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 Inside Higher Education Student Voice survey, 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 expanded outcomes assessed in the Core Curriculum:
Critical Thinking
The Critical Thinking Core Objective allows students to develop a wide variety of skills:
- Analyze issues
- Complex/creative problem solving: anticipate problems, solutions and consequences
- Knowledge application: apply knowledge to make decisions
- Pattern detection: detect patterns/themes/underlying principles
- Research: gather proper resources and information to conduct research
- Analysis and interpretation: analyzing and interpreting data to synthesize information
Communication
Classes that assess the Communication Core Objective allow students to develop skills including:
- Effective written communication: clearly and effectively articulate complex issues/ideas in written form
- Effective oral communication: clearly and effectively articulate ideas orally
- Facilitate discussion: using active listening and interviewing skills
- Effective presentation skills: present ideas to an audience
- Synthesizing ideas: summarize information from diverse sources
- Effective interpersonal communication: clearly articulate ideas to diverse groups
Leadership and Personal Responsibility
Personal Responsibility skills include those that make anyone a successful employee and future leader, including:
- Self-motivation and initiative: demonstrate time management and attention to detail
- Ethical behavior: demonstrate ethical behavior and decision-making
- Growth mindset: learn and grow from mistakes
- Demonstrate adaptability and flexibility
- Team leadership: lead and manage teams
- Respect: demonstrate consideration and courtesy to others
Teamwork
The Teamwork Core Objective allows students to practice many skills that are desired by employers, such as:
- Fulfill team expectations: accept responsibility for role on a team
- Effective collaboration skills: negotiate team roles and responsibilities
- Team management: make collaborative decisions, manage team conflict
- Provide and/or receive useful feedback
- Embrace perspectives: work effectively with people from different backgrounds
Global Awareness and Social Responsibility
Students fulfill the Social Responsibility Core Objective while developing the following skills:
- Community awareness: demonstrate awareness of community issues
- Global awareness: demonstrate awareness of global issues
- Demonstrate empathy: recognize the emotions and perspectives of others
- Develop civic responsibility: demonstrate good citizenship
- Develop cultural competency: learn from diverse cultures, races, genders, religions, etc.
- Demonstrate inclusivity: foster a sense of belonging
Quantitative and Empirical
Students learning Quantitative and Empirical skills in the Core practice skills including:
- Data visualization and presentation: communicate results using tables, charts, graphs
- Contextualize numeric information/data
- Demonstrate logical thinking
- Experimental design: design an experiment or model
- Data inference: draw inferences from data, use data to formulate conclusions
- Mathematical reasoning: use appropriate calculations to solve problems
Marketable Skills Faculty Integrators
Students 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 there 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