2. Participating Institutions
• Higher Education Academy
• Middlesex University
• Aberystwyth University
• University of Bedfordshire
• Manchester Metropolitan University
• University of Tasmania
• Teesside University
• University of Surrey
• Jewish Care
3. Seminar Agenda
09:00 Registration and Coffee
09:30 Welcome
09:40 Keynote I – Prof. Martin Loomes. Dean of School of Science and Technology (SAT)
10:20 Keynote II – Dr. Mark Ratcliffe. Discipline Lead, Computing at Higher Education Academy
11:00 Coffee Break
11:15 First Talk – Dr. Andy Bardill. Product Design “Engaging employers in curriculum delivery”
11:45 Second Talk - Dr. Neville Hall. Biomedical Sciences “Do stakeholders have a role to play in
curriculum development and delivery?”
12:15 Lunch
13:30 Third Talk- Dr. Serengul Smith, Dr. Paula Bernaschina, Adam Edwards and Vanessa Hill.
“Superhighways into the Curriculum and Employability: A Three-Way Collaboration”
14:15 Breakout discussion on approaches and ideas at different institutions
15:15 Feedback and ideas to take awa
16:00 Close – Coffee and Tea
4. Serengul Smith
– Principal Lecturer
– Programme Leader
Paula C. Bernaschina
– Academic Writing and Language
– Learner Development Unit
Adam Edwards
– Liaison Manager
– Library and Student Support
Vanessa Hill
– Liaison Librarian
– Library and Student Support
“Superhighways into the Curriculum and Employability: A
Three-Way Collaboration”
5. Employers view…
The CBI Higher Education Task Force indicates that employers
are least satisfied with new graduates’
– self-management,
– communication skills and
– business awareness (CBI, 2009)
According to the CBI, ‘62% of entrants to the IT sector require
managerial and professional business skills almost
immediately’.
CBI higher education taskforce report – Stronger together: Business and universitiesin turbulent times,
2009, http://highereducation.cbi.org.uk/uploaded/CBI_HE_taskforcereport.pdf
CBI - Confederation of British Industry
6. Our Challenge
There is a clear indication that science and engineering students, in
general, lack employability skills (King 2002) and they have the
misconception that these skills are not necessary in industry.
Students often arrive at university
– with a limited perception of a career they wish to pursue
– lacking a clear view of the IT sector’s needs
How can we make sure that our programmes include specific skill
sets required by industry and cope with the changing needs of the
job market?
7. To tackle this problem
In the School of Science and Technology (SAT), we have formed an
intra-university team and our collaborative work has aimed at:
• Integrating the specialist input, appropriate for the science and
engineering students’ needs, offered by central units directly into
the curriculum;
• Ensuring that staff are aware of the relevance of the sessions to
their modules and, by tying sessions into module related case
studies and projects bring together the expertise and experience
of subject specialist staff and skills and support specialists.
8. There is no one approach for embedding employability across a curriculum. There
are various methods, which may be adopted (York and Knight 2006):
• Employability through a whole curriculum
• Employability through a core curriculum
• Employability related modules within a curriculum
• Work-based or work related learning within a curriculum
• Work-based or work related learning incorporated as one or more components
in a curriculum
Our approach to embedding employability within the existing programmes in the
School of SAT has utilised two of the above methods.
9. The CBI Employability
Competencies
The CBI defines employability
as “A set of attributes, skills
and knowledge that all labour
market participants should
possess to ensure they have
the capability of being
effective in the workplace – to
the benefit of themselves,
their employer and the wider
economy”
18/03/2022
Slide 9
10. Step 1
18/03/2022
• CBI* employability guidelines were mapped onto LDU and LR
academic and professional development activities
CBI* employability guidelines
Mapping carried out by LR
Mapping carried out by LDU
12. Step 3
18/03/2022
Slide 12
In the final stage, the selected modules’ leaders identified relevant
and appropriate lab, seminar activities and
assessed work for embedding to be implemented.
Subsequently, the module leaders scheduled these sessions within
the normal module timetable. This means that all students take
these sessions as part of their study, and these are also tied into
their module content, assessment and practical work.
