Interpersonal and Foundation Skills - 2024 entry

***DEGREE APPRENTICESHIP STUDENTS ONLY ***

In this module you will develop your interpersonal and foundation skills, which are the `transferable` skills, knowledge and understanding that all professional employees require to be productive and effective in the workplace.  These skills include:

• Communication: Digital and Technology Solutions professionals work closely with colleagues in a variety of different organisational roles and their effectiveness is partially dependent on their ability to communicate well.
• Leadership and collaboration: Digital and Technology Solutions professionals need to be effective collaborators and inspiring leaders.
• Negotiation: Digital and Technology Solutions professionals require strong negotiation skills.
• Analytical and critical thinking, including creativity: Strong analytical and critical thinking skills are a foundation for many activities that Digital and Technology Solutions professionals undertake.
• Mathematical foundations: Digital and Technology Solutions professionals require a solid foundation in mathematics. These needs will vary depending on your chosen specialty.

The aim of this module is to ensure that you can demonstrate the following competences:

• Communication
• Leadership and collaboration
• Negotiation
• Analytical and critical thinking, including creativity
• Use of mathematics

On successful completion of this module, you should be able to:

Module Specific Skills and Knowledge:

1. Fluent in written communications, with the ability to articulate complex issues, taking into account the reader’s viewpoint and have demonstrated competence in this.

2. Able to make concise, engaging and well-structured verbal presentations, arguments and explanations of varying lengths by using various methods, with and without the use of media, taking into account the audience viewpoint at all times.

3. Use a range of virtual collaboration tools (such as wikis, blogs, shared collaboration spaces, etc.)

4. Understand how to gain insight into the preferences, motivations, strengths and limitations of other people, from a variety of diverse backgrounds and demonstrate how they use these insights to work more effectively with and to motivate others in group situations.

5. Competent in active listening and in leading, influencing and persuading others, understanding the implications of defensive behaviour and personal strategies to overcome it, demonstrating knowledge of appropriate techniques and the ability to use them effectively in realistic situations.

6. Able to give and receive feedback constructively, demonstrating how they incorporate it into their own development and life-long learning.

7. Work effectively in diverse teams

8. Able to put forward, demonstrate value and gain commitment to a moderately complex technology-oriented solution, demonstrating understanding of business need, using open questions and summarising skills and basic negotiating skills.

9. Negotiate with managers about priorities, resources, estimates of time etc.

10. Negotiate with providers about service levels, quality and performance of deliverables

11. Facilitate negotiations between competing internal interests

12. Creative, self-motivated and self-aware and able to reflect on successes and failures in ways that strengthen their positive attitude and develop their self-reliance through an understanding of their own personal preferences, styles, strengths and weaknesses.

13. Solve complex problems using structured problem solving techniques

14. Able to investigate the context of complex problems using a variety of resources (professional, academic, crowd-sourced).

15. Use quantitative analysis techniques appropriately and effectively

Discipline Specific Skills and Knowledge:

16. Statistics and probability.

17. Algorithmic thinking

18. Discrete mathematics.

Personal and Key Transferable/ Employment Skills and  Knowledge:

19. Organise your own work

20. Work to a deadline

21. Make decisions

22. Conduct independent research

Communication (2 weeks)

•          Written communications

•          Oral presentations; use of media

•          Adapting delivery to suit your audience

•          Interviewing; active listening; using open questions; summarising

•          Virtual collaboration tools (wikis, blogs, shared collaboration spaces, etc.)

Leadership and collaboration (2 weeks)

•          Working effectively in diverse teams

•          Understanding others’ preferences, motivations, strengths and limitations

           o          Using insights to work effectively with and motivate others

•          Giving, receiving and acting on feedback

•          Leading, influencing and persuading others

           o          Persuasion skills

           o          Making a case for an IT solution

           o          Defensive behaviour and strategies to overcome it

•          Role-plays in realistic situations

•          Negotiation

           o          Basic negotiating skills

                       - Negotiating with managers and providers

           o          Facilitating negotiations

Analytical thinking, critical thinking and creativity (2 weeks)

•          Personal attributes

           o          Self-awareness

                       - Understanding own personal preferences, styles, strengths and weaknesses

                       - Reflecting on successes and failures

           o          Self-motivation; positive attitude and self-reliance

           o          Critical thinking

           o          Being creative

•          Using analytical thinking to address complex problems

           o          Using structured techniques

           o          Investigating problem context using a variety of resources (professional, academic, crowdsourced)

           o          Computational and abstract thinking

Mathematics (5 weeks)

•          Revision of elementary maths concepts

•          Elementary statistics and probability

•          Logic; algorithmic thinking

•          Sets and matrices

•          Algebra and linear equations; graphs

•          Using quantitative analysis techniques appropriately and effectively

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be deferred in the assessment. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you may be required to sit a referral. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 40%.

ELE: http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/

Reading list for this module: