Soft Skills in the Classroom

3 August, 2023

Dr Bernardo Pereira Nunes

Three Innovative Authentic Assessments to Encourage Soft Skill Mastery in Hard Skill-Intensive Courses

In education, grades serve as indicators of performance, enabling students to reflect on their learning journey and strategically develop skills that will be relevant to their future careers. Grades represent tangible abilities, demonstrating individual performance potential and showcasing mastery of hard skills such as technical, scientific and computer literacy. However, they often fail to represent social and emotional skills, which are important for making responsible decisions, establishing positive relationships with others, and achieving greater goals. These skills, commonly called soft skills, encompass communication, teamwork, leadership, emotional intelligence and relationship-building.

Although grades can represent an individual’s mastery, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” John Donne’s words serve as a reminder that soft skills are essential for navigating beyond the confines of one’s isolated achievements. Many teachers lament when students solely prioritise grades over genuine learning, but how can you help students understand the importance of soft skills if soft skills do not contribute to a better grade?

A study by Deloitte Access Economics found that by 2030, compared to half of all jobs in 2000, two-thirds of all jobs will require occupations that heavily rely on soft skills. They also show a concerning statistic that less than one percent of Australians report having any soft skills on their LinkedIn profiles, suggesting that individuals may feel uncomfortable claiming skills without formal credentials or that they underestimate the importance of such skills. Other studies (Dolev, Naamati-Schneider, Meirovich, 2021; Guest, 2017) show that individuals trained in soft skills demonstrate increased productivity, innovation, and reduced anxiety levels.

With the rise of Generative AI shaking up the educational system, the academic landscape is expected to change, and the significance of soft skills may be as valued as traditional hard skills. We have witnessed AI tools achieving exceptional performance in passing bar exams and even medical school exams, but are they equipped with socio-emotional skills? The simple answer is no, and, as a consequence, the importance of hard skills may diminish while the need for soft skills increases.

But how can you effectively teach your students soft skills, especially in those courses that have traditionally focused on developing hard skills?

There is no single answer, but authentic assessments, successfully employed in my own classroom, show promise for opening communication channels with students. These assessments demonstrate to students the importance of both developing and providing opportunities for contextualised training in soft skills.

My experience teaching Computer Science is that most courses focus on hard-intensive skills. Our students take pride in showcasing their hard skills, especially when they list the programming languages and frameworks they know. On the other hand, I often hear from non-computer science colleagues about their difficulty in interacting and collaborating with computer science professionals. While we may be fluent in many “languages”, our difficulty to communicate effectively undermines our field. We need to develop not only our hard skills but also our ability to effectively communicate our knowledge to others. After several years of developing assessments aimed at helping students understand the importance of soft skills while applying their hard skills, I found the following three assessments yielded excellent results.

THE VIDEO PILL

Description. This is a scalable assessment designed for large and diverse classrooms, aimed at promoting the creation of video-based learning resources by and for students using active learning methodologies. It encourages authorship, creativity, and the application of theoretical knowledge learned in the classroom. The assignment consists of two stages and the target audience for the students’ videos is other students.

For the first stage, we ask students to produce a short video between 2 to 5 minutes on any topic related to the course. The second stage involves peer-review where they assess content and format.

Marking criteria. 50% for the video and 50% for the peer review. Within the video, 25% of the evaluation focuses on the content (hard skills), while the remaining portion assesses soft skills.
Learning Opportunity. Discuss different soft skills such as communication, critical analysis, empathy, problem-solving as well as the relation of those skills to their hard skills.
Outcome. Lectures are enriched by diverse content and plurality of resources. Students identify soft skills that need further development. They practice effectively communicating their hard skills through non-traditional means, while also gaining an understanding of the needs of others in order to create video pills that are relevant to their audience.

Video Pill link

THE ESCAPE ROOM

Description. This assessment provides learners with simulated real-life scenarios, fostering problem-solving skills, increasing motivation and engagement, promoting collaboration, supporting team building, leadership, and agile thinking. It is a flexible activity that can help develop additional skills depending on the puzzles and riddles designed for it. Experiences in an escape room typically range from 30 to 60 minutes, during which participants collaboratively work together to solve puzzles and riddles in order to escape. It can run for groups of 3 to 8 students at a time. It can be applied to both small and large classes.
Marking criteria. Participation marks only. The focus is on the process and learning experience.
Learning Opportunity. Discuss the connection between puzzles and riddles in relation to the hard and soft skills necessary to successfully complete them in post-reflective sessions. Discuss the importance of teamwork to achieve goals. Overall, the escape room experience shows students the importance of time management, communication, collaboration and the importance of having a strategy and a leader to guide them to escape.
Outcome. Students often report feeling less anxious and stressed during this assessment. They also often report the need for communication, collaboration, creative thinking, problem-solving, time management, negotiation, adaptability and leadership skills. Any skill can be exercised in this assessment, it depends on the design of puzzles and riddles.
Make your own. View the video at the top of the page for a quick overview and tip & tricks to make your own Escape Room.

THE GROUP PROJECT

Description. This is an authentic assessment that simulates a real-world scenario. It goes beyond merely evaluating the quality of the product delivered; it aims to assess how well students can demonstrate what they have learned in the course and showcase their growth during its implementation. The journey is considered just as important as the final outcome. Students meet with clients (teaching staff) regularly to discuss their progress. “Surprise items” are introduced during the assessment, which mimics real-life scenarios and requires adaptability. An individual reflection along with peer-assessment and a one-minute public pitch of the project completes the assignment.
Marking criteria. The assessment is divided into several parts: technical (requires hard skills) (70%) and non-technical (requires soft skills) (30%) deliverables.
Learning Opportunity. Reflect upon the quality of the outcome based on the soft and hard skills of the team members. Understand the importance of pitching their work to a broad audience.
Outcome. Students demonstrate an understanding of the importance of soft skills over hard skills. Their reflections are often positive, mostly highlighting the soft skills of their peers rather than solely focusing on hard skills. Through self-reflection, students identify areas for improvement and interest on how to collaborate effectively within a team. Skills often listed in their peer-reviews are teamwork, collaboration, leadership, communication, time management, problem-solving, creative thinking, decision-making, adaptability, empathy, interpersonal, conflict resolution and public speaking skills.

In my courses, I still use the traditional grading system to help my students improve, but, in addition to grades, I distribute “certificates/badges” that complement their grades, and recognise students’ presentation, collaboration, teamwork and communication skills. My hope is these certificates will not only grant my students greater confidence in their soft skills, but also that they will list these soft skills on their CVs and LinkedIn profiles. I have also observed that emphasizing the importance of soft skills engages those with diverse backgrounds, opening a door for their contributions, and ultimately enables them to perform well in both soft and hard skills as their confidence increases.

These assessments and certificates emphasise to the students the importance of soft skills, showcase how grades can reflect both hard and soft skills, create a more inclusive environment rewarding individuals in their entirety, and ultimately demonstrate that AI has a long way to go before it can replace us.

Grades will still exist and are important for assessing an individual’s performance. However, they do not indicate how well someone will perform in a real-world setting. To address this limitation, awarding badges or certificates that underscore the importance of soft skills can gradually help individuals understand that high grades are enhanced when accompanied by other skills.

As the previously-cited reports suggest, there is a growing need for soft skills, and aiding students to learn and practice these skills in the classroom will contribute to their success in future careers in the real world.