Course description
This course is designed to provide students who experience barriers to education and employment with the opportunity to develop workplace skills and behaviours that contribute to job success. It emphasizes the importance of the skills needed to enter working situations with improved confidence and to assertively and to handle employment-related interpersonal situations assertively. The focus of the course is to support students to practice job interview skills.
Course content
Topics to be explored include:
- Effective communication utilizing assertiveness, active listening, paraphrasing, asking questions and awareness of nonverbal communication
- Giving and receiving positive and constructive feedback
- Workplace communication and employability skills
- Problem-solving strategies
- Time-management tools and strategies
- Preparing and responding to job interview questions
- Mindfulness
- Basic computer skills including formatting Microsoft Word documents and emailing
- Rights and responsibilities around disclosing a disability
Means of assessment
Assessment will be in accordance with the Douglas College Evaluation Policy. An evaluation schedule is presented at the beginning of the course. This is a mastery-graded course.
Typical means of evaluation would include a combination of:
- Mid-point and final self-assessments
- Demonstration of skills
- Regular attendance and participation in class activities
Instructors may use a student's record of attendance and/or level of active participation as part of the student's graded performance. Expectations and grade calculations regarding class attendance and participation will be clearly defined in the instructor’s course outline/syllabus.
Learning outcomes
At the conclusion of the course, a successful student will be able to:
- Display/use effective communications.
- Engage in active listening.
- Differentiate between passive, aggressive and assertive communication.
- Demonstrate initiative, dependability and reliability on the job.
- Employ appropriate conversational skills with fellow students, coworkers and employers.
- Demonstrate respectful interactions in a diverse multicultural learning/work environment.
- Demonstrate cooperative workplace behaviours.
- Identify ways of demonstrating initiative on the job.
- Demonstrate problem-solving strategies.
- Demonstrate time-management strategies.
- Identify and demonstrate safe work practices as per WorkSafeBC guidelines.
- Prepare for a job interview.
- Present themselves at job interviews in a professional manner.
- Respond to interview questions by representing their strengths and specific industry skills.
- Ask relevant questions of potential employers.
Textbook materials
Relevant material will be provided throughout the course.