you know today

my name is lames hezbowie i work as a

learning advisor for career and student

success programs

here at pearson we would like to thank

you for taking the time to join our

webinar

today and we'd like to have this webinar

as a very interactive webinar

so feel free to write your comments

asking questions

um whenever you need please type it in

the chat box you have it on your

right side and i will do my best to

answer your

question um during the webinar or at the

end of the webinar

so thanks again for joining

well um how to help students

make the link between academic success

and career plans

why do we need to create this link

why do we basically need students to go

beyond

academic knowledge and to go beyond

college itself

to think what else should i do at this

stage

so today we will be talking about skills

gap soft skills framework

and then we will be discussing the link

between the academic success and career

plans

and finally we will cover student

success program

first of all i'd like to share with you

some statistics

that we gather from our global survey

conducted in pearson we found that

we have around 78 individuals

say that they need to do or to develop

more their own soft skills

we have ninety percent of uh graduate

recruiters

said the soft skills are between the

ones

uh or the top three uh ones uh or the

top three factors

they're looking at it when hiring people

90 percent of individual whom we

surveyed said that communication

were one of the most important skills

needed

to go ahead in life

now only that we have 60 percent of

hiring managers say that fresh graduates

lack critical thinking and 50 percent of

managers say that fresh

graduates are not really so why did we

start with these

statistics the idea of

creating the link between your academic

plan and between your career path

first of all it's divided into two parts

the first part is to think um am i going

through the right major

um am i studying the the the program

that i really want

uh that the market want uh what am i

gonna do once i graduate

what are the positions that i'm gonna

apply to

that's the first part we need to think

of the second part

we have to focus on is the soft

skills do i have the right skills

to pass the interview do i do i have the

right skills

to make potential employer go through my

resume

do i have the right skills to

communicate with people

so making the link between your academic

plan

and between your career path does not

only depend

on the major that you're studying which

courses are you going to take

when are you going to take it it is also

depend on you

are you equipping yourself with the

right skills we're talking here about

hard skills and soft skills as well

am i equipping myself as a student with

the right soft skills

that is requested by the workplace

that's why i i wanted to share the

statistics with you at the beginning

to highlight the importance of soft

skills

what are soft skills softer skills

basically

the skills that we need to communicate

with people

to perform our daily tasks

as a at a an excellent level

in tierson soft-scale 21st century

skills

we call it personal and social

capability is a framework

we have done an extensive research for a

21st century framework

for um employers um

requested skills or the the skills

they demand we've done an extensive

also research for the workplace

requirement

so we've done a research for the last 15

years

to come up with this framework

the identify six skills buckets

and if each and every one of us

including the students

are able either to gain these skills

or to capitalize on these skills they

are

capable of succeeding in any employment

setting

what are these skills as you can see

it's communication

critical and creative thinking

leadership self-management

social responsibility collaboration and

teamwork

so these are the skills buckets that we

identify in pearson

through our personal and social

capabilities if i work

since then every single solution we've

developed in pearson

is based on our framework to make sure

in a way or another students are able to

practice the skill or able to identify

the skill or able to assist themselves

to see

whether they have the skill or they

don't and what to do

in order to acquire the skills they need

then we've after we've un

identified um the framework

and based on our survey we knew

that there is a gap there is a gap

between um

graduates and workplace there is a gap

between high school and college

so let me focus at the second gap which

is between high school and

college at the beginning what's

happening is we have

thousand if not million of students

graduating every year

and they are looking forward to join

college so what happened during the

first year

many of these students start doubting

like why did i join college

why am i why i don't just go and apply

for work

um why did i join this major um

what do i want to do next um i don't

like this university so

all of these questions comes up in the

student's mind

uh without a reason so suddenly they

will start

asking themselves these questions

so if they're lacking motivation if

they're lacking

the why first of all they will

uh think uh like for what to do now

shall i follow the easiest decision

which is dropping out of college or

dropping this course or dropping

and this basically what's happening i've

seen

um

a record of dr david and i will tell you

um

just in a few who's dr david he said the

highest

percentage of students dropping out of

school as a during the first year which

is

during the transition year as as he

called it

so during the first year students start

understanding more what is college what

do i need to do

so if we are able to equip our students

with the wise like why are you actually

joining this major

why are you here um and

why uh uh you decided

