Prof Tracy Taylor, Dr Romy Lawson
Ass Prof Theo Papadopoulos,
Ass Prof Eveline Fallshaw, Ass Prof Michael Zanko,
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The need for graduates to be career- and
work-ready has been well documented.
Employability skills feature in all
undergraduate business programs in
Australia
Universities are increasingly mindful that
graduates' transition into professions should
be supported by a range of
preparatory initiatives in the
curriculum.
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The aim of the project was to investigate how
to build professional learning through
industry engagement in business courses at
Australian universities.
Professional Learning incorporates a
range of teaching and learning
activities that integrates theoretical
and discipline-specific knowledge
with the development of skills,
qualities and attributes to facilitate
the development of professional
capability
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Surveys, focus groups and interviews were
used to develop a framework that categorised
professional learning and provided exemplars
of good practice.
Industry
 Industry
 Industry
 Industry
 Industry
 Industry
 Industry
 Industry
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Case Study
Simulations
Practitioner Delivery
Mentoring
Study Tour
Placement
Competition
Project
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Industry-referenced
explicitly linked to industry or professional
bodies
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Curriculum currency
addresses up to date issues and industry practice
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Integrated curriculum
develops professional capability through linking
practice with theory
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Self-directed learning
fosters reflective practice and
lifelong learning
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This framework was then used to develop
resources to support academics using
professional learning in their teaching.
These resources include:
◦ good practice principles,
◦ enablers and impediments,
◦ as well as assessment guidelines.
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Web Resource
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www.embeddingprofessionallearning.com
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Assessment should reach beyond graduation
to nurture attitudes, skills and knowledge for
life (Boud et al, 2010).
Therefore assessment is more than just
measuring learning objectives and instead
should:
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be sustainable,
inform judgement,
lead to reflexive learners
develop students into practitioners.
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Sustainability
Informs Judgement
Reflexive learning
Practitioner development
Authenticity
Assessment to drive learning
Effective Feedback
Constructively aligned
Moderation of marking
Explicit criteria and standards
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Sustainability
Informs judgement
Reflexive learning
Practitioner development
Authenticity
Assessment to drive learning
Effective feedback
Constructively aligned
Moderation of marking
Explicit criteria and standards
Tip
Example
Sustainable – industry currency
• Looks beyond the immediate content
to what is required beyond graduation
• Avoids creating dependency e.g.
through pleasing the lecturer, or
looking to them for judgement
• Focuses on higher-order knowledge
and skills in context
•Memorising as such is never tested
Assessment Centres
Assessment for Leadership mirrors a day
of a typical executive training program,
where HR experts help design assessment
activities to ensure relevance and
currency.
Financial markets trading
With simulator activities designed around
current real-world events, students keep
in touch with current affairs (e.g. RBA
interest rate announcements) looking at
the same data at a given time as
counterparts in the real ANZ workplace.
Tip
Example
Informs judgement
• students can test their judgement, are
able to see the consequences of their
behaviour, and can debrief and discuss
decisions
Trading rooms
Students see the consequences of their
actions without risking loss of real
economic worth, testing their judgement
and personality for this role and later
debriefing and discussing their decisions.
Tip
Example
Leads to reflexive learners
 Reflections are a popular assessment
type in professional learning
experience but they must be rigorous,
academic and structured.
Role plays
Final assessment requires students to
reflect on their experience in an individual
journal after they have taken part in a
group blog with students, an industry
representative and the teacher, and after
they have participated as both designer
and player in a role play.
Security dealing room
Assessment includes a reflection on
performance in the simulated role:
students are required to provide a
‘summary of the Central Treasury
performance in Quarters 1–3, including
the mistakes you made and the lessons
you learned’.
Tip
Example
Leads to reflexive learners
 Reflections are a popular assessment
type in professional learning
experience but they must be rigorous,
academic and structured.
Financial markets trading
Managing their own banking transactions,
taking responsibility for correcting their
errors and omissions, students create a
full audit trail of the process, learning
about diverse aspects of financial markets
trading.
Tip
Example
Develop students into practitioners
 a scaffolded developmental approach
to professional learning and
assessment that develops students’
sense of themselves as professionals in
training
Modelling workplace artefacts
Assignments emulate normal workplace
practices, developing skills directly
transferable to the workplace, especially
independent learning skills such as
information literacy skills.
Capstone simulation
Students demonstrate the professional
skills employers expect from competent
business graduates in a problem-based
learning experience within a simulated
business environment.
Tip
Example
Authentic
 Assessment should emulate ‘realworld’ tasks that demonstrate
meaningful application of essential
professional capabilities
Global consulting
Students gain understanding of
contemporary business in real-life settings
with access to experts then explore the
company in assignments that identify
problems and suggest how to solve them.
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We propose that many of the assessment
elements of professional learning foster the
sustainable assessment features that promote
learning after graduation.
Professional learning can inform judgement and
develop the necessary skills of a practitioner by
emphasising the critical nature of professional
capabilities in authentic settings.
The often self-directed nature of this
style of learning environment also
encourages self-assessment and
reflection.
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Allen Consulting Group. (2006). Assessment and reporting of employability skills
in training packages. Melbourne: Department of Education, Science and Training.
ALTC Report (2008). What’s happening in Assessment? Retrieved from
http://www.altc.edu.au/resource-whats-happening-in-assessment-altc-2008
Australian Business Deans Council Teaching and Learning Network. (2008).
'Business as usual: A collaborative investigation of existing resources, strengths,
gaps and challenges to be addressed for sustainability in teaching and learning in
Australian university business faculties - 2008 Final Report',
Australian Industry Group. (2006). World class skills for world class industries:
employers' perspectives on skilling in Australia. Sydney: Australian Industry
Group.
Boud, D. and Associates (2010) Assessment 2020: Seven propositions for
assessment reform in higher education, Sydney: Australian Learning and Teaching
Council.
Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L. & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How
people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C: National
Academy Press.
Ramsden, P. (1993). Theories of learning and teaching and the
practice of excellence in higher education. Higher Education
Research & Development, 12(1), 87-97.