EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS WORKSHOP PRESENTER: MARIE BAIRD

QUESTIONS 1.What are employability skills? 2.What are they also known as? 3.Why are they important? 4.List the eight skills. 5.What are the Adult Learning Principles?

WHAT ARE EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS? Also called ‘generic skills’ or soft skills’, employability skills are non-technical skills that employers say they are looking for in their employees. (Pre-accredited Quality Framework, Teaching Guide p 16)

“Soft skills are the hard skills of industry.” (Jeremy Blain – Cegos Asia Pacific)

EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS Communication Teamwork Problem solving Initiative and enterprise Planning and organising Self management LearningTechnology

WHAT’S YOUR EMPLOYABILITY SUPERPOWER? Discuss these questions. 1.What’s your strongest Employability Skill 2.How do you apply this skill at work and at home? 3.Name two specific tasks this skill can assist with and explain how it helps. 4.How do you improve this skill?

SELF-MASTERY SKILLS Learning skills Planning & Organising Self-management FOUNDATION SKILLS Technology Literacy & Numeracy EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS Clusters of employability skills based on DeSeCo model INTERPERSONAL SKILLS Communication Teamwork THINKING SKILLS Problem solving Initiative & Enterprise

EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS ARE:  mostly used in combination rather than individually;  applied and performed at various levels depending on the task;  context dependent, but transferable between contexts;  developed over a lifetime through work, education, family and social life. The Impact of E-learning on Employability Skills content/uploads/E-learning_Employability_Report1.pdf

PQF QUALITY INDICATORS

PQF MODERATION Questions to help with the practitioner preparation section: Tell me about the employability skills you include in this course? Which ones do you focus on? What strategies do you use to focus on that skill? What approaches do you take to include this skill? Questions for the reviewer comment part of the employability skills: Tell me how effective that strategy is at building employability skill? How exactly is that strategy effective? What evidence do you have of the effectiveness of the strategy? How well documented is that strategy in your course plans? How explicit is the employability skills made to the learners? What improvements could you make to this strategy? What other strategies could you use to embed employability skills?

THE PRE-ACCREDITED QUALITY FRAMEWORK Which Employability Skills will you focus on? 1. PLANNING What approaches will you use to embed these skills? 2. STRATEGIES How will you help your learners develop these skills? 3. DEVELOPMENT How will you make Employability Skills explicit to your learners? 4. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

PLANNING 1.When you are planning a course how do you decide which Employability Skills to focus on? 2.What tools/resources do you use to help you decide?

PLANNING  What need is this course addressing?  Which Employability Skills will help learners meet these Outcomes?  What need is this course addressing?  Which Employability Skills will help learners meet these Outcomes?

PLANNING  Do your learners know what Employability Skills are?  Which do they already have?  Which do they want to learn or develop?  Do your learners know what Employability Skills are?  Which do they already have?  Which do they want to learn or develop?

PLANNING 1.How do you introduce the Learner Plan? 2.How do you discuss Employability Skills with your learners?

‘We start with “What are you good at?” A learner might say, “I’m good at gardening” and then we go through the employability skills in terms of that activity: “So if you‘re good at gardening you’re good at planning what to plant and when. You might also have to negotiate what to plant where, or who does which jobs.” (Teaching Guide, Pre-accredited Quality Framework) PLANNING

STRATEGIES ADULT LEARNING PRINCIPLES 1.Adults are internally motivated and self-directed 2.Adults bring life experiences and knowledge to learning experiences 3.Adults are goal and problem oriented 4.Adults are relevancy oriented 5.Adults are practical 6.Adult learners like to be respected

STRATEGIES What sort of strategies and approaches are appropriate for adult learners?

STRATEGIES  Build on existing skills  Clear goals and results  Relevant to the course and vocational context  Real world  Hands on and practical  Transferable  Opportunities for reflection

STRATEGIES When students learn by performing tasks that are situated in authentic practice, their learning is made meaningful by its context. Specific lessons are immediately applied and integrated; success is rewarded by progress toward a larger goal. Learning is not abstract or decontextualized. The Employability Challenge full report 2009, UK Commission for Employment and Skills, London UK ployabilityChallengeFullReport.pdf ployabilityChallengeFullReport.pdf

STRATEGIES

The Impact of E-learning on Employability Skills Development Australian Flexible Learning Network learning_Employability_Report1.pdf

DEVELOPMENT  Recognition: the skill is introduced to the learner  Practice: repetition and sequential development  Mastery: greater learner control and independence  Peer-Instruction: the learner can teach others

DEVELOPMENT Cook, Grow, Go - Teamwork  Recognition: introduce the importance of teamwork in hospitality – video of restaurant, interviews  Practice: cooking task – learners repeat specific tasks and roles in the group – close supervision  Mastery: learners move between roles and tasks independently and with minimal supervision  Peer-Instruction: learners plan task and teach and monitor peers independently

DEVELOPMENT How do you develop Employability Skills in your course/s?

DEVELOPMENT  May not be sequential  Build on existing skills  Incidental opportunities to practice skills  Use different approaches and contexts  Include ‘real life’ practice  Encourage ‘noticing’  Integrated with ‘hard’ skill development

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT How will you make Employability Skills explicit to your learners?

THE BALLOON CHALLENGE Time: 5 minutes Instructions: work with your team. move balloon from one side of the room to the other Rules: balloon must not touch any part of your body balloon must not touch the floor

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 1.What Employability Skills did you use? 2.How could you use this activity to make Employability Skills explicit to your learners?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Opportunities to reflect are vital. Learners need to reflect on what they can already do, as a basis for development; and they need to reflect on what they have learnt, to cement and activate their newly acquired skills. The key transferable skill is the ability to transfer your skills. The Employability Challenge full report 2009, UK Commission for Employment and Skills, London UK df df

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 1.Introduce a new skill each week 2.Refer throughout the course to the Learner Plan 3.Review employability skills at the end of each lesson 4.Create an Employability Skills portfolio 5.Include an Employability Skills section in CV (esp for young learners) 6.Use the language of Employability Skills consistently 7.Learner Review

SUMMARY PLANNING *course outcomes * learner needs *scaffold STRATEGIES *real-life *contextual *relevant * Adult Learning DEVELOPMENT * build & extend * apply in different settings ACKNOWLEDGEMENT *make explicit * feedback *self-reflection * transferable

RESOURCES Pre-Accredited Quality Framework: Teaching Guide, 2013, ACFE Board, Melbourne (see also Springall J, Keys to Work: a teaching kit for developing the employability skills of CALD learners, 2008, AMES Developing Generic Skills, 2003, Aspire Training and Consulting, Fostering Generic Skills 2003, Aspire Training and Consulting, 180 Degrees of Reflection Learner Guide to the Employability Skills The WOW Factor - Employability Skills or/year_8/unit1.pdf or/year_8/unit1.pdf

SCAFFOLDING RESOURCES  Learner guide to the Employability Skills Learner guide to the Employability Skills (Victoria University Adult Literacy National Project - DEST)  What Employers Want What Employers Want (series of videos by Central West NSW Youth Transition Services)  The 180 Degrees of Reflection: Networking Moderation in Gippsland Project The 180 Degrees of Reflection: Networking Moderation in Gippsland Project (PQF support for Learn Locals in the Gippsland region