uh uh to pursue with this particular

program

then students would start up like

reassuring to themselves like

exactly that's why i wanted to do that

so he will keep or she will keep going

so first of all we need to keep them

motivated we need to keep them aware

of what they need to do and why they

need to do it

then once they graduate from school

they they work really hard to join the

workplace

and what's happening based on the survey

as well

many graduates are being pushed back by

different

industries saying that those uh

graduates or those

um students are not really are not ready

to join the workplace

how come they're not ready if they've

been studying for five for four or five

years

so academically they already but

they're not ready in terms of the skills

to join the workplace

that is the main link we wanna discuss

today

to to make between your academic plan

and your career plans

so what we've done in pearson we've

identified the gap

and we identified the three parties

and included in this gap individuals

education systems and employers

for individuals we want them to go

beyond college

to think what should they do to

demonstrate competencies

for the education system here for

institution for schools as well

what can we do to make sure our

curriculum

focuses on equipping these students

with soft skills

and for potential employer or for

employers

to learn more how to look for

talented students how to identify those

talented students

and definitely to keep sharing with us

what do they need

what are the skills they are looking at

so after we identified the gap in

pearson

we've worked on forming our partnership

with dr david

dr david has been in the research for

college and career readiness for more

than

35 years and the reason

for that we've partnered with dr david

to design a solution for the students

to learn more about

what are the skills that they have what

are the skills that i need

and how can i work about it

so basically our solution which is

student success program

is we've designed it in a way that is

similar to my lab

i don't know if some of you have used

pearson my lab before

but pearson my lab is just as you know

or you don't know maybe i'm just sharing

this information with you

is this trusted partner basically we've

helped more than 11

million students to reach out

up to the true meaning of the courses

they are

taking and to improve basically their

lives

through learning specifically

student success lab

it is designed to help students start to

strong

and finish stronger what do i mean by

that

throughout the program journey students

will learn how to acquire the skills

they need

for ongoing personal and professional

development

so basically here we've designed student

success

program with dr david what is a student

success program

basically is a learning outcome based

technology

designed in a way to help students

advance knowledge

and build critical skills for

success how do we do that

of course with the support of dr david

we've designed formative assessment

to shape the students learning journey

and to help them measure

the gain and loses throughout this

journey

so um definitely the way the

program work it is very dynamic and

systematic at the same time

students will be able to

first of all assess who they are

assess what do i need assess

how do i do it all of that with support

of dr david

of course dr david um is

educational uh uh of policy and

leadership

at the university of oregon and also he

worked for

the ministry of education in the us

the first step that we've done to make

the link

between your academic plan and your

career path

we have embedded the cri

the colony readiness index inventory

assessment within

our student success program and the

reason for that

we want the students to get an insight

into their own learning style learn more

about their strengths and basically

specific opportunities for improvement

how do

how do they do that they do it through

it through identifying

different strategies to help them

achieve

success in college and career

so the assessment we've embedded into

the system

it has or it provides students

with um first of all a personalized

report through evaluation

and giving them kind of

profiles about themselves so every

single student

will get the likelihood of success

and will be able to learn more

um on how to work

about the the area of development

through an actionable plan provided with

the program it's

sorry provided with the assessment

itself

so what do we do basically the

assessment to start with

assessing student strength area of

development

and then we provide them with different

steps and techniques

in order to know how to work about it

how to gain it how to capitalize on your

strength

how to make sure that you're developing

your weaknesses

and then the program will give them or

sorry the report will give them

um kind of personal information about

how do you spend your day

how many hours do you spend on gaming on

playing

on um on spending time with your friends

so

it's like a mirror for you to tell you

how to work uh how do you spend your day

how could you spend your day

more efficiently so basically

the way dr david also designed

this assessment the cri designed it in a

way

where he basically assess

as he's mentioned the fundamental

building block of success

so also although we give students

a comprehensive uh information about who

they are

and what do they need every single

information is built on

on the four keys of success

which is think no act and go

so basically it starts with assessing

key cognitive strategies for the

students

and then key content knowledge how do

you act on it

what are the learning skills that you

have and last but not least how do you

go about it

the transition skills here we

have a brie oh sorry a sample of the

