1. D4 - Employability Curriculum Design: Workshop
Discover - Dream - Design - Deliver
Sue
Liz Bennett, Sue Folley
Debbie Laing
Benn
Bennett & Folley (2016)

2. Intro and Aims of Session
Format of the session
Intro and Aims of Session
Task 1: Discover
Task 2: Dream
Task 3: Design
Coffee break
Task 4: Deliver
Evaluation
Sue
Bennett & Folley (2016)

3. 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
Team intros and sharing ideas
Sue
Bennett & Folley (2016)

4. What is Appreciative Inquiry?
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.
Sue
From: (p.16) )
Bennett & Folley (2016)

5. Appreciative Inquiry Discover Dream Design Deliver
The best of what has been
Discover
Dream
Design
Deliver
What we will commit to
Best that might be
Sue
What it might truly look like
Bennett & Folley (2016)

6. 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’
Liz
The UKCES Employer Skills Survey is one of the largest of its kind in the world. More than 91,000 employers across the UK were interviewed for this report.
2015:
Employers are having difficulty finding the skilled people they need. Skill-shortage vacancies have risen by a massive 130% since 2011.
It is clear that a major disconnect still exists between what employers desperately want, and the skills that people really have.
In terms of the skills lacking in applicants, problem solving and analytical skills were both cited more frequently than reading, writing and numerical skills.
A similar picture is also seen among existing employees, with over half of employers reporting time management and team working skills as being in need of improvement
There is evidence of an ‘employability gap’ in the skills that students are actually starting with on day one of employment and the skills that employers are expecting from them.” (Chatterton and Rebbeck 2015, p.3);
Bathmaker use of linked in by middle class students who understand social capitol, value of internships for building networks “working class students need they may need greater resilience and resourcefulness to make HE work for them “ They looked at the practices of wc and middle class students eg linked in etc. Greater understanding of social capitol in the middle class students who used extra curricula activity to build profiles (eg captain of the football team etc).
Bob Cryan’s talk to staff March ’16 – what can we do -
Careers work more closely with senior managers in Schools to integrate placements with careers process
Implement careers service plan for enhancing graduate recruitment
Bennett & Folley (2016)

7. Employability and levelling the playing field
Social equity drivers (Bathmaker et al. 2015)
Students’ opinions about ‘use value of degrees’
Source:
Bennett & Folley (2016)

8. University of Gloucester USP “A Future Plan”
Employability as a USP
Language of marketing “creating an employability proposition” (HEA Employability Model)
University of Gloucester USP
“A Future Plan”
Liz
Other HEIs are using employablity as a USP eg Uni of Gloucester
Bennett & Folley (2016)

9. USEM Model of Employability (Yorke & Knight 2006)
Understanding
Skills
Efficacy beliefs
Meta cognition T
Liz
• Understanding. Knowledge of subject
• Skills. (The term is used here because of its significance in political and employment
circles, but there is a real danger of its being given a simplistic and unhelpful
interpretation. A term such as ‘skilful practice’ is probably more appropriate.)
• Efficacy beliefs, students’ self-theories and personal qualities. Of critical importance is
the extent to which students feel that they might ‘be able to make a difference’ – not
every time, but in a probabilistic way.
• Metacognition, encompassing self-awareness regarding the student’s learning, and the
capacity to reflect on, in and for action.
T model with deep subject knowledge and shallow skills knowledge
They suggest auditing the curriculum using 39 aspects that could be audited
Overarching all this is the social and cultural capitols see Bathmaker et al 2015
Bennett & Folley (2016)

10. Task 1 – the Discover Stage
Dream
Design
Deliver
Task 1 – the Discover Stage
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.
Liz
Sue to collate
How do you think your list would be different now for current graduates seeking employment? Feeback on what we know about ways of getting jobs, and portfolio careers ( see Helen Beetham’s digital capabilty quiz
Think about:
What happened?
What did you do to make that happen?
What did others do to contribute to that experience
How did that experience feel?
Bennett & Folley (2016)

11. Discover
Dream
Design
Deliver
Task 2 – the Dream Stage
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
Sue
Bennett & Folley (2016)

12. Embedding Employability
Discover
Dream
Design
Deliver
Task 3 – the Design Stage
Embedding Employability
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)
Liz
Bennett & Folley (2016)

13. Task 3 – Embedding Employability models
Discover
Dream
Design
Deliver
Task 3 – Embedding Employability
models
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)
Liz
Employability through the whole curriculum eg vocational courses
Employability through the core curriculum eg some modules being more relevant to employability than others.
Work based, work related components within the curriculum eg placement modules, sandwich years
Work based, work related components in parallel with the curriculum eg work experience gained outside the curriculum
Gloucester – Career Hub software, time give to staff and students from SMT, A future plan in a framework, self assessment qs, marketing of the A future plan brand
Language of creating an employability proposition
Bennett & Folley (2016)

14. Discover
Dream
Design
Deliver
Task 3 – the Design Stage
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.
Liz
Use the cards which take a dimension of employability and consider where it fits on your programme.
Just use the Learner Engagement Cards.
We need an example for them of what the final thing may look like – applied to a different learning activity.
They can use their own example instead of the poster one. Learning activity – keep it focussed on this
Bennett & Folley (2016)

15. Discover
Dream
Design
Deliver
Task 3 – the Design Stage
c) Using the cards and the stickers colour code these activities
Liz
Use the cards which take a dimension of employability and consider where it fits on your programme.
Just use the Learner Engagement Cards.
We need an example for them of what the final thing may look like – applied to a different learning activity.
They can use their own example instead of the poster one. Learning activity – keep it focussed on this
d) Start to discuss gaps/overlaps and create a vision of what your curriculum may look like in the future
Bennett & Folley (2016)

16. Time for coffee and cake..
Bennett & Folley (2016)

17. Task 4 – the Deliver Stage
Discover
Dream
Design
Deliver
Task 4 – the Deliver Stage
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.
Sue
Their task is to plan how they take this forward.
Bennett & Folley (2016)

18. To Conclude 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?
Liz
Round off the workshop by summarising that this was only a start 2.5 hours that they need to take the conversations and processes forward in their teams and work on design over coming weeks.
Seed the discussion on evaluation by saying that we are looking for more than “it was great” type comments more along the lines of
How would this design have happened without this workshop
What has the workshop enabled you to do?
What did you think of the AI process?
What sort of tools/techniques/resources have you gone away with?
Any comments on pace or practicalities?
Please complete the evaluation forms
Bennett & Folley (2016)

19. Employability – cut out
Liz
From:
Bennett & Folley (2016)