مساق مهارات الحياة Life skills
Course Tittle: Life Skills
Course Description
This course is designed to introduce the individuals’ roles in life in terms of types, circulation and mutual influence. It aims to increase the students’ knowledge and skills which are necessary for everyday life. It further emphasizes life-long learning skills, decision-making, time and self-management, personal communication skills, mutual trust building, verbal and non-verbal skills, effective listening, problem solving, critical thinking, team and cooperative work, and the ability to utilize contemporary technology effectively.
Course offerings and format
- This course is offered for multidisciplinary specialty; however, some contents will be modified according to specialty.
- Credit Hours: 2 credit hours (for Diploma students), 3 credit hours for (Bachelor students).
- The course will be a University Elective or requirement based on the accredited university plans.
- The students will be able to register for this course from the second semester for diploma and bachelor students.
Importance of course
Life skills are among the basic skills needed by learners and all the society members alike because of their crucial importance. Life skills enable individuals to enhance their abilities to adapt to all the surrounding circumstances and to qualify them to be integrated in a way that allows them to contribute to their own development. Life skills are personal and psychological skills that can be learned and acquired. Considerably, individuals must learn them so that they can deal with the society with greater confidence, and with a high ability to take important decisions in their life. This course reinforces working on self-development to higher levels by mastering identified life skills in order to interact and deal with others in a positive smooth manner. This leads to avoiding falling into crises and overcoming them when they occur, as well as not repeating the same mistakes of unsuccessful experiences.
The importance of life skills emerges as being integral means that enable individuals to confront their daily situations and to deal with crises with courtesy. Among the basic life skills that must be learned are the skills of problem solving, decision-making, self-awareness, empathy, creative and critical thinking, managing emotions and facing pressure, communicating, working under pressure, time management and goals setting.
Based on the aforementioned, we can enumerate the importance of this course as follows:
1. Achieving integration between the university and life by correlating between the learners’ needs, life situations and the needs of society. Considerably, this helps learners to manage their life in a form of flexibility and effectiveness, self-reliance and reinforces the ability to positively adapt to their environment, keeping pace with changes and facing pressures.
2. Giving the learners the opportunity to enhance living, especially in a period that is highly influenced by globalization, rapid advancement of knowledge and information technology. Individuals are in a dire need for those skills based on the accelerated information technology and the need for competitive practical capabilities.
3. Acquiring direct experience through direct interaction with people and life phenomena, which gives learners the ability to integrate what they learn and study and what they encounter throughout interaction with the surrounding reality.
4. Evoking motivation to the educational process hence it is related to the learners’ needs, and providing the learners with modern updated methods of obtaining information and knowledge autonomously and from the approved sources.
5. Anticipating the society's problems and having the desire to solve them by cooperating with the involved actors.
6. Activating healthy interaction between the learner and others and between learners and the surrounding environment and society through communication and expressing opinions and ideas clearly and correctly.
7. Enabling learners to incorporate with the global community, to learn about global issues, and to gain information and knowledge about people’s culture.
Course Organization
The course employs a range of teaching strategies based on active learning such as problem-solving strategies, brainstorming, presentations, dialogue and discussion, critical thinking, “think, pair, share”, linguistic communication, research and exploration, collaborative learning, practical demonstrations, project-based learning, in addition to blended learning.
The course provides opportunities for learners to reflect on their learning outcomes by providing continuous assessments and evaluation, and writing simple reflection reports on their progress.
Course levels
- This course will be taught in five modules.
- The course can be presented as an elective course or as a requirement for the first-year enrolled students in the diploma and the bachelor levels.
- This course will be offered for students from different multidisciplinary background.
- The following modules are designed to matching the topics that will be covered in each week of the course, as well as, these topics are arranged in consequence to be understood by students.
Intended learning outcomes (ILOS) (in general)
At the end of the course the students are expected to:
1. Identify the individuals’ multiple roles in life pertaining to types, circulation and mutual influence.
2. Integrate multiple life roles and responsibilities in family, work profession, and community.
3. Recognize the students’ knowledge and skills which are necessary for everyday life interaction.
4. Develop life-long learning skills.
5. Apply goal-setting principles, decision-making skills, time and self-management skills and communication skills to real-life situations.