13. Academic Writing and Language
18/03/2022
Slide 13
AWL work is informed by an eclectic range of theoretical and practical positions
Academic literacies
(e.g. Lea & Street, 1998; Lillis, 2003)
Discourse Analysis
(e.g. Fairclough, 1992)
Linguistic ethnography
(e.g. Rampton, et al. 2004)
Writing development
(e.g. Elbow, 1998; Deane & O’Neill, 2011)
Argument studies
(e.g. Mitchell & Andrews, 2000)
English for Academic Purposes
(e.g. Jordan, 1997; Alexander, et al. 2008)
Situated learning
(Lave and Wenger, 1991)
Corpus Linguistics
(e.g. Sinclair, 1991; Biber, et al 1998)
Genre Analysis
(e.g. Swales, 2004)
Functional systemic linguistics
(Halliday, 1995)
14. Academic Writing and Language
Mission
...to empower students to make the effective
language choices they need for the creation
of knowledge and the achievement of
discipline-specific tasks at university.
18/03/2022
Slide 14
15. • Focus has grown from academic literacy to
also include 'workplace literacy'
• Not separate entities but rather a
development from one to the other
• The link between academic work and future
professional work
18/03/2022
Slide 15
16. Delivery
We have found that embedded support is a
more efficient and effective way to assist
students as those who usually need help tend
to be the ones who are least likely to seek
assistance.
18/03/2022
Slide 16
17. Creating awareness
• At this stage in our initiative emphasis has
been placed on:
– Free writing (Elbow, 1998)
– Reflective writing (Moon, 2000)
– Teamwork (Tuckman ; Belbin )
18/03/2022
Slide 17
18. Free writing
Agonising over the structure of the sentence
and their choice of words instead of allowing
their ideas to flow and getting caught up in
the creative process hinders the writing
process (Elbow, 1998).
18/03/2022
Slide 18
19. Free writing
• Students were introduced to this strategy and
given the opportunity to practice it.
• In a survey presented at the end of one of the
modules, 48% responded to the statement 'I
did free-writing to warm up before writing the
coursework’.
18/03/2022
Slide 19
20. Reflective writing
Reflective thinking and writing have been
associated with the 'deep learning' (Biggs,
cited King, 2002) in various learning
taxonomies (Moon, 2000) and have been
seen as important in UK universities over the
last decade.
18/03/2022
Slide 20
21. Reflective writing
• Helps students to develop and refine the
connections between their prior knowledge
and newly gained knowledge
• Assists them to make critical connections
between theory and practice.
18/03/2022
Slide 21
22. Reflective writing
• The concept of metacognition is discussed
and students are introduced to Kolb's
experiential learning theory (Kolb and Kolb,
2005).
• Much of the coursework contains the need for
reflection.
• Students sometimes confuse being reflective
with being descriptive.
18/03/2022
Slide 22
23. Teamwork
“A team is not a bunch of people...but a
congregation of individuals, each of whom
has a role which is understood by other
members. Members of a team seek out
certain roles and they perform most
effectively in the ones that are most natural to
them.”
Dr. R. M. Belbin
18/03/2022
Slide 23
24. Teamwork
Students take part in a team building exercise
•Tuckman's model of team development
•Belbin’s team role theory
•Communication issues
18/03/2022
Slide 24
30. Student research
• Answers
• Facts
• References
• Reporting back
• Easy option
• Fear
Librarians reinforce this!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nottsexminer/6270679714/
31. Get the ball rolling
Move from
“ …lifting and transporting textual substance from
one location, the library, to another, their
teacher’s briefcases.”
To
“…searching, analyzing, evaluating, synthesizing,
selecting, rejecting…”
Kleine 1987
32. Inspiration
• Less is more
• Cloning
• Discussion
• Learning by doing
• Learners, not the taught
• Games http://advedupsyfall09.wikispaces.com/Sara+Woodard
Deep Learning
35. Initial mapping of Library workshops
Problem solving
Application of IT
Communication
and literacy
•What is Learning Resources?