report that students would receive

um as i've mentioned students would

basically

learn right from the first day they

joined the college

how to make the link between their

academic plans

and their career path because this

particular report will give them like a

career aspiration

will tell them why they are motivated

why do they need to be motivated will

make the link basically between their

college and career so it is very

important to ask

students to take this assessment in the

first year of college to learn

more about what do i need to do to

succeed in my college

journey and to better prepare myself to

the workplace

and then what we've done with dr david

basically we have translated

the four keys of success into 20

different skills

all are advised and localized um

so it is safe to be used in our region

those are 20 skills that we identified

for students to work on to make sure

that they're able to succeed in college

and definitely after that in career

of course a program that would help

students to make the link is fully

customized so if you would like to focus

on different skills we can help you

doing so

if you would like to arrange for example

for a meeting with us

a week that you're more than welcome

definitely

we can support you

and identifying the most needed skills

for your students

definitely the program is adaptable so

it is

it shows the students also the skills

that they need to work on

so we've implemented this program in

many

universities and schools here in the

region

and so far we have a very positive

feedback about it because

it really helps the students to make

progress in their lives

once students completed the program this

is

just for your information once they

completed the program successfully and

they have mastered skills

they will be receiving a badge this

badge will

identify um uh oh sorry will prove

to the potential employer that they are

ready they are

well equipped with soft skills required

or requested by the

working place this badge can be shared

on

any social media website so they can add

it to their twitter instagram

snapchat whatever application they want

however it's mandatory to be shared on

linkedin and the reason for

that we want to make sure that they are

aware of linkedin

right from year one or even if they're

still at the high school

because throughout the college we help

them how to

uh build an attractive linkedin profile

and they can duplicate this on any uh

e-profile they want to create

but the the main idea here is to

show them the importance of

developing or creating an attractive

link and profile

the potential employer can easily

all right

so let's know if you have any question

at this stage so so far we covered

three uh points in our um

webinar the first one is what are the

soft skills and we've highlighted the

importance of soft skills

the statistic i shared with you guys

choices

as um

really a huge demand for these skills

so it's very important in a way or

another it becomes our responsibilities

to make sure those students are aware of

this

and know the how of acquiring these

skills and then we've highlighted

the link between uh

your students or not your students

academic plan

and their career path and the way they

do it easily

is through um scientific assessment

and through a skilled journey that we

have designed that

simply for pearson to uh for students

uh um to to join

uh um of course anytime they would like

but also

to ensure that they have the tool

they need to acquire these skills

it's very easy to say that hey you need

communication skills or

you're not really presentable or you're

not um

like a public speaker or you don't know

how to

talk to people or you don't know how to

manage your time

you don't respect others all of these

kind

of feedback we usually hear from people

it is important but what is what's more

important than that

is to how to be aware

first of the of myself who really am i

what are my values what are the skills

that i have

what are the skills that i lack so when

i hear this

from people i either accept it and i say

i know

i have this i am working on it and

i i thank you for your feedback i'm

making sure that as

um i am really

aware of this for next time for example

uh or more aware of this

but i assure you i am working on it

or if you're not aware of yourself you

don't know your values you don't know

who you really

are simply you will start defending and

say of course i am not

of course i know how to communicate with

people of course i respect other

and you start something and maybe losing

the opportunity of improving yourself

but imagine there is no human

being interaction at this stage imagine

students

are able to assess who they are using a

scientific assessment to tell them

that this these are the things that

you're good at

and these are the things that you lack

and you need to work on

so imagine uh there is no kind i

wouldn't be embarrassed i wouldn't be

shy because all

are systematic so i would know who am i

and then i will i'll i'll work

on because that i really need to acquire

and develop

throughout an adoptable journey and then

which will make me ready basically to

succeed in college and

career so when somebody comes to tell

you hey you're not really

a good communicator you can't say hey

hold on

what makes you say that because you're

fully aware

that you're a really really good

communicator and you know how to

communicate with others

so maybe that the other person is only

criticizing

so you need to stop that particular

person and ask him what makes you

say that give me an example

and start clarifying more of uh

okay why did i do that is because of one

two three

and you would reach that point only when

you're really aware of

your skills and um what do you need

and what are you good at

i will answer all of your questions

shortly