natsci.keele.ac.ukChemical Education Journal (CEJ),
Vol. 10, No. 2 /Registration No. 10-15/Received May 13, 2008.
URL = http://chem.sci.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp/cejrnlE.html
natsci.keele.ac.ukAbstract
Most universities around the world accept that all of their graduates
need to develop a range of skills, not only in their specific
discipline, but more generic 'transferable skills' too. In the
UK, several drivers have ensured that this is the case for chemistry:
in 1997, the Dearing report recommended that all degrees should
empower graduates with so-called 'key skills; several reports
from chemical industries identified team work, report-writing,
time-management, and presentation skills as essential characteristics
of their employees; finally, the Quality Assurance Agency required
all subjects to specify programme outcomes for all degrees, and
a range of transferable skills are now embedded in the descriptors
for all degrees, including chemistry.
If transferable skills are both required and desirable in our graduates, what is the best way of delivering them within our degree programmes? One approach would be to teach them generically using a central university facility - this has many obvious advantages such as the efficient use of resources, and the employment of lecturers who have the specialist expertise. I will argue, however, that the students only really engage with this important part of their education if it is embedded within their degree, involves the use of their chosen subject in various 'transferable skills' activities, and is delivered by their chemistry lecturers.
This paper is based on a presentation to the 12th Asian Chemical Congress (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2007); in it, I will explain the background to the importance of transferable skills in chemistry degree programmes in the UK, provide some guidance for developing appropriate exercises, and offer further details for two examples of such exercises. The material is based on a 'Communicating Chemistry' module developed at Heriot-Watt University (Bailey, 1997, 2001; Bailey & Shinton, 1999; Fry et al., 2003), and more specific exercises that have been developed subsequently (e.g. Bailey, 2005, 2007).