•Thinking about resources
•Understanding reading lists
•Evaluation
•Searching resources
•Plagiarism
•Search strategy
36. Where we are now
Problem solving
Application of IT
Communication and
literacy
Team working
Self-management
Application of
numeracy
•Thinking about resources
•Evaluation
•Searching resources
•Search strategy
•Group work
•Managing search and results
•Understanding Dewey
37. Measurable impact?
• CCM2426 students survey
• 70 attendees, 39 non-attendees
• Most common mark 60%
• Most common mark bibliography 5/10
http://www.flickr.com/photos/uiowa/8037646993/sizes/c/in/photostream/
38. Measurable impact
Marks Attendees Non-attendees
Mark 55% or less 36% 56%
Mark 60% or more 64% 44%
Bibliography 5 or less 41% 54%
Bibliography 6 or more 59% 46%
39. What they used and why
Search tools used Attendees Non-attendees
Google 70% 85%
Wikipedia 19% 36%
Summon 60% 67%
Library catalogue 46% 30%
Evaluation criteria Attendees Non-attendees
Current 76% 75%
Relevant 74% 75%
Academic authority 64% 56%
41. The New IT Programme Development
Moving on from embedding the CBI Employability Skills Set into
our existing programmes, The Skills Framework for the
Information Age (SFIA) has been explored and subsequently
embedded into the new IT Programme.
SFIAPlus is managed by a consortium comprising BCS, IET, IMIS, itSMF and e-skills
UK. www.SFIA.org.uk.
42. Why SFIA?
• SFIA is a model for describing and promoting high-level IT skills
standards.
• The SFIA Skills are consistent with the long-term professional
needs of IT graduates.
• SFIA is also a bridging tool, between HE and the industry, which
aims to enable students to have a better understanding of the
employers’ needs.
SFIA is managed by a consortium comprising BCS, IET, IMIS, itSMF and e-skills UK.
www.SFIA.org.uk.
43. In the initial stage of the IT programme development process,
three categories of the QAA’s National Subject Benchmarks
(QAA, 2007, p.12) on Computing have been utilised to form the
basis of the IT programme outcomes.
These are :
• subject-related cognitive abilities,
• subject-related practical abilities and
• additional transferable skills
18/03/2022
Slide 43
45. SFIA Based Role Descriptions
Kevin Streater
Executive Director, Employer EngagementIT & Telecoms The Open University
46. Why SFIA?
Therefore, the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA,
2011) has been adopted in the context of Information Technology
to represent a range of industry defined IT and employability skills
within the proposed programme.
SFIA is managed by a consortium comprising BCS, IET, IMIS, itSMF and e-skills UK.
www.SFIA.org.uk.
47. BCS and SFIAplus
British Computer Society (BCS) supports degree programmes
that are influenced by research, industry and market
requirements and actively promotes the professional skills
described by SFIA through their accreditation.
SFIAplus is a three dimensional matrix covering the whole of
IT, divided into 6 categories,19 sub-categories and 96 skills.
18/03/2022
Slide 47
48. Mapping onto SFIA
• The learning outcomes of the new IT degree programme have
been mapped onto SFIA as shown below.
53. Breakout discussion on approaches and
ideas at different institutions
Group 1
• How students can maximise
their potential through
volunteering?
• led by Sonia, Judy and Ed
Group 2
• Core skills (writing,
communication and
information)
• led by Adam, Vanessa and
Paula
Group 3
• Work Placements and Employer
Engagement
• led by Bryan and Carl
Editor's Notes
Serengul Smith
Learning and Teaching Strategy
Leader
Paula C. Bernaschina
Academic Writing and Language
Learner Development Unit
Vanessa Hill
Liaison Librarian
Learning Resources
Adam Edwards
Liaison Manager
Learning Resources
AE
Looking at the broader issues surrounding provision of information literacy training
How we have been inspired to change the way we teach and address the problems
What we have done and how we are developing our provision
AE and VH identified a number of issues regarding provision of user education:
Not embedded
workshops traditionally provided at request of academic staff on ad hoc basis
which leads to inconsistent provision
complex module structure
No central coordination of skills within the School
Inconsistent provision:
rarely see all first year students
Repetitive: Impossible to develop progressive programme of information literacy training, so end up repeating what we’ve already covered for 2nd and 3rd years
Bad timing:
Insufficient time
Wrong time, so not relevant to students
Lack of information skills:
Students know how to use technology, but lack ability to find, evaluate and use the information found
Teaching methods: tradition of monotonous demos and death by powerpoint (More next slide)
Therefore great opportunity for us to work with Paula and Serengul to integrate academic, professional and information skills into the employability skills framework devised by the School.
