KEY SKILLS DEVELOPMENT FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS

Abstract: The development of transferable skills in postgraduate students is becoming of importance, especially with the move to use outputs of trained researchers as a measure of the productivity of research programmes. In the University of Durham we are building a programme to develop and assess Key Skills in postgraduate students. This started as a small-scale pilot in the Department of Physics in autumn 2000 and has developed into a larger scale pilot across the Science Faculty in autumn 2001. In parallel, we are also piloting a similar programme to accredit Key Skills development in secondary PGCE students. Here, the rationale is to give student teachers real experience of developing a Key Skills portfolio and so develop insights which they can take to the classroom. Progress in developing these programmes and their associated accreditation will be reported