Essential Skills Resources
Through consultations with faculty, students, graduates and employers, Kwantlen has defined several Essential Skills which help graduates of all programs succeed in their chosen careers. These Skills are also essential for your success in your courses and in your program. Click on a Skill to find links to resources that can help you improve that Skill.
A. Creative Thinking and Problem Solving Skills
D. Interpersonal, Teamwork and Leadership Skills (including working in groups)
E. Personal Management Skills (including Study Skills)
F. Reading and Information Skills (including citing your references and using the Library well)
J. Technological Skills (including using myKwantlen, moodle, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, etc.)
K. Citizenship and Global Perspective
Also, check the schedules on each campus Learning Centre's page for workshops on the Essential Skills.
A. Creative Thinking and Problem Solving:
- The Thinking Page - Cited as the #1 site on the Web for information on improving organizational and individual thinking. Includes information on systems thinking, creativity, cognition, cybernetics, etc.
- How Do Scientists Think? - An outline of the steps involved in verifying hypotheses, in coming to defensible conclusions about the world.
- MindTools' Problem Solving Tools - Twelve approaches to help you crack difficult problems
- The University of Canberra's Critical Thinking page - Defines critical thinking, shows how it differs between disciplines, and shows how to use it in academic work and in life in general
- Critical Thinking on the Web - A list of web resources for improving critical thinking
- Defining Critical Thinking - A definition by North America's academic Foundation for Critical Thinking
- Critical Thinking Web - Many on-line tutorials on aspects of critical thinking; downloadable mini-guides, etc. A Chinese-language version is also available through this site.
B. Oral Communication Skills:
- The guide to public speaking from the Canadian Association of Student Activity Advisors.
- Ten public speaking tips from a Canadian public relations consultant.
- James Cook University's guide to oral presentations.
- Rice University's guide to oral presentations.
- Queen's University's tips for effective oral presentations.
- A four-minute youTube video on conquering your fear of public speaking
- Griffiths University's Oral Communication Toolkit
- Brunel University's Oral Communication website homepage
C. Writing Skills:
- Kwantlen's Writing website - A very comprehensive site from Kwantlen's own English Department, with advice about everything from comma rules and subject-verb agreement to correct styles for MLA and APA citations in research essays.
- The University of Victoria's Writer's Guide
- Purdue University's OWL - the "On-line Writing Lab" - One of the oldest and best websites for advice about how to write well. It includes helpful resources for improving both academic and business writing.
- Carleton University's Writing Tutorial Service has a series of on-line resources that will take you through the whole process of writing an academic paper.
- How to Use Microsoft Word - since we don't use feather-quill pens or even typewriters to write our papers anymore, we all need to learn how to use wordprocessing software. Word is widely used, and many of its methods are used by other wordprocessors. So here's a great site for helping us learn how to write on-screen. (For more on how to use office software, see the section on Technological Skills below on this page.
- If you don't have Microsoft Word and the rest of Microsoft Office, try OpenOffice - it's totally free, downloadable, and compatible with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
Using English for Academic Purposes - the University of Hertfordshire's guide for students in higher education. A very useful site, but don't trip up on the author's acronyms: he uses UEfAP to mean Using English for Academic Purposes, HE to mean Higher Education, EAP to mean English for Academic Purposes, etc. - Academic Grammar for Students of the Arts and Social Sciences - Hong Kong University's site to help students with their academic assignments. Not just grammar: also vocabulary; writing with computers; guidelines for essays, literature revies, research reports, etc.
- Turbocharger - a guide to using computers in academic writing
- The Paradigm On-Line Writing Assistant
- Punctuation Made Simple
- Paragraph Building Writing Tips
- The Longman Web Dictionary (and see the Reading and Information Skills section below for more dictionary, thesaurus, and other related links)
- The Phrase Bank - Manchester University's site outlining expectations of and appropriate phrasing for writing in an academic environment
D. Interpersonal, Teamwork and Leadership Skills:
(including working in groups)
- A BCIT grad's summary of the teamwork skills necessary for successful group projects
- Mt Royal College's summary of the skills necessary for working in groups
- Colorado State's outline of working in groups successfully
- Griffiths University's Teamwork Toolkit
- Conflict Resolution handouts from Kwantlen's Counsellors
- A Study Guide for working in groups
E. Personal Management Skills:
(including Study Skills)
- Study Skills handouts from Kwantlen's Counsellors.
- Success Resources from Kwantlen's Student Life and Development program
- Educational Advising at Kwantlen - what courses should you take? when?
- Counselling at Kwantlen - help with the rest of your life so you can succeed in your courses
- James Cook University's outline of the organizational skills you'll need to succeed in university
- The Power of Study Groups, by the US College Board (the group which runs most of that country's college entrance exams); the site also includes many other resources on how to succeed in college and university.
