The Dallas College Marketable Skills initiative is a student-centric approach to employability and living-wage opportunities in Dallas County. It matches the skills inherent in our Core Curriculum to the “soft skills” desired by employers and helps faculty and students articulate the employability skills developed in existing coursework.
Marketable Skills are essential for Dallas College students because:
- Students want to know how college will pay off for them, while employers want to know what skills students possess. Dallas College Marketable Skills work to ensure everyone is on the same page.
- According to a recent
Modern Campus survey, 65% of Gen Z students expect their college experience to result in being career ready – but students often have a hard time connecting the work they do in Core Curriculum classes with the skills that employers want.
- It’s not a real skills gap, but rather, as
Forbes notes, a “skills awareness gap.” That means Dallas College students learn valuable, foundational skills throughout the Core but might have a hard time explaining what they've learned to potential employers. The Dallas College Marketable Skills initiative is designed to reduce this awareness gap by purposely identifying and aligning Core assessments with specific marketable skills.
Preparing for Future Careers while completing the Core Curriculum
Dallas College Marketable Skills are housed within the six (6) outcomes assessed in the Core Curriculum:
Critical Thinking
The Critical Thinking Core Objective allows students to develop these skills: analyze issues; anticipate problems, solutions and consequences; apply knowledge to make decisions; detect patterns/themes/underlying principles; gather proper resources and information to conduct research; and interpret data and synthesize information.
Communication
Classes that assess the Communication Core Objective allow students to develop skills including: clearly and effectively articulating complex issues and ideas in written and/or oral form; facilitating discussion; summarizing information; using active listening and interviewing skills; and using proper technical writing skills.
Personal Responsbility
Personal Responsibility skills include those that make anyone a successful employee: accepting responsibility; demonstrating ethical behavior; exhibiting time management; learning and growing from mistakes; showing attention to detail; and showing respect for others.
Teamwork
The Teamwork Core Objective allows students to practice many skills that are desired by employers, such as: accepting responsibility for one’s role on a team/fulfilling team expectations; fostering collaboration with colleagues; managing group conflict; making collaborative decisions; providing and receiving useful feedback; and being welcoming of diverse viewpoints.
Social Responsibility
Students fulfill the Social Responsibility Core Objective while developing the following skills: demonstrate awareness of community issues; demonstrate awareness of global issues; demonstrate empathy; develop civic responsibility; learn from diverse culture, races, genders, religions, etc.; understand cultural norms.
Quantitative and Empirical
Students learning Quantitative and Empirical skills in the Core practice skills including: Communicating results using tables/charts/graphs; contextualizing data; demonstrating logical thinking; designing an experiment or model; using appropriate calculations to solve problems; the ability to draw inferences from data and using data to formulate conclusions.
Marketable Skills Faculty Integrators
Beginning in Fall 2022, students will interact with Core Curriculum faculty committed to bringing the world of work into the classroom, and assisting students in becoming “career ready” by working with Career and Transfer Skills Development.
Faculty Integrators implement career-relevant teaching and learning by engaging in four intentional steps:
Awareness
Students are alerted to the marketable skills integration through introductory modules available in all Faculty Integrator courses
Connection
Faculty Integrators connect coursework to the relevant marketable skills
Demonstration
Faculty Integrators align existing assignments with marketable skills and/or design new assignments with marketable skills practice at top of mind.
Reflection
Students are provided opportunities to reflect on the skills they practiced in Faculty Integrator courses.
Faculty Integrator Spotlight
Why am I a Marketable Skills Faculty Integrator?
Read all Faculty Integrator Spotlights
I wanted to join a community of faculty who share ideas and methods for improving communication with students about how their classes prepare them for careers and provide professional growth. —Dr. Jennifer Baggett, Biology
Students who can articulate the job skills they learn in our classes are likely to secure better-paying jobs, which can then enable them to further their education. —Kristina Hunsinger, Philosophy
What Students Are Saying About Marketable Skills
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Using the marketable skills in each of my classes assisted me in developing and improving job skills necessary for future jobs.
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I used critical thinking skills to anticipate problems that I may have throughout this class journey. No matter how much I know or don’t know to solve them, I could stay focused, because it was also someone available to help.
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Communication is the marketable skill I find myself using both in my class and in my life. This skill helped me in developing and improving my writing and in organizing my essays.
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The breakdown of marketable skills made it easier for me to conceptualize the qualities I should try to exude in my resume and in interviews.
For more information, contact:
Sharon Manna
- Interim Dean, Marketable Skills, and Digital Badging