13.1: Learning in partnership: embedding employability in a connected curriculum
Media & Communications
Neil McPherson & Gordon Heggie University of the West of Scotland
Embedding employability within the curriculum is not without challenges (Yorke & Knight 2006). This is best achieved through the adoption of a ‘connected curriculum’ that embeds employability into ‘programme design learning outcomes and assessment’ (Chatterton & Reebeck 2015). This workshop will build on research undertaken at the University of the West of Scotland and evaluate the impact of a learning in partnership methodology used to support curriculum development. It will do this within a framework that engages pedagogy and learning design and that promotes participation providing a forum for reflective engagement and evaluation of policy and professional practice. Delegates have the opportunity to:
- engage in critical reflection of embedding employability within a connected curriculum;
- consider the potential of this process to support students’ development of employability competencies and graduate attributes;
- engage in knowledge exchange through the sharing of policy practice and experience across institutions.
13.2: The Returned: Recycling alumni as guest speakers and network mentors to enhance employability skills and help develop students’ confidence and sense of pragmatic optimism about the world of work in the creative industries
Media & Communications
Kenneth Fox Canterbury Christ Church University
This 45 minute workshop will explore how the development of a Professional Perspectives in the Creative Industries Year 3 module (now in its fifth year) enhances employability in the Film Radio and Television Studies degree at Canterbury Christ Church University and produces alumni (the returned) with industry experience and expertise who have survived the transition to the world of work (and the zombie apocalypse) and returned to offer advice guidance and survival skills to current students. The session aims to provide a model for discussion around the effective use of alumni (the returned). The session’s objectives include the review of a number of short alumni films the initiation of debate about the most effective use of alumni and the outlining of a strategy for promoting and maintaining alumni-student contact and positive interaction.
13.3: Consistency and clarity: Improving assessment & feedback for students of Art & Design with dyslexia
Art & Design
Lucy Renton & Bernadette Blair Kingston University
We are currently mid-point in a three-year OFFA funded project looking to improve attainment and progression of our many students with dyslexia by addressing our processes and systems for Assessment and Feedback. The presentation will outline work carried out so far interim results and future plans.
13.4: Testing Testing - embedding professional accreditation to enhance employability within creative disciplines
Art & Design
Joy Monkhouse Coventry University
The aims of this session are to share and inspire with a case-study from a teaching pedagogy put into practice over the past 4 years. The rationale and results of this professional accreditiation scheme will be set out and discussed in order to give an example of how embedded accreditation can enhance student employability. Coventry School of Art & Design wanted to address employability across a range of creative disciplines with the additional challenge of how to formally recognize the industry standard skills required by creative industry. Delegates will be given a real world example of how this intervention effected students perception of assessment methods and how their confidence and trust in non-traditional forms of assessment were managed. The outcomes from the scheme will be shared and discussed.
13.5: Learn all your students' names in one session
Dance Drama & Music
Gill Foster London South Bank University
This session will be an interactive practical 30 minute workshop designed to introduce participants to drama techniques which can be easily adapted to assist with name learning. The session is fun enjoyable and hands-on and does not require any previous experience of drama.
The aim of the session will be to help you learn all the names of the group in a short space of time with the objective of providing you with a technique which will be easily transferable to your own working environment. The kinesthetic learning in the session makes it eminently suitable for use with an unfamiliar group of students at the beginning of a course. The emphasis in this session is on enjoyment!
13.6: How artefacts can be used to support the transition to first year undergraduate studies: an example from American Studies
Area Studies
Sam Hitchmough Canterbury Christ Church University
This session discusses an ongoing project that revolves around different uses of artefacts in teaching and assessing first year students. The Native American artefacts collected by a 19th century Kentish explorer whilst in America are used as an entry point into a range of connected and multi-layered student workshops that encourage students to think in creative ways and see themselves as researchers. The collection is utilised in two main ways: firstly by using the objects as springboards students pose and answer questions that might relate to stereotypes ethics of collecting the objectivity/subjectivity of museum displays or repatriation. Lecturers students and a museum curator subsequently discuss the themes raised in the projects. Secondly the students then use their experience of interrogating objects to select 10 items that they feel best represent the meaning/character of the United States. This session aims to discuss how objects can be used to effectively explore both ideas and the transition to thinking as an undergraduate.
13.7: Teaching business concepts using visual narrative
Art & Design
Annabel Smith Professor Robert A Young and Fiona Raeside-Elliot Northumbria University
The fashion industry fashion and business education sectors recognise the need for a more effective approach to teaching business skills to creative people specifically with reference to the education of fashion designers where an increasing number of failed fashion businesses point to the need for a pedagogical intervention. Therefore the aim of my recent professional doctorate study was to create learning material that encapsulates business and entrepreneurial skills into a format and language that is relevant accessible engaging and usable by fashion design students; empowering those wishing to start their own business to maintain and sustain it with knowledge and confidence. The aim of the session I would like to deliver is an unveiling and presentation of a new format and approach to teaching business skills to creative students. The objective is to stimulate feedback and discussion on the potential of this new pedagogical process from the HEA teaching community.
13.8: Don’t Lose Your Marbles! - How to engage students and innovate with mobile technology tools
Interdisciplinary
Francesca Guerrera Rosemary Stott and Ian Cownley Ravensbourne
This workshop will give participants hands-on experience of using mobile technology tools to enhance the interactivity of students’ learning. Starting with a short interactive demonstration of a range of tools then moving to an interactive training in using them by the end of the workshop participants will have both a working knowledge of integrating tools such as Aurasma GLOMaker and social media and a good understanding of how to adapt the overall methodology and each tool according to their specific needs. In order to gain insights and maximise the understanding of each possible application workshop participants will ideally attend the related paper presentation ‘Co-Created Design Tools for Transforming Student Induction’ (author Dr. Rosemary Stott).
