Pedagogy for employability - Higher Education Academy

The modules of the academic programme were taken from the University of Gloucestershire’s
Framework and are specifically geared towards work-based learning. With a multi-disciplinary
cohort, the programme was designed to avoid subject specialism as the focus and instead
encourage deep, personalised learning throughout. The teaching approach enabled students
to reflect directly on the work carried out in their placement, and understand how both their
subject (professional) expertise and (personal) attributes, attitudes and abilities had been
enhanced. The aim was to develop the student’s employability and provide an opportunity to
reflect on the processes necessary to be successful in the current employment market. One
of the emerging approaches developed within the programme was ESP: Experience – Skills –
Personal/Professional Development (Hendy-Isaac 2011). This model, taught alongside more
traditional reflective approaches, enabled students with no background in reflective practice,
work-based learning or PDP to engage with these principles to facilitate clearer articulation
of experience, its relevance and their ability to action plan and evaluate their learning,
employability and self-awareness.
To illustrate the effectiveness of the approach:
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27 students received a PGCert in Personal & Professional Development;
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138 graduates completed the compulsory programme;
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some students were able to APL one/both of the modules for further study;
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64% of students gained suitable graduate-level employment;
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29% of students continued into further study;
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75% of students rated the programme as very good or good;
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79% of participating organisations considered the impact of the programme on the business
as high or medium.
For further information on the Graduate Challenge programme:
http://insight.glos.ac.uk/DEPARTMENTS/CEI/BUSINESS/GRADUATECHALLENGE/Pages/
default.aspx
For more information contact: Sonia.Hendy-Isaac@bcu.ac.uk.
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