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Computational thinking, critical thinking, and problem-solving, oh my... walking the golden path to soft skills in higher education.

By Casey Miller

We often feel like we are laying the golden brick road on the way to the proverbial Emerald City. Like the unsung heroes of Oz, we balance knowledge and technical skills, soft skills, traditional and non-traditional teaching methods, and a variety of instructional modalities online and hybrid… the list seems never-ending. The pendulum swings and pulls us slightly off course; the challenges can be obstacles, or we can pull back the curtain to see what lies beyond. I am positive you can name a few more you’ve encountered. There will likely be more new ones tomorrow; sometimes, it's merely a re-branding of the theme, and other times, it revolutionizes our thinking and changes our trajectory.

Then, the ever-mercurial future shifts, and so does our end goal. Unquestionably, we still focus on retention, matriculation, and painting our students into the portrait of Texas Wesleyan Alumni. But, much like Dorothy finds when she meets the Wizard, new challenges arise when it seems like we finally arrived. Therefore, what can we do to capitalize rather than capsize when the waves of change hit?

After conversations with many educators, there are concerns about students not quite being prepared for college, much less entering the workforce, and the workforce seems to agree. Article after article presumes that attaining and practicing soft skills greatly impacts students' likelihood of successfully entering the workforce or retaining employment post-graduation (Zhan, Schöbel, Saqr, Söllner 2024). Soft skills (also referred to as transferrable skills, twenty-first-century skills, or personal skills) take on the burden of communication, conflict resolution, reflection, self-awareness, tenacity, and mindset (Quintans-Júnior et al., 2023).

As there are many answers to this, we will take a line from our heroes and look at the Tin Man's heart, the Lion's courage, the Scarecrow’s brains, and Dorothy's tenacity.

The Tin Man’s Heart

The art of how to interact effectively with other people. Its relative terms are teamwork, collaboration, interpersonal skills, conflict resolution, respecting others, and behaving appropriately given a particular situation.

The most interesting finding about these specific skills was their relationship to emotional distress and resiliency (Kaler-Jones & EnCompass LLC, 2022). When given opportunities to practice these behaviors, they were much less likely to experience high and sustained stress levels when they had the coping mechanisms to process or manage (Quintans-Júnior et al., 2023). This is also related to their ability to manage emotions, set goals, and build relationships (Shonkoff et al., 2005).

In essence, what makes us human and what the computer cannot do must be emphasized over what we know.

The Lion’s Courage

“You are under the unfortunate delusion that simply because you run away from danger, you have no courage. You're confusing courage with wisdom (The Wizard of Oz (1939) - Quotes - IMDB, n.d.).”

Courage and using our knowledge with wisdom encompass the ability to communicate and do so effectively. It will vary by audience, from interacting with friends and family to peers, professors, and colleagues. An effort to listen and engage in conversation to understand rather than be limited in responding. Effective communication includes verbal, written, and non-verbal modalities (Trevino, 2024).

The Scarecrow’s Brain

To a greater degree, higher-order thinking skills weave themselves better into our current educational landscape. Higher-order thinking skills are essential abilities that go beyond just remembering facts.

They involve analyzing information, making connections, and creatively solving problems. However, that doesn’t indicate that students are grasping and transferring these concepts into the real world. In today’s world, where technology and artificial intelligence can shape a new reality based on an algorithm, students must develop these skills. This means learning how to think critically about information, asking questions, and finding unique solutions to challenges, even when there is no single "correct" answer.

Dorothy's Tenacity

The idea of “mindset” has been around for a long time, that one can learn, that intelligence can be developed, and that you can learn through failure just as much as success (Trevino, 2024).

Another interesting thought was that a long-term, continuous stress response tends to depress problem-solving and intellectual flexibility. Specifically looking at mindset as a contributing factor to alleviating the long-term effects.

“Stressed-out students aren’t thinking about solutions. If you want students to learn from mistakes and overcome obstacles, think about ways to encourage them to adopt a growth mindset (Terada, 2018).” 

Integration

What does this look like in our classrooms and planning for learning? The emphasis moves from lecture and discourse to experiential learning. These experiences allow students to apply their soft skills while interacting with others in real-world settings. These experiences help bridge the gap between academic knowledge and practical application.

