Contents
Presenters
Dr Caroline Watkinson – Lecturer in Corporate Engagement and Employability
Dr Federica Mure – Employability Lecturer
Paper
We explore the importance of experiential learning to engaging students. We reflect on peer-to-peer and group assessments as a mode of engagement. Key elements of the module, from choice of employers to reflexive praxis, embrace diversity of experience and use intersectionality as a framing device.
Reflecting on bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress (1994) this paper seeks to subvert the perception of employability-led learning as necessitating a hierarchical pedagogy (where employer criteria trumps student-centred learning) and instead argues for student-voice centred pedagogies as a focus for transformative experiential learning to increase student engagement and motivation (Wilton, 2011; Tholen, 2022). It uses a case study of City St George’s University’s Industry Projects module for the School of Policy and Global Affairs to explore the benefits of employability-focused ‘real world’ project briefs as a means of increasing student motivation by offering tools for engaging students in problem-based learning. This module currently has c.400 students from across 5 disciplines who spend a term working in small groups on real-world project briefs from companies and community partners. First, the paper examines the use of cross-disciplinary problem-based learning in this context arguing that interdisciplinarity and the nature of ‘real world’ briefs reinforces peer-to-peer dialogue (Fung, 2017). Secondly, the paper considers the role of reflexivity in aiding group assessment and EDI understanding. The module asks students to offer peer-to-peer ratings of group-work participation and includes an assessment focusing on reflective praxis where evidence suggests students learn from their peers in terms of both skills and values. Thirdly, it uses this peer-to-peer reflection on values to explore lessons for embedding diversity of experiences in employability-focused modules thereby increasing EDI-embedded praxis. This framework provides a transformative experience as students lead the way in reflecting on their own intersectionality in relation to both their clients and fellow group members. Finally, we encourage the audience to contribute to a student voice living-toolkit for experiential employability-led learning. This toolkit is helpful to all, including those not directly engaged in employability-led learning, since it offers a chance to consider the role of reflexivity in academic assessment, EDI-centred praxis, and peer-to-peer learning as a way of increasing student motivation. We argue that employability needs to be viewed as a verb (Robinson, 2021) by exploring how the context of human behaviour, perception, and experience is shaped through interactive peer-to-peer transformation leading to an increase in student engagement and motivation.
Participants will gain:
- Insights into what works and what doesn’t when dealing with large-scale, employability-focused, interdisciplinary, modules at a time when more and more HEIs are moving from small, discipline-specific modules to large-scale ones
- Reflections on ways of retaining student voice in Graduate Outcomes focused modules
- Insights into the EDI-embedded experiential learning
References
1. Fung, D. (2017), Connecting academic learning with workplace learning, Connected Curriculum for Higher Education, UCL Press, London
2. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress, Routledge, New York City
3. Robinson, S (2021). Architecture as a Verb, Routledge, London
4. Tholen, G. (2022) ‘The Misinterpretation of Graduate Work’, Modern Work and the Marketisation of Higher Education, Polity Press, Bristol
5. Wilton, N. (2011) ‘Do employability skills really matter in the UK graduate Labour market?’, Work, Employment, and Society, vol. 25, No1 (March 2011), pp.85-100
