7/8/2016
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Do you know how to listen effectively as a professional? Can you tell when you've established rapport? Do you notice the effect you have on people? In Course One of the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE) Coursera specialization, learners investigated what is important to them and grappled with some of the basic pitfalls and strategies for tackling them. Now, NCPRE is offering learners material for the next level of advancement skills, in Course Two: Shaping Your Professional Brand.
"Most people can think of colleagues who energize the workplace, and colleagues who don't," explained C. K. Gunsalus, course instructor, director of the NCPRE and professor emerita of the College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "And which are you? If you have the right skills, you can always add value, contribute to a team, and affect improvement in the contributions of those around you. This course will help you understand and develop those skills, including listening, asking questions, building rapport, understanding alignment, identifying cognitive biases, and handling situations that don't go according to plan."
Gunsalus, her NCPRE colleagues, and a range of professional guest experts, in collaboration with the University of Illinois' Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning, tackle the pitfalls that professionals can encounter through a three-course specialization, Professional IQ: Preventing and Solving Problems at Work. The first course of the specialization, Foundations of Professional Identity, launched successfully in April 2016 and new cohorts start every two weeks. Course Two, Shaping Your Professional Brand, launched this week and is available now. The courses are open to any learner.
More information on the courses and on how to enroll is available at these links:
Course One
Foundations of Professional Identity
Course Two
Shaping Your Professional Brand
Like Course One, Course Two of the specialization includes guest experts from AMD, Silicon Valley tech company Zip-DX, Sierra Training, the University of Illinois Community Credit Union, lawyers, management professionals, and more. Guest experts include CEOs, as well as experts in marketing, professional communication, and management. Material is also drawn from Gunsalus’s book, The Young Professional’s Survival Guide: From Cab Fares to Moral Snares, published by Harvard University Press in 2012. Carefully tailored quizzes and exercises help cement the learning. Access to the video material is free. Those who complete all three courses, including assessments, and a capstone project on a fee-paying basis will qualify for Coursera's specialization track, and will receive a certificate. The last course in the specialization is scheduled to launch in August of this year.
More information on the specialization can be found here: