PSC+ Awards

• Teaching

  This strand will help you understand and develop teaching skills. The sessions are delivered by teaching practitioners and cover topics including diversity in teaching, tutorial design, classroom management skills and the mechanics of learning. This strand features a mixture of in-person and online sessions.

  The assessment criteria for this strand is to submit a lesson plan for a chosen audience, with appropriate activities/approaches for the selected group and topic.

  • Your submission should include a clear and relevant rationale for the choices made in designing the lesson (drawing on the PSC+ or other experiences).
  • As a guide your submission should be 2-3 pages in length.
  • Submit your completed assessment via the PSC Moodle page.

  Register for the teaching strand.

• Sustainability skills

  This strand will be most helpful to anyone interested in learning more about sustainability and how to implement it in your personal, academic and professional life. This strand is student-run, and features contributions from University staff and external professionals. This strand comprises online workshops, and aims to help participants formulate an action plan of ways they can enact sustainable behaviours.

  The assessment criteria for this strand is to submit a personal Sustainability Report, applying what you have learned.

  Drawing upon the skills and knowledge you gained from attending the PSC+ workshops for Sustainability, please construct a personal sustainability report of approximately 1500 words, similar to what individual companies produce but on a smaller, more individualized scale

  You should include why you care about sustainability and how you hope to include it in your life (through future goals, future jobs, activities, and a status report on where you are right now). You should conclude with a brief summary of your takeaways from the workshops and what you plan to do going forward.

  Workshop 4 contains more information about the assessment including examples, and an outline that can be used to write your own report. Please Note, the focus of this report is to analyze your own behaviors and goals and look into how you can make them more sustainable and why sustainability is important to you.

  Submit your completed assessment via the PSC Moodle page.

  Register for the sustainability skillsets strand.

• Organisational Psychology

  This strand will help you understand the area of Organisational Psychology and help develop some of the skills and knowledge associated with the discipline.

  The strand is based around the five areas laid out by the British Psychological Society:

  1. psychological assessment;
  2. leadership, engagement and motivation;
  3. work design, organisational change and development;
  4. wellbeing at work; and
  5. learning, training and development.

  The assessment criteria for this strand is to submit one of the following three options:

  1. Graduate attribute project (Organisational change and development)

  The organisation has a set of graduate attributes that it would like students to develop during their time at university.

  • How would we engage with students to make sure they relate to the skills?
  • How would we engage with staff to make sure they relate to the skills?
  • Could you create a short report (1500 words) to outline your recommendations?

  or

  2. Measuring the impact of CEED interventions (Learning, training and development)

  CEED runs a longitudinal leadership development programme for Laidlaw Scholars

  • What would be useful pre and post-programme measurements to find out if the programmes had an impact?
  • Could we build in a control group? How would this work?
  • Could you create a short presentation with speaker notes (approximately 10 minutes in length) to share your findings?

  or

  3. Head of School Exit Survey (leadership, motivation and engagement)

  Currently, academic leaders (Heads of Schools) tend to do the role for 3-5 years before it rotates to another colleague. There currently isn’t an exit interview/survey that the organisation uses to capture their leadership learning.

  • What should such an interview/survey focus on?
  • There will potentially be a small return rate of data. Is there any other way to get useful data from outgoing Heads of School besides an interview/survey?
  • Could you create a set of draft interview/survey questions to help outgoing Heads of School reflect on their on-the-job learning and recommendations as to how this knowledge could be passed on to in-coming Heads of School?

  Submit your completed assessment via the PSC Moodle page.

  Register for the Organisational Psychology strand.

Semester 1 strands

• Communication

  This strand will enhance your communication skills in business, study, at home, and in social situations.

  Communication skills include:

  • understanding the human behaviour behind communication
  • listening effectively
  • dealing with challenging conversations
  • thinking about the language you choose to use.

  The assessment criteria for this strand is to submit a 1,500-word reflective report outlining how you have developed your communication skills by participating in the programme. You should include evidence of how you have been able to apply your learning.

  More details about the assessment are available in Moodle. 

  Register for the communication strand

• Investment banking

  This strand will help you develop investment banking skills. You will also have the opportunity to participate in the Global Investment Group (GIG), an investment finance society at the University of St Andrews.

  This strand will be beneficial to those with enthusiasm and passion for finance, consulting and management.

  Participation needed in all five sessions. In addition, you must complete one of the following:

  • Write a 1,500-word reflective report outlining how you have developed your investment banking skills by participating in this strand and the GIG. You should include evidence of how you have been able to apply your learning.
  • Prepare a stock pitch using five to seven PowerPoint slides. In it, you should use your PowerPoint, Excel and financial valuation skills. You will also need to write a 500-word essay explaining how you applied what you learned in this strand to create your presentation.

  More details about the assessment are available in Moodle.

  Register for the investment banking strand

• Resilience

  The resilience strand focuses on adapting to change. Emphasising professional and personal growth, this strand will explore how we can harness challenges by developing a resilient mindset.

  This strand will:

  • help you understand your own strengths
  • equip you with the skills to work with others during difficult times
  • empower you to think of resistance as a key opportunity for innovation.

  The assessment criteria for this strand is to submit a 1,500-word reflective report outlining how you have developed a resilient mindset by participating in the programme. 

  In your report, you should:  

  • Create an image, graphic or table that demonstrates your personal Johari Window. Keeping in mind all the areas from your Johari Window:
    • Use the concept of ‘internal self-awareness’ to select one strength area and one challenge area that you would like to work on, or you have worked on while completing this strand. 
    • Use the concept of ‘external self-awareness’ to talk about one strength area and one challenge area that someone else has identified in you. You can approach a peer, teammate, supervisor, tutor, mentor, manager or someone else who has known you in a professional or educational capacity. This person must be someone you can trust to give you objective but constructive feedback. You should comment on whom you approached and why you chose this person. 
      
      
  • Include a critical evaluation of how this strand has helped you, or will help you, work on the two strengths and two challenge areas that you uncovered using the analysis outlined above. You can structure this evaluation using questions such as:
    • Did you encounter any setbacks, challenges, or difficult feelings, and how did you deal with these?
    • How useful was this process of self-awareness?
    • How did you feel about the process of asking someone else to comment on your strengths and weaknesses?
    • Were you surprised by any of the insights? 
      
      
  • Provide a concrete example of how you have used or how you plan to use resilience in your professional or personal development. Briefly reflect on how this strand has contributed to your employability. You can do this by considering how your personal development has influenced your thoughts about your career path, or how your experience of using self-awareness and resilience has enhanced your employability.

  More details about the assessment are available in Moodle.

  If you’ve missed a session, please email the PSC team, where additional catch-up resources will be provided. pscaward@st-andrews.ac.uk

  Register for the resilience strand