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Exploring Employability through Assessment and Feedback

Rich Osborne, Adele Bull and Peter Bullen

Webinar structure

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• Introduction• Employability as a ‘driver’ for change• Employability initiatives – What are you doing?• Assessment and Feedback as a ‘vehicle’ for

change• Technology as a ‘supporter’ of change• Feedback, discussion and questions

Assessment and Feedback Programme – Strand A

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• The eight projects in this strand aim to redesign assessment and feedback practices, making best use of technology to deliver significant change at programme, school or institutional level

• www.jisc.ac.uk/assessmentandfeedback

• Review of Business-University Collaboration;Sir Tim Wilson, Feb 2012: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2012/name,69548,en.html

• Employability is a ‘theme’ in the Strand A projects. 2 Cluster A projects are focussing on this theme

• More information available on the Design Studio: http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com/w/page/52947111/Assessment%20and%20employability

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Themes

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COLLABORATE

Rich Osborne and Liz Dunne

Bringing together staff, students and

employers to create employability focused

assessments enhanced by technology.

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Feedback and Assessment Strategy Testing

FAST

Adele Bull and Tony Harris

Integrating technology within assessment and feedback activity to enhance employability.

Words/Phrases used to describe assessments/assignments that support ‘employability’. For example : assessments for ‘employability’; or ‘authentic’ assessments; or............?

Which descriptor would you (your institution) use?

A. Professional practice

B. Work-integrated

C. Authentic

D. Situated

E. Other (please enter the word or phrase in the text chat box)

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Terminology

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Employability as a ‘driver’ for change

Drivers for change

Employability is potentially the biggest force driving people to University ...

• Amongst the foremost reasons for those 22+ considering a university education (Pollard et al, 2008)

• Almost 80% of students stated improving job opportunities was the most important reason to go to university (CBI/NUS, 2011)

Many Employability Initiatives

The Exeter Award

Career Zone

Enterprise and self-employment

Global employability

CVs, applications, interviews

Graduate jobs

Part-time jobs

Internships

Skills training and events

Career research

Volunteering

Placements

What's Missing?

Wilson Review (2012) suggested a gap between business and higher education.

One recommendation of many:

“Universities should reflect on the opportunities that are provided for students to develop employability skills through the formal learning methodologies used within the university” (Wilson, 2012, p.10)

Curriculum Approach

Curriculum EmploymentEmployability

Internship

Key skills training

Work experience

module

New forms of assessment

New employability stats available to potential students

Local institution advertising on the radio boasting about 98% employability

Feedback from local employers and UCP to say graduates unprepared for

employment

Tuition fees – students demand return on investment

Drivers for change

Unlocking Cornish potential: www.gradcornwall.co.uk

2009 decision taken to add a shared employability module to all foundation degrees

•45 programmes •Across 6 campuses•Approximately 800 students•Significant change in teaching style – learner led/ Problem Based Learning•Cross College working and standardisation

PESD – Personal Employability and Skills Development module

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Employability Initiatives - what are you doing (related to the curriculum)?

EFFECTIVENESS

COMPLEXITY

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Assessment and feedback as a vehicle for change

What students attend to, how much work they do and how they go about their studying is completely dominated by assessment (Gibbs, 2004)

But can exams really preparestudents for the office?

Other forms of assessmentexist which may be bettersuited ... e.g. ‘authentic’assessment

Assessment Drives Behaviour

Originated in US K-12 system in the early 1990’s, focused on real world problems in real world contexts.

Can be challenging in higher education, 'authentic' has multiple meanings ...

“the term inappropriately implies that some assessment approaches are superior to others because they employ tasks that are more ‘genuine’ or ‘real’” Terwilliger (1997, p.27)

Authentic Assessment

Combines concepts of authentic assessment with local views and other research. Defined by six 'dimensions':

Work-Integrated Assessment

‘Real World’ Problem / DataSet an overall real world

problem, supported by real world data

Collaborative WorkingCreate teams of students from

the outset, encourage collaboration

Varied AudiencesAim to set explicit audiences for each assessment point

Multiple Assessment PointsMove to a more distributed

pattern of assessment; consider introducing ‘surprise’

points

Light StructureLightly structure the overall assessment; reward student

approaches

Peer / Self ReviewInclude peer and/or self review

explicitly in the assessment process

Assessment Redesign Tool

1 Analyse

2 Design

3 Evaluate

Study Skills

Transferable Skills

Self awareness/ reflection – knowing own strengths and

weaknesses and learning from experience

Career Focus

Career options, gaining experience and creating

opportunities, applications and interviews

Assignment 1

Reflection on group challengePeer marking and feedback

Assignment 2

Career Development PlanOr

Going through the application and interview process for current dream

vacancy and reflecting on the outcome and development needed

PESD module overview

•Spend previous two years focusing on lesson plans and SoW to ensure maximum impact

•Managed to secure increased student attendance and participation

•Still some students not participating/ attending

…. However all students participate in assessment

:. Wanted to gain maximum impact and learning from assessment

PESD – Personal Employability and Skills Development module

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Technology as a supporter for change

We align our learning outcomes, teaching methods and assessments - but what about technologies?

Can Affordances theory help?

“The affordances of the environment are ... what it provides or furnishes” Gibson (1979, p. 127)

What does Blogger provide?What does LinkedIn provide?What does Skype provide?

...

...

...

Integrating Technologies

60+ "off the shelf" technologies, aligned with the dimensions model.

Technology "Top Trumps"

Alignment with Model

Video diary

Filmed student interviews – students asked to watch back

and reflect

Encourage participation in online networking via

LinkedIn

Introducing technology

Using video to enhance impact of learning and self awareness of how students come across to employers

Assignment 1 Assignment 2

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Feedback, discussion and questions

© HEFCE 2012

The Higher Education Funding Council for England, on behalf of JISC, permits reuse

of this presentation and its contents under the terms of the Creative Commons

Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK England & Wales Licence.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk

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