D4 - Employability Curriculum Design: Workshop Liz Bennett, Sue Folley Debbie Laing Discover - Dream - Design - Deliver

Format of the session Intro and Aims of Session Task 1: Discover Task 2: Dream Task 3: Design Coffee break Task 4: Deliver Evaluation

Aims of the session To provide a starting point for discussions of your course development To introduce you to a range of curriculum design tools (Appreciative Inquiry and Employability resources) To identify support available from the School, Careers Service and the University. To create a personal, team action plan and any actions for the School and University

From: (p.16) Appreciative Inquiry is a theory of organization development management or research approach that focuses on the “best of what is” instead of focusing on problems. What is Appreciative Inquiry?

DiscoverDreamDesignDeliver Appreciative Inquiry The best of what has been Best that might be What it might truly look like What we will commit to

Employability TEF and DLHE Productivity challenge – Over 7 million graduate jobs – At least 20% of graduates not working in high skilled 3.5 years on – STEM employers concerned about shortages – Organisations finding it difficult to recruit certain skills – Surplus and mismatch in other areas – ‘HE needs to provide degrees with lasting value to their recipients’

Source: Employability and levelling the playing field Social equity drivers (Bathmaker et al. 2015) Students’ opinions about ‘use value of degrees’

Employability as a USP Language of marketing “creating an employability proposition” (HEA Employability Model) University of Gloucester USP “A Future Plan”

USEM Model of Employability (Yorke & Knight 2006) UnderstandingSkills Efficacy beliefsMeta cognition T

Split into groups of 3-4 people. a) In your group, brainstorm the types of jobs that our graduates get. b) Identify the things that help our students to get into work both within and outside the curriculum? c) Identify the things that your course/curriculum do well in supporting students to get started in their career. Task 1 – the Discover Stage DiscoverDreamDesignDeliver

Still in your small groups you are going to create a vision of what the desirable attributes a first class student graduating from your course demonstrates. Think about: How you want your degree to enable graduates to: -Work effectively with others -Meet employer’s expectations -Work with professional bodies (if appropriate) -Be adaptable and agile to work and learn in a variety of contexts -To be able to work in a digital world Draw a mind map or other diagram to represent the ideal graduate attributes. Feedback to whole group and distil into a list of themes Task 2 – the Dream Stage DiscoverDreamDesignDeliver

Development takes time – months and years. Development takes practice. Students need to hear, repeatedly, what it is intended that they learn in order to understand what that means, to know ways of judging what they have achieved, and to see how to improve. Ideally, this would mean programme-level planning having priority over planning at the level of the module. (Mantz & Yorke 2006, p.7) DiscoverDreamDesignDeliver Task 3 – the Design Stage Embedding Employability

Employability through the whole curriculum Employability through the core curriculum Work based, work related components within the curriculum Work based, work related components in parallel with the curriculum (Mantz & Yorke 2006, p.14) DiscoverDreamDesignDeliver Task 3 – Embedding Employability models

Task 3 – the Design Stage DiscoverDreamDesignDeliver Still in your small groups this task is to map the development of employability skills across the 3 years of your course. a) Using the coloured cards identify whether there are any gaps with Task 2 and if so create some new cards for attributes that you’ve identified in Task 2. b) Write out on the sheet provided the modules that make up your programme. c) Map onto the modules the current activities and tasks that develop the graduate attributes identified in Task 2.

Task 3 – the Design Stage DiscoverDreamDesignDeliver c) Using the cards and the stickers colour code these activities d) Start to discuss gaps/overlaps and create a vision of what your curriculum may look like in the future

Task 4 – the Deliver Stage DiscoverDreamDesignDeliver Using what you have done in the previous task(s) and the backs of the cards discuss which aspects of employability skills you cover well in your current curriculum and those you would like to include in your future planning to cover any gaps. Complete the first three boxes on the front of template form to capture your discussions. Following this create a team action plan of what action needs to take place in the short/medium/long term to make the changes you need. Agree on who is taking responsibility for each of these changes and complete the second page of the template form provided.

To Conclude Please complete the evaluation forms Thanks very much for taking part… Any feedback on the workshop you are happy to share? When would be a good time to follow this up?

From: Employability – cut out