This module provides learning opportunities that enable you to acquire the skills and qualities that will enhance your prospects, horizons and personal success, thus preparing the you for the expectations of the world of work. The foundations of being able to carry out inquiry based learning and critical analysis will be developed. Your work ready and employability skill set will be enhanced helping give you the technological, digital and information literate underpinning expected of graduates today. Within the scientific framework we will help you begin to understand the importance of being enterprising and entrepreneurial and strengthen your ability to apply graduate attributes to a range of life experiences to facilitate life-long learning.

Students will attend a series of interactive student-centred Skills Workshops, which will include the appreciation and development of CV writing, study skills, employability skills, presentation/communication skills, and an online presence, such as through a LinkedIn profile. In particular students will review the skills and qualities they already possess, with reference to how these skills relate to those skills and attributes regarded as critical by employers, and will create a personal development statement as part of a reflective portfolio.

Workshops and lectures will introduce and develop the core skills associated with HE study with an emphasis on developing you as a `chemist’ in the broadest sense.
Core skills will be introduced including the fundamentals of statistics as applied within the chemical sciences. These sessions will include the nature of the scientific method, types of data, descriptive statistics and the fundamentals of inferential statistics.

1. Carry out inquiry based learning and critical analysis by demonstrating an awareness of personal responsibility for your own learning as a professional scientific practitioner
PROBLEM SOLVING
REFLECTION

2. Explain and apply a range of mathematical, data handling and statistical techniques that underpin practice within the chemical sciences
ANALYSIS

3. Demonstrate a high level of IT, oral and written communication skills
COMMUNICATION
LEARNING

4. Display the ability to work in a team to develop, execute and present the outcome of an investigation appropriate to the level of study
ANALYSIS
COMMUNICATION
ENQUIRY

Students will complete 2 elements of assessment for this module:

1. GROUP POSTER PRESENTATION, displaying the outcome of a team executed mini-research project, worth 30% of the module (50% of the marks will be determined through peer assessment) (learning outcomes 1, 3 and 4

2. REFLECTIVE PDP PORTFOLIO, 2000 words, worth 70% of the module – FINAL (learning outcomes 1, 2 and 3)

3. Formative assessment: Students will be provided with formative assessment and feedback throughout the interactive lecture / seminar sessions. (all learning outcomes)

Each week there will be a 2-hour interactive lecture / seminar during which students will be introduced to core material, develop their understanding through problem-solving exercises undertaken in class and provided with opportunities to work independently or in groups towards the assessments = 24 hours
The remaining 126 hours of independent study will be used to research background information related to the delivery of the core material and to work independently and with group members to develop the assessments.

Cottrell (2013), The Study Skills Handbook, Palgrave MacMillan

Trought (2011), Brilliant Employability Skills, Prentice Hall

During both semesters there will be 4 x 2h sessions allocated to Personal Development planning (PDP). In these sessions students will work in a group on developing materials such as their CV and a learning action plans, and enhancing their transferrable and employability skills.
During semester 2 each week there will be a 2-hour interactive lecture / seminar during which students will be introduced to core material, develop their understanding through problem-solving exercises undertaken in class and provided with opportunities to work independently or in groups towards the assessments = 24 hours
The remaining 110 hours of independent study will be used to research background information related to the delivery of the core material and to work independently and with group members to develop the assessments.