Is it Time to Embed Careers
Teaching and Support in the
Disciplines?
Pauline Kneale
School of Geography
University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT
p.e.kneale@leeds.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Hydrology with Learning and Teaching in Geography
NTF Director White Rose CETL Enterprise
What would a successful
employability and careers
operation look like?
Is it Time to Embed Careers Teaching
and Support in the Disciplines?
•
•
•
•
•
Background
Why don’t students engage?
What does / doesn’t work?
What might academics do?
What might careers colleagues
do?
• Thoughts
Background
• Employability is crucial for recruitment
and retention
• The strategic role and position of Careers
Services’ was identified as one of the four
areas of ‘critical examination’ in the review
carried out by Professor Sir Martin
Harris, in June 2000
• 'Developing Modern Higher Education
Careers Services', contains a section
entitled 'A Coherent Service'. A modern
service, which provides high quality
provision to meet customers'
Drivers and Support
• Careers Education Benchmark Statement
http://www.agcas.org.uk/quality/careers
_education_bs.htm
• Student Employability Profiles
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/2174.htm
• Institutional Approaches
http://www.agcas.org.uk/employability/s
trategic_approaches/index.htm#employa
bility
• Maguire 2005 – Delivering Quality Quality
assurance and delivery of careers education,
information and guidance for learning and work
within higher education. Department for
Selecting 4
Recommendations
• HE Careers Services should strive to
engage the interest, commitment and
involvement of senior management
within the HEI.
• Careers Service staff should be
engaged as consultants, catalysts, and,
where appropriate, deliverers, in
relation to employability issues.
• The Careers Service could effect a
more prominent role within the HEI by
being centrally involved in the delivery
of career planning modules which are
Teaching and Learning
Strategies
The ‘Reading graduate’
• Acquired the skills to manage effectively their career and gain
appropriate employment
• vi) Continuing to enhance the employability of all our graduates and
extend the range of University-wide skill development opportunities,
through the development of an Employability Strategy and exploring
the accreditation of non-academic activities outside of the
curriculum.
Portsmouth University:
• A key component of this theme will be to ensure that curricula
contain explicit opportunities for learners to develop skills and
attributes to enhance their employability and develop themselves as
lifelong learners.
• The particular emphasis of this strategy will be on the further
development and integration of blended learning into the curriculum,
enhanced student support and the further development of self
reflection and employability skills, the further development of
assessment and feedback and the further development and reward
of staff.
Is there a management
disjunction?
• Does the Dean know what is in these
reports
• Does the Head of School?
• Does the average lecturer?
• Who needs to know?
• Who are the gate keepers / influencers to
work with?
• What do these people need to know?
• How do we keep busy people up to speed?
Is it Time to Embed Careers Teaching
and Support in the Disciplines?
•
•
•
•
•
Background
Why don’t students engage?
What does / doesn’t work?
What might academics do?
What might careers colleagues
do?
• Thoughts
Why don’t students engage
• It’s not cool
• Graduation is too far away
• 'I will worry about a job when I've got a
2.1'
• Many competing demands - vacation and
term time work, social and sporting activity
• ‘I have to have my job in term time to keep
the loans below £6000. There isn’t time’
Are academics significant
barriers to student
engagement?
• Yes they are generally no help at all...
• ‘I didn’t use the Careers Centre to get my
job’
• ‘It’s not my job to work on CVs with the
students’
• ‘They came here for Chemistry / History
/ French, so that’s what I’m doing with
them’
• We need a culture shift. Employability
affects us all.
Is it Time to Embed Careers Teaching
and Support in the Disciplines?
•
•
•
•
•
Background
Why don’t students engage?
What does / doesn’t work?
What might academics do?
What might careers colleagues
do?
• Thoughts
Post It Moment 1
What does / doesn’t work?
• One Off Events
• The Start of Year Announcement
• Can I have ten minutes at the start of a
lecture?
• Anything where the student doesn’t have
to follow up with a piece of personal
research. (Assessment is critical to
successfully engaging a student)
Any system where the
student must be proactive to
start the engagement
• Student booked meetings
• One-to-one careers interviews
• Benefits that are too far away
Location Location Location
• All in one place or
distributed?
