Insights on current methods for teaching soft skills- Literature review

1. Students need to apply what they learned in the classroom and apply to real world scenarios. School using different methods to integrate student learning in employment environment.

• actual employment / internships
• job shadowing opportunities
• case studies
• Role-playing
• Flipped classroom methods

2. By given set of goals for student to improve gradually, start from the beginning level and give more challenge as the learning engagement goes up.

3. Mentorship is important in the learning process. Pair up students to a senior level employer will help students to understand the employment environment better.

• Peer mentorship is great for students as well. Pairing more experienced junior and senior level students with less experienced freshmen and sophomores.
• The mentor-student relationship is important for women and other individuals who are underrepresented in our nation’s companies.

4. Reflection and feedback loops are a critical process for students to improve their soft skills.

• Self-reflect on and self-assess their experiences with the real-world mentorship in learning experience
• Peer mentor and real-world mentor also can give feedbacks to help students to improve

5. Since every students come from different background, it hard to apply one size fit all method to teach them soft skills. Therefore, by understanding students thinking process profile based on personality type, could design better learning experience for the learners.

• It is necessity to implement these soft skills through a system called soft skills management system. Through soft skills management system, the achieving process of the goal can be realized and intentionally done by benefitting from a well-prepared plan, execution and evaluation.
• Students profile of cognitive process showed by each personality type in solving problems are different, for instance, in understanding problems, each personality type takes different approach.
• Cognitive process profile of students in solving mathematical problems based on classification of personality type

-Rational: begins to solve the problems by following the sequence of sentences of problem statements, extracting the main idea of each sentence and symbolizing these ideas.

-Idealist: consists of following the sequence of sentences constructing problem statements, extracting the main ideas, and repeatedly moving a pen.

-Artisan: starts the problem solving process by following the sequence of sentences in problem statement, extracting the essential ideas, and moving parts of body frequently.

-Guardian: initiates to solve the problem by following the sentences’ sequence in problem statement, grasping the primary ideas, and highlighting the important parts of problem statement.

Teacher will tailor the leaning model, depends on personality types of learners

6. As school implementing technology to student’s learning experience, it not hard to imagine that medical students could learn soft skills through role-play in virtual environment.

• Medical students already have the mindset that they will be serving people for their career, so they are aware that soft skills are important for them to tackle.
• Educators have great emphasis on teaching and assessing ‘generic’ and ‘employability’ skills which encompass qualities such as ‘teamwork’ and ‘social competence’.
• Recent improvements in the sophistication and affordability of virtual reality, virtual worlds and other 3D tools have led to renewed interest in their use for healthcare education, including for soft skills training and evaluation.
• Virtual environments, combined with online learning management and reporting platforms, offer potential for addressing this gap through affordable and scalable simulations.