In an engineering educational institute, a typical teacher requires soft skills by which he can engage and motivate students.

1. Quality education delivery through Soft Skills
S G Deshmukh
FDP on Promoting Quality in Higher Technical Education , 18 Jan 2016
ABV-Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management
www.iiitm.ac.in

2. Basic tenets
• Students need to be engaged
• Students need to participate
• Students to be viewed as co-producer
• Students need to be mentored and developed
• Students to be viewed as learners
• Role of soft skills assume significance for
quality delivery !!

3. Observation
• Traditionally we focus on “only teaching”
• We neglect other aspects
– Social relationships (significant others, parents, and peers)
– Environment (students are not conscious that they need time to
adopt to a new environment, they should also be aware of
environment)
– Physical health
–The best that can be realistically achieved may be
to facilitate the development in students of the
understandings, skills and attributes that will help
them to make a success of their careers.

4. Skills Expected
• Technical skills : Subject matter
• Ability to ask questions
• Ability to work independently
• Ability to identify with the community
• Soft skills: Leadership, Communication, team work,
perseverance , tenacity etc.

5. Soft Skills
• Communication
• Enthusiasm and Attitude
• Team work
• Networking
• Problem solving & Critical thinking
• Professionalism

6. Skill Set ..
Hard Skills
• Domain knowledge
• Problem solving aptitude
• Ability to use/handle
technology
• Ability to analyze
• Ability to synthesize
• Ability to innovate
Soft Skills
• Ability to communicate
• Ability to work in a team
• Ability to lead and inspire
• Ability to have a positive
frame of mind

7. Basis for need of Soft skill
• Employability surveys (McKinsey, Nasscom
etc.)
• Feedback from employers
• Observations from faculty/experts

8. Soft Skill : Working Effectively as a Team
• Working through and with people
• Thinking “we”, not “I”
• Getting the Team to work together by:
– Giving the team the big picture
– Dividing work fairly
– Assigning responsibility to achieve accountability
– Giving recognition

9. Use of Soft Skills for…
• Developing competencies
• Identifying weak areas
• Predicting the capabilities of students
• Assisting in competency mapping
• Developing positive frame of mind
• Enhancing the pedagogy
• Enhancing Employability of stduents

10. Insights gained
• Retention span of students is not more than 12 minutes –
Thanks to gadgets such as Mobile, Laptop, Internet, TV etc.
• They need to be engaged and teaching learning process to
be made more interesting and challenging
• Student need to be engaged in many activities
• New generation expectations and aspirations are different
and at times difficult also !
• Soft skills are hard to impart !!

11. Typical Characteristics of a good teacher

12. Interventions to promote soft skills
• Student forum
• Student festivals
• T&P Activities
• Expert sessions
• Documentary making
• Blogs,Newsletter
• Annual Publication
• Celebrations like – Technology day, Science Day, 15th
Aug, 26th Jan, World Environment Day
• Hindi Pakhwara and so on..

13. Family of Skills expected
• Coherence : Being consistent with oneself and the
surrounding environment , identifying oneself with the
subject, institution and community
• Competency: Technical proficiency, domain knowledge
• Creativity: Nurturing spirit of innovation, doing
something novel, out-of-the-box
• Collaboration: with others, similar minded individuals,
groups, networking etc.

14. Premises
• Peer-to-peer interaction facilitates nurturing
of soft skills
• Informal mechanisms work !
• An element of creativity /novelty is desirable
• Rather than teachers, mentors play an
important role
• Teaching needs to be reduced, Learning needs
to be emphasized !

15. Thank you very much !
I would appreciate your comments at
deshmukh.sg@gmail.com