A series of online workshops designed to teach you practical skills that prepare you to thrive in a rapidly changing and uncertain workforce.
Extend yourself beyond your degree! These short 1-2 hour workshops will develop your critical thinking skills, provide useful toolkits for flexible and independent thinking, and teach you how to pitch ideas for impact.
Past Workshops
Communicating Complexity
Have you ever had to describe the findings of a complex journal article in an assessment? Or had to explain your degree in a job interview, or in a conversation with a family member who has absolutely no idea about your discipline?
The ability to communicate complex ideas and topics is a critical skill for success at University and in your chosen career, but it can be difficult to communicate effectively.
This practical workshop explored examples of effective and ineffective communication strategies and shared tips for communicating complexity in the university, workplace, and community settings.
Unlock Your Creative Self
Creative thinking is the process of nurturing your imagination allowing you to “think out of the box”.
2020 has challenged the paradigms of needing to do our work from a specific physical location. Businesses, organisations, and employees had to quickly question everyday work structures and adapt to the situation. Current Future of Works reports by organisations such as LinkedIn Learning, Deloitte, and Open Colleagues identified Creativity as one of the top five skills needed in 2020.
This masterclass was designed to help you unlock your creativity and understand the challenges with being creative. It also included interactive activities on several brainstorming techniques.
Between the Lines – What are they really saying?
Have you ever heard a politician’s speech and thought, “why is she saying that?” or “why does he keep repeating that phrase?”, or “why are we now talking about this, when the real issues are not being addressed?”, or just “what the …?
”Our leaders often have their speeches written for them, by experts fluent in the knowledge of what will connect with an audience, how to move attention in a particular direction and what will have impact. So, what are they really saying, and why do they use the words and phrases they do?
This masterclass critically examined the what, why and how of some influential and powerful speeches (and by contrast some that are less successful), and unpacked some of the linguistic tools of influential writing and how to connect with an audience.
Pitch Like a Pro:
Get your audience on board
What makes people sit up and take notice? How do you inspire others to support and champion your ideas? How do you get access to resources?
In this masterclass, you’ll learn how to structure an effective pitch to connect with your audience, grab their attention, demonstrate the feasibility of your proposal, and gain their support and endorsement.
Skills learned in this masterclass are applicable and beneficial in different areas of your life including:
- entrepreneurial ventures,
- presentations,
- both written and verbal assessments,
- and even social interactions.
Design Thinking:
A toolkit for tackling complex challenges
“Design Thinking is a human-centred approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” (Tim Brown, IDEO)
In this workshop, Professor Jonathon Allen showcases a series of creative and collaborative exercises that will provide you with a great methodology for tackling complex challenges and wicked problems. It is essentially human-centred and in this workshop you will identify techniques to problem-find and problem-solve; skillfully identify and integrate the varying needs of people; and explore creative ways to solve problems.
Critical Thinking:
What the Heck are you Thinking?
Are you a critical or an intuitive thinker? This Critical Thinking Masterclass is designed to help you identify your thinking style and know how you think as opposed to how you think you think.
We will discuss a basic structure that will help you think critically and also identify hindrances to critical thinking such as biases and heuristics. The skills learnt from this masterclass are useful in many aspects of life including academic, professional and social scenarios.
