to encourage/foster through TASH are more "attributes" (or attitudes, perhaps) than skills per se ... and in similar vein, life/personal/inter-personal skills may be particularly difficult to classify in this context as they are so closely tied up in social and cultural, as much as academic, development ... and are, I'd suggest, more often sub-consciously performed than explicitly practiced (I think there's a relevant distinction here, but may need a social theorist to help me out at this point ... Bourdieu, habitus and doxa all come to mind).
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