Examples are:

Internships
Co-op programs
Field-based learning experiences
Volunteer Work
Extracurricular activities: sports, clubs, student government
Leadership opportunities, memberships, associations
Campus jobs
Serving as RA
Game-based and problem-based learning, simulations, case studies, scenario-based problem sets
Active learning strategies: role-play, discussions, debate, presentations
Coping and stress management skills: mindfulness, breathing, meditation, reflection
Networking, interviews, mentorship
Feedback loop: An active participant will be able to provide and receive feedback from both peer-to-peer and instructors

Final Thoughts

It becomes clear that the ties between well-being, mental health, resilience, coping skills, managing emotions, changes, and relationships are all intertwined with these skills. The development and practice of these skills are becoming more and more necessary and require intentional integration as a regular part of learning in higher education (Wilkie, 2023).

One area that can impact even the most intentional of offerings is that some students may not fully appreciate the importance of soft skills, leading to a lack of motivation to develop them. Or lack the motivation to participate in activities of their own volition that would develop these skills naturally (Wilkie, 2023). If you’ve ever been a part of a group project before, you know exactly what I mean. It is also evident that not all educators at this level recognize the differences between pedagogy and andragogy. When the adult brain processes learning experiences, it experiences learning from the inside out, and it wants to know why upfront. In other words, students’ perspectives and input guide the adoption of curricular content, pedagogy, and application of concepts (Kaler-Jones & EnCompass LLC, 2022).

References

Kaler-Jones, C. & EnCompass LLC. (2022). SOFT SKILLS DEVELOPMENT TO ADVANCE STUDENT-CENTERED HIGHER EDUCATION. In USAID/DEVELOPMENT, DEMOCRACY, AND INNOVATION CENTER FOR EDUCATION. https://www.edu-links.org/sites/default/files/media/file/Soft%20Skills%20Development%20to%20Advance%20Student-Centered%20Higher%20Education.pdf

Mwita, K., Kinunda, S., Obwolo, S., & Mwilongo, N. (2023). Soft skills development in higher education institutions. International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), 12(3), 505–513. https://doi.org/10.20525/ijrbs.v12i3.2435

Quintans-Júnior, L. J., Correia, D., & Martins-Filho, P. R. (2023). The rising Significance of Soft Skills in Postgraduate Education: Nurturing Well-Rounded Professionals for the Modern World. Revista Da Sociedade Brasileira De Medicina Tropical, 56. https://doi.org/10.1590/0037-8682-0245-2023

Selingo, J., Quillen, C., Blumenstyk, G., Stough, N., & Baszile, J. (2021). The soft skills gap. In Adobe, The Chronicle. https://connect.chronicle.com/rs/931-EKA-218/images/Softskills_adobe_KeyTakeaways.pdf

Shonkoff, J. P., Levitt, P., Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Bunge, S., Cameron, J. L., Duncan, G. J., Fisher, P. A., Fox, N. A., Gunnar, M. R., Hensch, T., Martinez, F. D., Mayes, L. C., McEwen, B. S., Nelson, C. A., Boyce, W. T., Lozoff, B., Phillips, D. A., Thompson, R., . . . Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (2005). Excessive stress disrupts the architecture of the developing brain. In Working Paper 3 (Updated Edition). http://www.developingchild.harvard.edu

Terada, Y. (2018, August 24). The science behind student stress. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/science-behind-student-stress

The Wizard of Oz (1939) - Quotes - IMDB. (n.d.). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/quotes/?item=qt0409896&ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Trevino, N. G. (2024, August 9). Class to Career: essential soft skills every college student needs. TimelyCare. https://timelycare.com/blog/class-to-career-essential-soft-skills-every-college-student-needs/

Wilkie, D. (2023, December 21). Employers say students aren’t learning soft skills in college. SHRM. https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/employee-relations/employers-say-students-arent-learning-soft-skills-college

Zahn, E., Schöbel, S., Saqr, M., & Söllner, M. (2024). Mapping soft skills and further research directions for higher education: a bibliometric approach with structural topic modelling. Studies in Higher Education, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2024.2361831

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