What do we know about soft skills? Wing Institute Original Paper

Teacher Soft Skills Overview

A teacher’s success is predicated on effective mastery of two requisite skill categories: technical competencies and personal competencies (soft skills). Technical skills are the specific skills and factual knowledge intrinsic to a specific job. Technical competencies elemental to teaching include instruction, assessment, and classroom management. Personal competencies, on the other hand, are skills broadly applicable to almost all professions; they create the foundation that enables a person to effectively use technical skills. Personal competencies basic to teaching include high expectations, love of learning, active listening, ability to adapt to novel situations, empathy, cultural sensitivity, positive regard for students, and good time management. Personal competency research shows large effect sizes, ranging from 0.72 to 0.87, for effective teacher-student relations that increase student academic performance and improve classroom climate. Unfortunately, teacher preparation and on-the-job staff development neglect this important training. To remedy the situation, more research is required to better define the field of personal competencies, and expanded training, including coaching, must be adopted during pre-service and induction.

Citation: States, J., Detrich, R. & Keyworth, R. (2018). Overview of Teacher Soft Skills.Oakland, CA: The Wing Institute. https://www.winginstitute.org/teacher-compentencies-soft-skills.

Links: https://www.winginstitute.org/teacher-compentencies-soft-skills