1. “The highest reward for a person’s
toil is not what they get for
it, but what they become by it”.
John Ruskin
2. The Leicester Award for Employability Skills
• What we are doing at Leicester
• Experiential learning and reflection
• Q and A
• (If we get time) the wider picture AGCAS survey
3. What do you already know?
• Leicester Award for Employability
• Birmingham PSA
• Nottingham Advantage
• York Award
What do you think of the term employability skills?
4.
5.
6. Concrete
Experience
Active Reflective
Experimentation Observation
Abstract
Conceptualisation
Reference: Kolb D.A. (1984) 'Experiential Learning experience as a source of learning and development', New Jersey: Prentice Hall
7.
8. Core Unit Experiential Context
Capabilities audit Extracurricular activity
Development plan Supportive training
Reflective blog Final oral presentation
Career management
task
9. Why do this?
What experience do
you have of working
in teams?
Team working
Networking
IT Skills IT Skills
Communication
IT Skills
Team working Team working
Team working
Team working Networking
Work
Communication Team working
Placement
10. “The strong link between narrative and meaning
making has the potential to extend the impact of
reflective practice beyond the development of practical
skills and knowledge into a deeper examination of
professional purpose and identity”.
Winter, D (2012). Narrative techniques in reflective practice. Journal of the National
Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 28, 21-29
11. Reflective blogging focus groups
• Motivation through personalisation, and frequency of use.
• The use of a structured approach to the posts.
• Reinforcement of skills learnt, by reflection.
• Continued specific use after the award.
• Behaviour change
12. “I think it made me realise that I had, had experiences, I think
like without it,…if I hadn’t reflected on what I had done as a
captain, I think I would have just thought ‘I lead a walk’, where
as actually, I lead a walk, I had to plan everything before it, and
to plan it I had to organise my time efficiently and then…so
when we were on the walk we got lost, so I had to solve that
problem, and someone was taken ill and I had to decide what to
do with them, and then, this car park was closed, so I had to
flexible and go somewhere else….so I think if I hadn’t been
writing about what I had done, it wouldn’t have clicked with me
that I had had a vast experience from it”
Leicester Award Student
13. “Reflection enables individuals to make sense of their
lived experiences through examining such experiences
in context”
Eby, M. (2000) Understanding professional development. In Brechin, A., Brown, H. and
Eby, M. (eds) Critical Practice in Health and Social Care pp. 48–72.London: Sage.
14. Reflection
• What themes have emerged from todays conference that are
relevant to your work?
• How would you describe your relationship with
employability, and why?
a) A quest
b) A confrontation/challenge
c) An exploration
d) Other
• Any questions?
16. AGCAS Task group
2010/11 survey headlines
67 institutions responded
67% Awards run by Careers Service
61% had less than 250 students participating
50% of the awards were endorsed by employers
Why reflection matters to you. This mentoring experience can be something good you do for others, or it can be a journey that you take for yourself…as well.
ttp://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/clms/research/employabilityI have been asked by CLMS to give a conference presentation from a practitioners point of view during the above event. I have met with Paul Conville and Reka Plugor to discuss the session in terms of audience and scope.http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/90813744?access_key=key-11an73pol7ed8d9i4lfh
Spend 2 minutes talking to the people on your table/ your neighbour, what do you already know about employability awards within HEIs. If the answer is nothing, give the second question some thought.
Where did they come from? Employability Awards have been around for about 10 years. Leicester was among some of the earliest to be established, along with York and Exeter. Over 100 institutions have a version of an employability award.These days, the motivation of institutions to establish awards is generally to help student address the two questions above. 1) What do employers want…..unpacking the world of work including recruitment processes and also 2) helping students to be able to articulate the skills and experiences they are having at University to a future employer. This motivation obviously comes from a fixation on DLHE statistics and employability league table position. Having said that, many Awards also manage to have a career guidance/ career management aspect, and in the case of the Leicester Award a focus on lifewide learning and developing reflective habits. Some sound bites for our Alumni.
At the University of Leicester, the award exists entirely in the extra-curricular space. It is the universities way of helping students to develop capabilities by providing extra-curricular experiences combined with the opportunities to reflect and experiment. Sometimes this is through a ‘real’ experience such as a volunteering placement, or workign as a course rep and often it is through a simulation such as a business game or challenge. The Leicester Award was originally developed using Kolbs experiential learning cycle as a basis. Students are having experiences, we just help them to focus on what they want to develop through these experiences.
Cross institutional: The Students Union, Widening Participation, Volunteering, Employer Liaison, Business and Enterprise, and the Careers Service. We have over 600 students successfully engaged with the award this year, 1000 next year.Students can engage through many different experiences, as you can see here, Via our enterprise training programmes, by being a mentor, volunteering in classrooms etc.
The core to all of these experiences is the reflective process they are asked to go through.
The main innovation from this year was the introduction of reflective blog. We have asked them to blog using wordpress because we are hoping to help them to develop reflective habits that they will take on through life. It also provides a personal development narrative which help us with career guidanceCollating relevant evidence..enabling reflection.
It also helps them to understand themselves
Using the form provided consider the skills you already have, and also the skills you might be able to develop or improve through mentoring?
