Professional and Personal Development

Business Fundamentals: Effective Communication

Faced with a daily deluge of information, we have never had greater need of clear communication skills. This course offers you a practical grounding in using a range of communication media, which will boost your personal effectiveness, save you time and reduce your stress levels. You will develop communication approaches that are sensitive to cultural and personal difference and are tailored to the occasion.

Type of activity: Course

Business Fundamentals: Effective Networking

Networking is a fundamental skill, which will help you take control of your career. This course introduces the principles of networking as a fundamental skill to help develop your personal brand in the world of work. You will cover strategies for self-presentation, keeping in touch with your connections and ensuring that your networking relationships are based on mutual benefit and trust. 

Type of activity: Course

Facilitating learning in practice

Are you interested in mentorship or looking to develop your mentorship skills? In particular, are you involved in mentorship? If so, then this free 8-week course is for you. The course explores the principles and best practices underpinning mentorship. The authors draw on their experience in nursing to help you develop your knowledge, understanding and skills of mentorship practice that can be applied to many workplace environments.

Type of activity: Course

Key skill assessment unit: Working with others

Working effectively with other people in a group or a team is a skill that community, educational organisations and employers value. Developing your skills means thinking about and planning the tasks the group needs to do, negotiating with others to develop shared goals and purpose, collaborating to achieve agreed results and then reviewing the approach. 

Type of activity: Course

Learning to change

This course is for people who are thinking about making changes in their lives, such as returning to study or taking a different direction at work. It will help you build on what you already know; consider the choices open to you; use your skills and qualities to achieve change; and make plans for the future.

Type of activity: Course

Succeed with learning

This course takes your life as a starting point, developing your awareness of just how much you have already learning and what you are capable of. It will suggest ways of ‘fine-tuning’, and building on, the expertise you have developed in your life. You will also learn some interesting theories about how we learn, and some of the key skills and tools to may your learning a success.

Type of activity: Course

Taking your first steps into higher education

What is university study like? Is it for me? If you are asking yourself these questions, this badged course is for you. It provides and overview of higher education and gives insights into how subjects are studied at university. This introduction to carefully selected materials helps you decide what you might want to study. You will be looking at three main areas: arts and humanities, the social sciences and maths, technology and science.

Type of activity: Course

Working life and learning

What is your experience of work and what have you learned from this experience? This course will enable you to reflect upon what you have learned from work and will support you in improving how you learn at work. It will encourage you to think critically about work-based learning and review your own professional knowledge and skills.

Type of activity: Course

Workplace learning with coaching and mentoring

You will consider theoretical and practical issues in planning and managing learning and talent development programmes in your organisation. You will explore ideas about coaching and mentoring. You will learn how different learning theories and philosophies become concrete in the practical decisions you make about learning and talent development. 

Type of activity: Course

Exploring career mentoring and coaching

Have you ever considered mentoring or coaching in a career context – either as someone who would benefit from the career support they can offer, or someone who wants to become a mentor or coach? If you have, then this free course, Exploring career mentoring and coaching, will help you.

It will explain what mentors and career coaches do and how a colleague or expert who can ask the right questions, challenge assumptions, and help an individual to find the best solutions for themselves, can make a significant difference in a wide range of situations and contexts.

Working through this course will help you to: identify how a mentor or coach can support career development; understand the skills and characteristics of an effective mentor or coach; and find out how to become a mentor or coach when you feel ready to take on that role – whether now, or at some stage in your future career.

Type of activity: Course