F. Reading and Information Skills:
(including citing your references and using the Library well)
- Griffith University Information Literacy Toolkit
- California State University at Pomona's Techniques for Skillful Reading
- Dartmouth College's tutorial on Reading Your Textbooks Effectively and Efficiently
- Wikipedia - the most popular and dynamic on-line encyclopedia
- Britannica - the oldest and most authoritative traditional encyclopedia, now on-line
- Becoming a Savvy Scholar - MIT's first-year course which explores the scientific publication cycle, primary vs. secondary sources, and online and in-print bibliographic databases; how to search, find, evaluate, and cite information; indexing and abstracting; using special resources (e.g. patents) and "grey literature" (e.g. technical reports and conference proceedings); conducting Web searches; and constructing literature reviews. Download the course; watch the Flash™ animation tutorials on conducting library research.
- Using a Dictionary - How To... from Australia's North Coast Institute, mate!
- Kwantlen's Library Research tutorials
- Citation Style guidance and handouts from Kwantlen's Library
- BiblioExpress - A free software programme that allows you to enter information about a book or article ONCE, and then produce endless citations and bibliographies.
- Bibliographix - A unique combination of reference management and idea outlining.
- Citationmachine.net - Helps you do citations
- Remember, always check with the APA, MLA, Chicago or other appropriate manual when in doubt. But first, check that it is APA, etc. that your instructor requires you to use.
G. Visual Literacy Skills:
H. Mathematical Skills:
- SliderMath - If you have to think twice about some basic number facts - 7 times 8, for instance - you won't be as quick with math as you could be. The SliderMath videogames will help get those facts into your memory. This link will take you to the times tables game; see the rest of this site for similar games for other number facts.
- PurpleMath - For a good, clear explanation of any math topic from pre-algebra to pre-calculus, try PurpleMath.
- ALEKS - A great resource to help strengthen your math skills on your own, perhaps to help you prepare for your next semester's math course. ALEKS is an intelligent on-line electronic tutor. It will assess your current skills and then take you, step by step, from where you are in math to where you want to go. This link takes you to a quick tour of ALEKS; if you like it so far, click on 'Course Products' to see the courses available - from grade 3 math to pre-calculus and business math in the K-12 section; from basic math to pre-calculus, statistics, accounting, etc. in the Higher Education section. Signing up with ALEKS will cost about $20 for six weeks and $40 for 11 weeks.
- StatSoft - The only internet statistics resource recommended by the Encyclopedia Britannica. Explanations of any topic from variables and confidence intervals through types of distribution and regression analysis.
I. Intercultural Skills:
- "What is Intercultural Effectiveness?", and other articles by Canada's Centre for Intercultural Learning
J. Technological Skills:
- For help with myKwantlen, log in at myKwantlen with your student number and birthday (in ddmmyy format) to get to your course websites.
- Be sure to tell the myKwantlen system what your real e-mail address is, as Kwantlen uses this system to send you various important notices (like invoices, tuition tax receipts, etc.). Let the system know your correct e-mail address by taking these steps:
- Click on the e-mail logo at the top right of any myKwantlen page (don't click on 'e-mail' list on the left in myCourses)
- Go to the 'options' tab, and then to the 'auto-forward' section
- Enter your real e-mail address here
- If you need more help in using myKwantlen, try this site.
- For help with Moodle, log in through myKwantlen. If your course is using Moodle, going to that course via the 'myCourses' tab will take you into Moodle.
- For on-line help in using Moodle, sign up for the on-line Moodle 101 tutorial by logging in to this Moodle guest log-in (username guest ; password guest), and finding Moodle 101 in the 'for students' course categories.
- For help in using a keyboard efficiently, click here for a set of games that will give you practice in using a keyboard quickly and efficiently.
- Don't you wish you didn't have to take your hands off the keyboad so often? Here are lists of many keyboard shortcuts for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Windows:
for Word
for Excel
for PowerPoint
for Windows generally
- Note that many shortcuts which work with one of these programs will also work with the others, and with many other programs. For instance, 'ctrl+c' invariably means 'copy the selected thing', and 'ctrl+v' means 'paste it wherever the cursor is'.
- See also the section on using Word in the Writing Skills section earlier on this page.
- For free downloadable software which you might want to use instead of Microsoft Office's package of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc., check out OpenOffice.
K. Citizenship and Global Perspective:
Some thought-provoking articles and links:
- "The Qualities Which Go To Make a Good Citizen of the Empire" - a 1904 speech to the Empire Club in Ontario. Are any of these qualities still relevant today? Check it out.
- "The Centrality of Critical Thinking in Citizenship Education" - a 2003 article by Ian Wright, a retired UBC professor
- UFV's Institute of Research on Citizenship
- "Deliberative Democracy and Citizenship" - a recent article by George Fallis of York University
- The Global Education Network's website
- Global Perspectives - an internet newsletter for the rich and powerful
- Global Perspective - a website not particularly for the rich and powerful, but to raise awareness and promote action on global issues
- A Map of the world with the north pole down - a different perspective...