• Café culture
Put the resources
where the student
has to be
Post It Moment 2
What could be done to move employability and
careers up the agenda?
What would a really adventurous, switched on
VC do?
What would a really far sighted Head of
School do?
What would a really creative Careers person
do?
What could a department do?
What could you do?
Is it Time to Embed Careers Teaching
and Support in the Disciplines?
•
•
•
•
•
Background
Why don’t students engage?
What does / doesn’t work?
What might academics do?
What might careers colleagues
do?
• Thoughts
What might Academics do?
• Accept that placing students effectively
in the graduate workforce is as important
an outcome for a School and the
University as the number of 2.1s and 1sts.
• Agree that without intervention and
support the status of employability is not
going to increase.
• Find ways of integrating engagement and
being positive about the process
• Accept that researching a career
opportunity is as good a way of practising
research skills as any other research
activity
• Have appropriately demanding assessments
for careers / employability activities
within skills and other modules?
• No careers activity without assessment
• Put employability profile data into
every student handbook and onto all
department web sites
• Put employability profile data into
PDPs
• Use employability profile information
in tutorials
Is it Time to Embed Careers Teaching
and Support in the Disciplines?
•
•
•
•
•
Background
Why don’t students engage?
What does / doesn’t work?
What might academics do?
What might careers colleagues
do?
• Thoughts
Get Rid of the ‘We are nice people
image’
• Offer real learning packages with
real content
• Make real links with PDP agendas
• Put the careers materials into
curricula
• Have a look at handout
What is transferable for
you?
Where could we start?
• Learning Outcomes
• Assessment
• Small bites - 2 to 5 credits in each of
the 3 years
• Big chunks - modules
• Focus on short term returns - work
placements / internships at level 1
Some random ideas
• Use academic language to describe
activities
• Present ideas with learning outcomes and
assessments
• Be demanding of students at all times
• Get students working in groups from the
start, so they support each other
• Use alumni at every possible opportunity
• Try to ensure level 1 students see
graduates close to their own age group
• Expect to be part of departmental and
faculty structures at all levels
• Know what the benchmark statements say
for relevant disciplines
• Be able to quote every department’s
graduate employability statistics
• Find the opportunity to talk to directors of
studies, heads of school and promote the
‘what careers can do for you’ agenda.
Is it Time to Embed Careers Teaching
and Support in the Disciplines?
•
•
•
•
•
Background
Why don’t students engage?
What does / doesn’t work?
What might academics do?
What might careers colleagues
do?
• Thoughts
What would a successful
employability and careers
operation look like?
• All students would have at least two
meaningful engagements with careers
experts each year
• All students would receive CV
assistance and interview practice
• 90% of students would move to
graduate jobs within three years
An Ambition?
• Every undergraduate student undertakes one
piece of careers related research and
assessment in the context of their discipline
• Every level 1 undergraduate is aware of and
knows how to research work placement,
research placement and internship opportunities
appropriate to their discipline and has a CV and
letter of application of the right standard to be
successful if they choose to apply
• Every level 2 and 3 undergraduate is aware of
and knows how to research career opportunities
appropriate to their discipline; can create an
evidenced curriculum vitae and letter of
application, and has had an opportunity to
practice interview skills
• Every postgraduate student has at least one
careers tutorial introduction to researching
career opportunities, resources and
provision. Each taught postgraduate student
has had an opportunity to develop CV and
interview skills six months before they
complete their degree
• Every research postgraduate student
understands that a PhD provides research
skills which are sought after by many
graduate employers. PhD students
undertake a short course in careers
research, CV and interview skills as part of
research training.
Thoughts
• Employability 2006-2016
• It is hard to make it work
• This is a great time to push it to the
foreground of the student curriculum
• Universities cannot afford to ignore it
Thank you
Questions?
What can the
curriculum do
for careers?
