Pre-Conference Workshop M1
Reconceptualising and Embedding Graduate Attributes for Enhanced Employability
Date Wednesday, Nov 30 Time – RoomCharlottenburg II Price: 95.00 € Status: places available
Workshop leaders
Alejandro Armellini
Director, Institute of Learning and Teaching in HE, University of Northampton, UK
Alejandro (Ale) Armellini is Professor of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education and Director of the Institute of Learning and Teaching in HE, University of Northampton.
Ale’s key role is to lead change in the area of learning and teaching across all schools and services at Northampton. Three aspects of Ale’s work are (1) the development, implementation and evaluation of Northampton’s Learning and Teaching Strategic Plan, (2) the development of a robust framework for continuous professional development for academic staff, and (3) fostering evidence-based, innovative practices in both campus-based and online learning and teaching. Ale’s research focuses on learning innovation, online pedagogy, course design in online environments, institutional capacity building and open practices.
Ale has extensive international teaching and programme development experience across different education sectors and modes of study. Over the years, he has used, researched and refined evidence-based design-for-learning interventions to promote positive change in further and higher education. Teams under his leadership have researched the application of learning technologies in diverse academic settings. His PhD tutees research specific areas in the field of educational technology, pedagogy, openness and innovation. Ale is active in consultancy work globally.
Links
Rachel Maxwell
Head of Learning and Teaching Development: Policy and Practice, University of Northampton, UK
Dr Rachel Maxwell (@DrRachLTB) is Head of Learning and Teaching Development at the University of Northampton. Rachel is currently leading a number of projects supporting the student experience, including improving the first year experience. A key focus this year has been the development of a framework of graduate attributes embedding employability and Changemaker skills across our curricula. Her work also focusses on developing assessment and feedback practices suitable for the 21st century, promoting academic integrity and supporting staff to introduce innovation into their own pedagogic practice. Rachel previously worked as a Learning Designer, supporting staff to redesign modules and programmes as part of an institutional move to blended learning. This work draws on her experience as a lecturer in both Higher and Further Education in the UK.
Links
Elizabeth Palmer
Learning Designer, University of Northampton, UK
Elizabeth Palmer (@ejpalmer1986) is a Learning Designer at the University of Northampton, where she is responsible for supporting staff in pedagogical design. Teaching and Learning design, and redesign, at the University of Northampton is undergoing substantial change in anticipation of a new Campus in 2018. The new teaching and learning plan places blended and active learning, ‘real world’ learning experiences, embedded opportunities for social innovation and both academic and graduate skill development as core requisites for teaching practice. In addition, Elizabeth is currently leading a meta-analysis of blended learning provision at the institution and supporting Dr Rachel Maxwell in the development of the ChANGE project (the development of a framework of graduate attributes embedding employability and Changemaker skills across the curriculum). Her role is underpinned by a background in Undergraduate course leadership and lecturing within the Arts, as well as teaching research methodologies, academic and cognitive skills across all levels of Higher Education provision.
Links
Note
Participants of the workshop are expected to bring their own internet-enabled devices (tablets or laptops).
Content
At the University of Northampton, the imperatives of student recruitment, retention and progression in an “uncapped” UK sector is being addressed through wholesale pedagogic change. We are seeking to make best use of technological disruptions and carve out an identifiable niche in an increasingly undifferentiated market. The lecture model, for centuries the hallmark of University learning and teaching models, is being reconceptualised around a more active, engaged, blended and personalised pedagogy that situates the dissemination of knowledge as only one step in a learning process that focuses more on what a learner does with that knowledge than it does on the knowledge itself.
Other disruptions, identified clearly in the Ernst and Young 2012 report on the University of the Future (Bokor, 2012), mean that adding value to a University experience is vital for survival. At Northampton, we do this best through our institutional mission to transform lives and inspire change, whether within the University, the local community or more widely within society. Broadly conceptualised through being a ‘Changemaker’ (defined most simply as seeing a social problem and doing something about it), and embedding this understanding across all programmes and courses, means that our students will graduate from Northampton better prepared to meet these challenges.
The ‘Changemaker’ difference will become tangible as our students understand traditional notions of self-direction, change management, collaboration and integrity in new ways, to embody social innovation and enterprise within a higher education environment. Our ChANGE initiative - Changemaker Attributes at Northampton for Graduate Employability – acts as a framework for embedding these skills and attributes across the curriculum in all academic programmes. The University of Northampton seeks to achieve this by actively engaging in social justice issues in the locality and helping students to see the ways in which they can take active roles in critiquing power structures and enacting social change. This innovative approach provides each student with a meaningful entitlement to engage with our Changemaker agenda throughout the duration of their studies.
Agenda
- Welcome, introductions and overview: ‘blended as the new normal’ at the University of Northampton
- Group identification of key, transferable and lifelong learning skills
- Alignment of identified skills to the ChANGE model, with a rationale (employability, Changemaker and digital fluency)
- Alignment of identified skills to models brought by participants
- Critique of the model – what’s missing, what would you change?
- Consider the skills and attributes definitions as expressed in the University of Northampton framework for final year undergraduates
- Revise own framework in the light of the discussions: come up with revised versions
- Share with colleagues, who will provide feedback
- Next steps – projects and collaboration
- Reflection: what have we learned?
Target audience
This session is designed for middle and senior university management and those involved in leading pedagogic change initiatives within their institutions with an eye on employability and graduate outcomes. It will offer an opportunity to engage with different frameworks of graduate attributes from across the participant audience, with a view to redefining and reconceptualising these accordingly. Scope will exist for reframing the graduate attribute conversation around ‘changemaker attributes’, identifying areas of commonality and synergy potentially culminating in consideration of a project to develop a framework for use in national or even international contexts.
Prerequisite knowledge
Experienced
Outcomes
This session offers an opportunity to engage with our ChANGE framework for yourself, compare it to your own approaches to graduate attributes and explore synergies. By the end of this workshop you will have had an opportunity to:
- Critique your institutional graduate attribute statement in relation to alternative models
- Capture key graduate attributes relevant to your own context in a visually appealing, transferable, reusable artefact, suitable for further consideration, adaptation and implementation at institutional level
- Align those attributes to key institutional values
- Receive feedback on your draft framework from colleagues
- Provide feedback for action on frameworks developed by colleagues at the workshop.