Dr. Tanya Martini, a Professor of Psychology, is contributing to student learning through her ongoing commitment in the areas of learning outcomes, e-portfolio development, and a newly proposed course for student transferrable skill development.

Dr. Martini received the 2015 Brock University Award for Distinguished Teaching and was named a Chancellor’s Chair for Excellence in Teaching in 2013.

As a champion of skills-based learning, Dr. Martini emphasizes the importance of helping students to recognize, understand and articulate the transferable skills that they acquire through subject-matter lessons in the classroom and other experiential learning activities.

From an academic and classroom perspective, one of the pressing questions that she poses to colleagues is to ask why it is that “students aren’t often mentioning the things we do in the classroom as being significant learning experiences” in terms of skill development.

“It’s important as educators that we help students to think deeply about how they are continually developing transferable skills, such as critical thinking, communications, and team work, during their time at university,” says Martini. “We need to help students gain language to articulate their transferable skills in a way that will allow them to leverage the skills persuasively when talking to prospective employers.”

In 2014, Dr. Martini began a longitudinal study to investigate students’ views concerning skill-based learning across their degree program. The study was initiated as Brock launched the Campus-wide Co-curriculum (CWC) program through ExperienceBU. The program matches a student’s interest with co-curricular activities. Student participation is tracked and recorded on a co-curricular transcript.

The initial step in the study was to survey approximately 1,000 graduating students, who completed degrees before the CWC program began, about the skills gained through their most significant learning experiences. Those results will be compared to ongoing data collected by tracking experiences of students who participate in the CWC program throughout a four-year degree.

“The CWC is set up to help students focus their attention on basic transferable skills that go hand-in-hand with career readiness,” she says. “Brock is putting a significant investment into the CWC and the study will help assess if it’s working.”

Originally from Toronto, Martini taught at the University of Windsor before coming to Brock in 2003. She obtained her PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Toronto.

Read more about Dr. Martini in Brock News:

CPI is host technology in teaching showcase (Brock News, Dec. 2016)
https://brocku.ca/brock-news/2016/12/cpi-to-host-technology-in-teaching-showcase-thursday/

Brock prof taking students from backpacks to briefcases (Brock News, Dec. 2015)
https://brocku.ca/brock-news/2015/12/brock-prof-taking-students-from-backpacks-to-briefcases/

Winning distinguished teaching award all about support: Martini (Brock News, Oct. 2015)
https://brocku.ca/brock-news/2015/10/winning-distinguished-teaching-award-all-about-support-martini/