Promoting employability skills within the curriculum

Paul Chin and Dr Julie AndersonHigher Education Academy Subject Network,

P.A.Chin@hull.ac.uk

Julie.anderson@bristol.ac.uk

Overview of talk

• Background to project• Overview of resource• Demonstration of resource• Adoption/adaptation of resources• Evidence of success

Employability: two definitionsA set of skills, knowledge and personal attributes that make an individual more likely to secure and be successful in their chosen occupation(s) to the benefit of themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy.Centre for Employability, University of Central Lancashire, UK

Employability goes well beyond the simplistic notion of key skills, and is evidenced in the application of a mix of personal qualities and beliefs, understandings, skilful practices and the ability to reflect productively on experience. Yorke 2004:11

Why employability?

• UK Government agenda after Dearing 1997

re: skills in HE

• HEFCE/HEA and SCs took up challenge

• Leitch Report Dec 2006: Ongoing, tailoring graduates

to employer's needs, especially with regard to skills,

being brought into sharp focus again by this report

Employability project

• Students (and academics!) can have difficulty relating employability to their own subject discipline

• Developed employability resource contextualised for use in different disciplines

• First produced in paper format, then electronic• Joint collaboration with ESCalate to produce the

electronic version for physical sciences (chemistry, physics and astronomy) and education

• JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) funded

The module includes: sections 1-3

Section 1- Where are you now?Contains - Tasks to assess where students are in

relation to choosing their next step after graduation.

Section 2 - Where do you want to be?Contains - Information on employment,

postgraduate courses and other options.Section 3 - Getting the balance rightContains - Information and advice about aspects

of jobs that can impact on life outside of work.

Sections 4-6

Section 4 - Skills auditContains - Exercises to encourage students to

discover where their skills and motivations lie.Section 5 - Skills developmentContains - Work on improving presentation skills;

advice on how to go about improving other skills.Section 6 - Searching for opportunitiesContains - Information on where to look to find

information about job vacancies or postgraduate courses or work placements.

Sections 10-14

Section 10 - InterviewsContains - Advice about the interview process along with

some videos of sample interviews.Section 13 - Application outcomesContains - Information and advice for both successful

and unsuccessful applicants. Section 14 - Where to go from hereContains - Information about how to organise the final

year in order to be ready for the next step upon graduation.

Intended outcomes…

– A tool to encourage engagement with employability issues.

– A tool to enhance preparedness for further study or work upon graduation.

– Ideally, a tool that can enhance the career prospects of students.

– A tool that can be refined on the basis of evaluation: both individual feedback and feedback arising from groups.

– Embedded in the curriculumWe’d welcome support with that!

Demonstration of resource

• Skills audit• Card sort• CV evaluation (animation)

When preparing and giving an oral presentation are you:

Score yourself 1 (low) to 7 (high) for each question

1. Able to gather the relevant information in a concise way

2. Aware of the target audience, i.e. what level to direct the technical content of your talk to?

3. Able to maximise the use of any available visual aids?

4. Able to deliver your talk using a clear confident voice so all of the audience can hear and understand you?

5. Sound interested and enthusiastic about your topic?

6. Find you do not get worried at the thought of standing in front of others to give a presentation?

Adapting the resource

• Many activities are generic• Examples are discipline based so can easily be

adapted • Resource is free to all UK HE but there would be

no problem with use outside UK• Actual resource is available via Centre websites

(Please see references at end of PPT)

Progress so far

• ESCalate have full web version available online• Versions for Blackboard, WebCT (campus and vista

versions) and Moodle• Trialled at 6 UK universities• Embedded in the curriculum• Employability visits• Interactive resources – animations, video, peer work,

assessed work

Employability visits

• Visit universities around UK• Run ‘taster’ sessions with students• Demonstrate resources to academics • Aim is to help academics embed resource into

curriculum where appropriate• Seems to be successful approach - so far!

Final example

• Demonstration of Channel 5 clip

References:urls and resources – Page 1

ESCalate, the Education SC URL for the module -

http://escalate.ac.uk/2785

Higher Academy website pages on employability -

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/Employability.htm

URL to take you to the 24 Subject centres -

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/SubjectNetwork.htm

Books and booklet resources – Page 2• Anderson and Mitchell (2006) Beyond the subject

curriculum, ESCalate - available online at: http://escalate.ac.uk/3056

• Dearing report: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/ • The Leitch report -

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus/Leitch_Report• Yorke, M. (2004) Employability in Higher Education:

what it is and what it is not. York: the Learning and Teaching Support Network

Appendix: PPT examples of module in addition to presentation for use in case of IT breakdown at conference

• Please see overleaf for two further examples

Example from the module

Employability survey - Instructions• Answer the following 10 questions by choosing the answer which

most accurately describes your situation. There are no wrong answers. Once you have finished the survey, submit the form at the bottom of the screen to see the responses that you gave for each question. Make a note of how many questions you picked a, b, or c for as you will need these to obtain feedback on your responses..

• Once you have discovered your most common answer, look at the feedback document for this survey.

Question 1: Do you have a specific career in mind? • (A) Definitely • (B) Some idea but still unsure • (C) No idea at all Question 2: When will you start applying for jobs? • (A) I am already thinking about possible applications • (B) In my final year • (C) When my final exams • have finished

Example 2 – skills diary

Date 16/10/2006 Work, University or SocialWork- Assistant at bookshopBackground - what was the problem? Customer desperately wanted to buy a copy of ‘The history of the Yorkshire Dales’ for her husband’s birthday. However there were no copies in stock and there would be a two-week delay if the customer ordered the book.What did you do to solve it? Checked if any local branches had the book, they didn’t. Located a branch which had a copy of the book in stock and arranged for it to be sent to my store, which would take only a couple of days.Which skills did you use? Problem solving, communication - both with customer and staff at other stores; IT skills - looking up book availability and ordering details; initiative and creativity for arranging to have the book sent on.What was the outcome? Book arrived two days later. Customer was very pleased that she was able to get hold of the book in time.