11-12 January 2007
© University of Reading 2006
www.reading.ac.uk/cc
Destinations:
an introduction to
the new web-based
learning resource
from CCMS
David Stanbury
Julia Horn
© University of Reading 2006
www.reading.ac.uk/cc
Outline
• Touchstones
• Design
• Content
• Destinations in the curriculum - Julia Horn
• Destinations in your institution
• Partner Fellowships piloting Destinations
When starting…
• Begin with the end in mind
• You and the student
• Key aim = something shareable
• What does it offer?
–
–
–
–
–
Portable
Adaptable
In-depth
Fresh
Website +
Screen shot Destinations HP
Screenshot of CMS HP – 4 eggs
• Find at http://www.rdg.ac.uk/careers-cms/home.html
Screenshot of topics HP
TOPICS
https://www.reading.ac.uk/destinations/units/topics.shtml
Frame so that the left hand drop down menus are fully
visible, you’ll probably just need to loose the plane
Screenshot interviews
Topics: up close
• Lets look at Interviews
•
Destinations: Interviews – Topic Introduction
• Showing drop-down menu for Preparing for Interviews
LU opened up
Holding the user’s attention
• Humour
• Layout
• Accessibility
•
Video
•
Destinations: Interviews – Preparing for
interview – Research the company
Topics and activities
• To promote user engagement through
– Games
– Reflection and feedback
• Card sort
•
Destinations: Values – Why are values
important? – Identify your values
How can Destinations
support the
development of
careers education
courses?
Destinations and the curriculum
• Destinations is based on the DOTS model
– DOTS guides the selection and conception of material
– Topic menu includes a subdivision into the four DOTS themes
– Allows for easy re-creation of the curriculum model used in
the CMS materials previously produced by the University of
Reading
Destinations and the curriculum
• Destinations allows you to select and customise the
material you use with students
– Enter and leave the site at any point and any level (topic, unit,
page)
– No pre-determined route to follow
– No references between pages
Destinations and the curriculum
• Destinations is designed for use with a virtual learning
environment (VLE) eg. Blackboard, WebCT, Moodle
– The course leader creates the links to the material and
between the material
– It is also possible to link to other materials or websites,
encouraging access to a variety of sources of career
information
– Destinations can be the primary source of course material, or
can supplement other materials. For example, Destinations
can support PDP or skills work.
Destinations and the curriculum
• Destinations will be sold with curriculum models which
you can use or customise, including
–
–
–
–
Ideas for assessment tasks
Courses for different group sizes
Ideas for teaching sessions
Models which put all these elements together
Independent learning
• Destinations is also designed to encourage
independent student learning
– Clear layout and freedom to move around the site encourages
users to ‘roam’
– Search function will help students find the material they want
– Journey Planner offers pre-planned trips based on realistic
scenarios
Supporting teaching and learning
• Destinations offers the following benefits
–
–
–
–
Based on, but not constrained by, DOTS
Freedom to innovate
Adaptable and easy to use with a VLE
Full curriculum models and/or support for courses
Sharing Destinations
more widely
Dissemination
• Community of practitioners
– Network groups
• Enabling innovation
– Partner Fellowships
– Brunel
• Accelerating change
Sharing Destinations
• What will be ‘in the box’?
–
–
–
–
The site: 9 topics and more
videos
T&L materials and curriculum models
2 days’ support
• When?
– 1 August 2007
• Cost?
– £1,500 - £10,000
– One-off price (not annual licence)
How will it be shared?
• Localised
–
–
–
–
Information about own university
Remove pages
Add pages
Within Destinations structure
• Customised
– Content only
– Your structure, design and branding
Partner Fellowships: Pilots
• Aims
– Understand how the Destinations concept works in different
settings
– Trail-blaze
• FREE!
• Funding for evaluation
• Expressions of interest
– Documents available from 31st January
– Register by 15th March
• Limited number
Finding out more
• Demonstrations today and tomorrow
• See our project site www.reading.ac.uk/ccms
• Demonstration version
– Sample pages
– Outline of content
• Promotional version
– Guided tours
What can the
curriculum do
for careers?
11-12 January 2007
© University of Reading 2006
www.reading.ac.uk/cc