Generic skills in higher education

Abstract

Background

At the Faculty of forestry sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå, we have actively worked to outline a strategy for implementing generic skills in our programmes. It started out as a project in March 2010, but was made permanent in July 2011. The work is a cooperation between the Learning resource centre/Forestry library and the faculty. My position as LRC-pedagogue is a combined position (financed 50% by the library and 50% by the faculty). My work comprises of educational development of teaching staff and researchers, and also includes teaching students at basic, advanced, and doctoral level.

Workshop

In the workshop, we take some basic questions as a starting point in order to get a clear picture of what generic skills are, and why and how we can work with them:

• What? Short introduction on what generic skills are.
• Why? The importance of working actively with generic skills.
• How? Presentation of how the work is done at the Faculty of forestry sciences, SLU, Umeå.
• Who? Discussion of how generic skills can be implemented at your own faculty/programme/course, in cooperation between different institutions. We work with practical examples, adapted to your experience and needs.