Supporting the development of soft skills

This output is about emphasizing the importance of personal development in the educational process. The handbook defines the soft skills support strategy to help educators and learners proceed in improving personal skills. To monitor the process of personal development, both teachers and students need an efficient tool. Therefore,  a soft skills assessment tool has been created and made available in the app and on the eLearning platform with the access for both educators and learners.

A traffic light system is implemented in this output to motivate learners in their development. The advantage of this assessment system is obvious since it does not punish learners for not having a certain skill but it suggests which skills are to be improved and in what direction they should work.

The role of this output is to supplement the idea of combining different methods of learning – formal and informal within a digital app with the acknowledgement of soft skills. These skills have recently become a decisive factor for a person’s well-being and successful employability in the rapidly changing world. The COVID-19 pandemic proved that learners have to be ready to adapt to changing surroundings and different ways of learning and working. This requires the development of soft skills which are focused on personal, social and methodological learning. The role of an educator is very important in this aspect. It is the teacher who can introduce the essence of soft skills to learners and support them in their personal development. The soft skills assessment tool is available for educators and learners at any time along the course. Teachers assign soft skills assessment at the beginning of the course to define the current level of learners’ skills. After completing the test, both educators and learners receive feedback and discuss it in order to establish the possible ways of soft skills improvement. Learners have to work on their personal development along the course. To prove it they collect evidences of their efforts and successes using their smartphones and the feature of the app such as Card Decks or Portfolio which is visible and accessible for both educators and learners. At the end of the course, educators assess the level of learners’ soft skills and together with learners discuss their achievements.

This approach is innovative as it suggests combining different types of learning with soft skills development within the mobile app. This solution is engaging and attractive especially for learners who find documenting evidences of their learning and personal development with their smartphone convenient and easy. Moreover, learners do not need to print these evidences which is also environmentally friendly.