The science department this year is going to focus on helping students develop soft skills in addition to the skills they already learn within their science classes.

Jennifer Drudge, the science department chairperson, emphasized the importance the department will be giving to this new initiative.

“We as a department really want to focus on how we can increase collaboration, critical thinking, self-regulation and growth mindset within our content areas,” she said.

Students will continue to learn the important skills that are a part of the science curriculum. Drudge has specified that certain skills will continue to be taught.

“We’re still teaching our content, we’re still teaching reading and writing within our science content, we’re still teaching lab skills,” she said.

Drudge said the department will look for opportunities to help students increase four specific core soft skills, collaboration, critical thinking, self-regulation and growth mindset
and that different teams within the department will have their own specific goals depending on the needs of their students.

She said, “There are teams like AP Physics, they see their students who already have really good collaboration skills, and they have really good critical thinking, and they really want to work on regulation and mindset, so they’re writing goals specific to them.” By Maryam Hafeez

Read about the importance of soft skills here.