Our job as community college mathematics teachers is to help prepare our students for the future workforce! Part of this task is to help students develop and acquire the valued industry soft skills that are needed in today's workforce. Throughout our three-year grant, we always asked our industry partners "what soft skills do you look for in a person when hiring?" In each of our 35 Launch Videos, specific industry valued soft skills are mentioned as well as success story testimonies. Dr. Arnold-McPharland, Engineer at John Deere and Triangle President of NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers), discusses what motivated her to become an Engineer and the soft skills that she values in her work. Watch her story in the video introducing the Statistics Pareto Principle Project, which can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z53uPj8mEY&t=15s . Over the next two weeks, I will post specific data that will inform us of what soft skills are valued and missing in today's workforce and ways we can strengthen these skills. I challenge you to respond to the following two questions giving your thoughts and opinions.
Discussion 1: What soft skills do you believe are valued and possibly missing in today's workforce?
Discussion 2: What can we do as mathematics teachers to strengthen our students' abilities in these valued soft skills?
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James Martin
Math Instructor
Wake Technical Community College
Raleigh NC
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