Welcome to Critical Skills
A unique module to help students adjust to third-level education
and prepare for the professional world beyond school.
WHAT IS CRITICAL SKILLS?
Critical Skills is a unique offering at Maynooth University that is available to most first-year students. In Critical Skills, you’ll have the opportunity to develop your writing, research, and public speaking skills. The course also focuses on a number of profession-related skills, such as teamwork and data analysis, to better prepare you for the challenges of life after third-level education. By emphasizing digital literacies and strong communicative strategies, you’ll find yourself better prepared to face the challenges ahead.
New from Critical Skills
Your Final Assignment Is…a Podcast
Photo by Changbok Ko on Unsplash The Covid-19 crisis reshaped the landscape of education. While many schools and colleges are pushing for a return to in-person classes, online and hybrid teaching will remain part of the conversation for the foreseeable future. It’s hard to overstate the challenges this poses to creating an effective learning environment: [...]
Rhetoric and Situations: A guide for students on how to be persuasive
If you’ve ever struggled to share an idea with a friend, family member, or co-worker, then you know that effectively communicating with other people can be challenging. Whether you’re posting to social media or arguing in the comments section of an article, it’s important to understand how to effectively persuade others. Luckily for us, [...]
A Quick Look at Critical Skills
The Critical Skills Programme is dedicated to providing excellence in teaching, and strives to help students acclimate themselves to university life while building the skills necessary to succeed in the professional world.
Transferability – students will use strategies developed in Critical Skills to succeed in other academic modules
Writing Process – by practicing writing, students will improve their ability to communicate complex ideas in print and digital spaces
Numeracy – making sense of information also requires analytic skills to make sense of numerical and quantitative data; students will practice these strategies through a detailed data visualization exercise
Public Speaking – one of the most valuable skills students can gain during their university career is the ability to present information to groups of individuals in a spoken form; Critical Skills provides a low-stakes environment to practice these skills
The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy
In 2015, the Association of College and Research Libraries released a comprehensive framework for defining information literacy. Information literacy, as defined by these six principles, informs the design and instruction of Critical Skills, so that students are supported in their academic and professional pursuits by a comprehensive understanding of how to locate, analyze, and synthesize knowledge.