Prof Tracy Taylor, Dr Romy Lawson Ass Prof Theo Papadopoulos, Ass Prof Eveline Fallshaw, Ass Prof Michael Zanko,

 The need for graduates to be career- and work-ready has been well documented.  Employability skills feature in all undergraduate business programs in Australia  Universities are increasingly mindful that graduates' transition into professions should be supported by a range of preparatory initiatives in the curriculum.

 The aim of the project was to investigate how to build professional learning through industry engagement in business courses at Australian universities.

Professional Learning incorporates a range of teaching and learning activities that integrates theoretical and discipline-specific knowledge with the development of skills, qualities and attributes to facilitate the development of professional capability

 Surveys, focus groups and interviews were used to develop a framework that categorised professional learning and provided exemplars of good practice.

 Industry Case Study  Industry Simulations  Industry Practitioner Delivery  Industry Mentoring  Industry Study Tour  Industry Placement  Industry Competition  Industry Project

 Industry-referenced  explicitly linked to industry or professional bodies  Curriculum currency  addresses up to date issues and industry practice  Integrated curriculum  develops professional capability through linking practice with theory  Self-directed learning  fosters reflective practice and lifelong learning

 This framework was then used to develop resources to support academics using professional learning in their teaching.  These resources include: ◦ good practice principles, ◦ enablers and impediments, ◦ as well as assessment guidelines.

 Web Resource Web Resource 

 Assessment should reach beyond graduation to nurture attitudes, skills and knowledge for life (Boud et al, 2010).  Therefore assessment is more than just measuring learning objectives and instead should: ◦ be sustainable, ◦ inform judgement, ◦ lead to reflexive learners ◦ develop students into practitioners.

 Sustainability  Informs Judgement  Reflexive learning  Practitioner development  Authenticity  Assessment to drive learning  Effective Feedback  Constructively aligned  Moderation of marking  Explicit criteria and standards

 Sustainability  Informs judgement  Reflexive learning  Practitioner development  Authenticity  Assessment to drive learning  Effective feedback  Constructively aligned  Moderation of marking  Explicit criteria and standards

TipExample Sustainable – industry currency Looks beyond the immediate content to what is required beyond graduation Avoids creating dependency e.g. through pleasing the lecturer, or looking to them for judgement Focuses on higher-order knowledge and skills in context Memorising as such is never tested Assessment Centres Assessment for Leadership mirrors a day of a typical executive training program, where HR experts help design assessment activities to ensure relevance and currency. Financial markets trading With simulator activities designed around current real-world events, students keep in touch with current affairs (e.g. RBA interest rate announcements) looking at the same data at a given time as counterparts in the real ANZ workplace.

TipExample Informs judgement students can test their judgement, are able to see the consequences of their behaviour, and can debrief and discuss decisions Trading rooms Students see the consequences of their actions without risking loss of real economic worth, testing their judgement and personality for this role and later debriefing and discussing their decisions.

TipExample Leads to reflexive learners  Reflections are a popular assessment type in professional learning experience but they must be rigorous, academic and structured. Role plays Final assessment requires students to reflect on their experience in an individual journal after they have taken part in a group blog with students, an industry representative and the teacher, and after they have participated as both designer and player in a role play. Security dealing room Assessment includes a reflection on performance in the simulated role: students are required to provide a ‘summary of the Central Treasury performance in Quarters 1–3, including the mistakes you made and the lessons you learned’.

TipExample Leads to reflexive learners  Reflections are a popular assessment type in professional learning experience but they must be rigorous, academic and structured. Financial markets trading Managing their own banking transactions, taking responsibility for correcting their errors and omissions, students create a full audit trail of the process, learning about diverse aspects of financial markets trading.

TipExample Develop students into practitioners  a scaffolded developmental approach to professional learning and assessment that develops students’ sense of themselves as professionals in training Modelling workplace artefacts Assignments emulate normal workplace practices, developing skills directly transferable to the workplace, especially independent learning skills such as information literacy skills. Capstone simulation Students demonstrate the professional skills employers expect from competent business graduates in a problem-based learning experience within a simulated business environment.

TipExample Authentic  Assessment should emulate ‘real- world’ tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential professional capabilities Global consulting Students gain understanding of contemporary business in real-life settings with access to experts then explore the company in assignments that identify problems and suggest how to solve them.

 We propose that many of the assessment elements of professional learning foster the sustainable assessment features that promote learning after graduation.  Professional learning can inform judgement and develop the necessary skills of a practitioner by emphasising the critical nature of professional capabilities in authentic settings.  The often self-directed nature of this style of learning environment also encourages self-assessment and reflection.

 Allen Consulting Group. (2006). Assessment and reporting of employability skills in training packages. Melbourne: Department of Education, Science and Training.  ALTC Report (2008). What’s happening in Assessment? Retrieved from  Australian Business Deans Council Teaching and Learning Network. (2008). 'Business as usual: A collaborative investigation of existing resources, strengths, gaps and challenges to be addressed for sustainability in teaching and learning in Australian university business faculties Final Report',  Australian Industry Group. (2006). World class skills for world class industries: employers' perspectives on skilling in Australia. Sydney: Australian Industry Group.  Boud, D. and Associates (2010) Assessment 2020: Seven propositions for assessment reform in higher education, Sydney: Australian Learning and Teaching Council.  Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L. & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press.  Ramsden, P. (1993). Theories of learning and teaching and the practice of excellence in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 12(1),