Teaching skills: librarians not taught to teach
Too generic
Tools based
Didactic: follow instructions correctly
Too much
Uninspiring: bore students/death by Powerpoint
Fear of not knowing: Librarians fear teaching subjects they are unfamiliar with, so over complicate. What we need to remember is that we are teaching information skills and not the subject
Student research is finding…
Book or journal with the answers
Right amount of facts
Right number of references
Reporting back to teacher
Easy option: use Google and Wikipedia as easy
Also fear of plagiarising and criticising information, also students who have never written more than 500 words
Behaviourist librarians reinforce this
VH had concerns about the way we present our sessions.
Inspired by ‘Teaching information literacy in HE workshop’. Attended at CILIP.
We teach 3-5 times too much
When planning sessions we need to consider what will make the biggest difference given time limit
We try to clone our expertise
We can’t distil our own experience into a one hour session.
We don’t need to show students how to search databases, but we do need to show them how to appreciate the value of academic resources, search effectively, evaluate the information found and how to use it ethically ie. information skills not teaching
Discussion is powerful:
Find out how the students already find info, what they already know, what they want
Learn/discover together: don’t plan searches/demos in advance
Peer learning
We can learn a lot about student’s understanding from the questions they ask
Learning by doing is empowering:
No demos…students explore
Encourage active participation through a variety of activities eg. trying things out, getting feedback, solving problems, peer discussion, reflecting on mistakes etc
Uninvolved students are less likely to learn
Students should be learners, not the taught:
Our role to support and facilitate
Disciplinary context is a key influence on student learning ie. one method does not fit all….devised different sessions for PDE students
Problem based
Games: Inspiration from LILAC 2011
Fun, Quick, Simple, Easy to grasp and play, Meet a specific need or objective
Meanwhile working with SS (LTSL) and PB (from LDU)
School plan:
easier to approach staff if our contribution is part a school plan
easier to get appropriate time
(We have integrated info lit training and academic writing and other skills in to the wider employability skills framework devised by EIS)
Structure:
avoid overlap and duplication by identifying specific programmes rather than modules
very little overlap this year
Agreed menu of sessions
Identified key learning elements for each level eg. search strategy, evaluating information, citation searching
Created a menu of key learning objectives for each level in bite-size chunks eg. Thinking about resources, devising keywords, evaluating resources. Can be mixed and matched.
Mapping
Mapped these against CBI employability skills framework eg.
finding and evaluating information = problem solving
Plagiarism and search strategy = communications and literacy
Finding info for projects = self-management
And created into bite sized chunks/modules which can be used to build workshops
Avoid duplication between Library & Learner Development ie. coordinate content
This shows how we initially mapped our sessions against the CBI employability guidelines.
This has changed as workshop components have developed.
We’ve withdrawn some areas such as Plagiarism (supplied by LDU), understanding reading lists (covered by Summon searching) and What is LR? (covered by generic student induction)
This is where we are at now.
Also incorporates ‘Team working’ in the activities/games, ‘Self-management’ in searching/gathering/evaluation and ‘Application of numeracy’ in understanding Dewey order in library.
Those who attended average 65%, rather than 50 % for non attendees ie. 15% higher
Attendees 7/10 for bibliography, rather than 5/10 ie. 20% difference
AE
Roll-out framework for 2nd and 3rd years and PGs
We have developed workshops and activities for subsequent years so appropriate for level and not repetitious
Improve attendance: any ideas
Revalidation: working with academics to embed information/academic literacy into the curriculum
In order to ensure that the new IT programme is compliant with the National Framework for Higher Education Qualifications, the programme outcomes have been formulated on the basis of various external and internal qualifications and skills descriptors.