6. Build the students’ mutual trust.
7. Utilize verbal and non-verbal skills, effective listening, critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
8. Engage in collaborative team work.
9. Utilize contemporary technology effectively.
Intended learning outcomes (ILOS) (in details)
|
Knowledge & understanding |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
|
Intellectual Skills |
1 |
|
|
|
|
Professional skills |
1 |
|
|
|
|
Transferable skills (Attitudes & Values) |
1 |
2 |
3 |
Assessments
|
Activity |
Percentage% |
|
Assignments |
10% |
|
Presentations |
15% |
|
Project (sub – mini group – individual) Portfolio |
15% |
|
Midterm (practical) |
20% |
|
Final (10% theoretical + 30% practical) |
40% |
|
Total |
100% |
Mapping Assessment Items with ILOS
|
ILO’s |
Assessment items |
|||
|
1- Identify the individuals’ multiple roles in life pertaining to types, circulation and mutual influence. |
Knowledge & understanding |
- Examine what do learners understand in the lecture. |
Graded quiz |
Portfolio+ presentation |
|
2- Integrate multiple life roles and responsibilities in family, work and community. |
Knowledge & understanding |
- Examine what do learners understand in the lecture.
|
Write short summaries/ Complete an assignment / / Short quiz |
Portfolio+ presentation |
|
3- Recognize the students’ knowledge and skills which are necessary for everyday life. |
Knowledge & understanding |
- Examine what do learners understand in the lecture.
|
Write short summaries/ Complete an assignment / / Short quiz |
Portfolio+ presentation |
|
4- Develop life-long learning skills. |
Knowledge & understanding |
- Examine what do learners understand in the lecture. |
Write short summaries/ Complete an assignment / / Short quiz |
Portfolio+ presentation |
|
1- Utilize verbal and non-verbal skills, effective listening, critical thinking and problem-solving skills. |
Intellectual Skills |
- Examine what do learners understand in the lecture. |
Write short summaries/ Complete an assignment / / Short quiz |
Portfolio+ presentation |
|
2- Apply goal setting principles, decision-making skills, time and self-management skills and communication skills to real-life situations. |
Professional skills |
- Examine what do learners understand in the lecture. |
Complete an assignment/ Working in small groups (‘Buzz’ Groups) |
Portfolio+ Assignment |
|
1- Build the students’ mutual trust.
|
Transferable skills (Attitudes & Values) |
- Examine what do learners understand in the lecture. |
Work in groups/ complete an assignment / Write a summary at the end of the lecture. |
|
|
2- Engage in collaborative team work. |
Transferable skills (Attitudes & Values) |
- Examine what do learners understand in the lecture. |
Work on a project / Game-based activity. Students may be asked to produce video clips based on a specific topic. |
Project+ portfolio |
|
3- Utilize contemporary technology effectively. |
Transferable skills (Attitudes & Values) |
- The learners will be asked to organize and manage information to deal with a specific situation. - The learners will be asked to integrate technology tools using second generation tools. |
Complete an assignment / Game-based activity. Students may be asked to produce video clips based on a specific topic. |
Assignment |
|
Assignments' Assessment Criteria |
Criteria |
|
Presentation |
1. Topic Selection (Relevance) Knowledge & Understanding. 2. Timing. 3. Accessibility. 4. Pertinence (Cognitive/ Intellectual). 5. Confidence. 6. Clarity. |
|
Project |
1. Engagement 2. Self-Efficacy 3. Pertinence (Cognitive/ Intellectual) 4. Creativity 5. Group Work |
|
Portfolio |
1. Viewability Knowledge & Understanding. 2. Completeness (Cognitive/ Intellectual). 3. Organization. 4. Creativity. 5. Reflection. 6. Clarity. |
|
Assignments |
1. Accuracy (Cognitive/ Intellectual) 2. Timing 3. Completeness |
|
Exams |
1. Accuracy (Cognitive/ Intellectual) 2. Timing 3. Completeness |
Course policy
1. The course policy will be in accords with the applied policies and regulations in the provided higher education institutions where courses will be applied
2. Success Requirements
a. Attendance is mandatory
b. Applying the course needed assessment tasks on time according to agreed and defined specifications and standards.
c. Applying for the two exams (mid-term and final).
3. Adherence to the instructions related to (the time of the lecture, and the management of the activity in the lecture)
4. Commitment to the ethics of scientific research and documentation.
References
English references
1. Nasheeda, A.; Binti Abdullah, H.; Krauss, S. & Binti Ahmed, N. (2019) A narrative systematic review of life skills education: effectiveness, research gaps and priorities, International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 24(3), 362-379, DOI: 10.1080/02673843.2018.1479278
2. Amazon.com: College 101: College & Life Skills: Supplemental Course Book (9781494959753): Hernandez, Philip L, Ayon, Ana J, Davis, Darby "Isaac": Books
المراجع العربية
1. بجاي، تشيرايل (2019). دليل تنمية مهارات الذكاء العاطفي ومهارات الحياة: أدوات وأساليب لمساعدة الطلاب على النجاح في الحياة العملية. ترجمة إبراهيم الحارثي. روابط للنشر وتقنية المعلومات. القاهرة، مصر.
2. الختاتنة، سامي (2016). مهارات الحياة بين النظرية والتطبيق. دار الحامد للنشر والتوزيع، عمان، الأردن.
3. الدرعان، نعيمة (2021). مستوى الدور التربوي للمرشد الأكاديمي في تنمية المهارات الحياتية لدى طلبة جامعة الجوف: دراسة ميدانية. مجلة اتحاد الجامعات العربية للبحوث في التعليم العالي، 41(1)، 55-76.