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Teaching for Employability: Audit Tool

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Teaching for Employability Audit Tool

This audit tool provides a practical framework for academic departments to debate and examine employability provision within their existing teaching practice; recognise and build on existing good work and identify areas for action. Staff are asked to consider how teaching for employability can be achieved in their context and integrated into teaching, learning and assessment practices in an academically sound way within the University setting. Suggestions for practice and means of support that academic staff may find helpful in implementing these ideas are also given. This audit is designed to be a thought provoking exercise that can raise awareness amongst academics about their teaching and the subject of employability; engender and facilitate discussion and prompt discipline appropriate responses to institutional strategy at local level. The tool can be tailored to suit your requirements and used as a stand alone self-audit, a discussion prompt or the basis for a departmental workshop or web tool. The Teaching for Employability Audit Tool can be obtained from the LTSN Generic Centre website at http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/index.asp?id=17224 or by contacting Debra at the address below. It would be appreciated if you would let Debra know if you are using the audit tool and the nature of any changes you have made as a result of your analysis. Debra Macfarlane-Dick Employability Development Adviser University of Glasgow Careers Service 3 University Gardens Glasgow G12 8QH Tel: +44 (0) 141 330 3357 Fax: +44 (0) 141 330 4085 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/careers/index.htm LTSN Generic Centre: http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/index.asp

http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/index.asp?id=17224

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/careers/index.htm

http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/index.asp


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How to use the Employability Audit

The audit tool is based on the USEM model and ‘Principles of Good Teaching that are Consistent with the Development of Employability’ by Peter Knight and Mantz Yorke1. The audit is divided into sections and in each section the principles have been mapped under the USEM headings of Understanding, Skills, Efficacy and Metacognition as appropriate (see p. 3). Don’t worry if these terms are unfamiliar to you – they are explained as you go through the audit. However, you may want to read more – a good starting point would be the LTSN’s Learning and Employability series, especially Part 3: Embedding Employability Into the Curriculum.2 The audit uses the principles as the ‘goal position’ and starts by asking questions about current teaching provision in relation to these goals. It then asks you to identify gaps and form action points to meet the goal position before giving suggestions for possible action in each of the question areas and identifying relevant support mechanisms that may be appropriate for each. Go through each section in turn – you can do this in one session or tackle one area at a time – whatever works for you. By completing the audit you will have put together a small action plan for each area. Once you have done this, you need to collate your action points into an implementation plan. The following questions were developed by Ian Hughes of the LTSN Bioscience Subject Centre and may help you to focus on which areas to prioiritise in the implementation plan.

• Are there potential quick wins? There may be something that you or your colleagues could do very easily that would not cost a lot in terms of resources or time.

• Are there changes that require longer term planning? Does the change

require agreement of others/resource allocation/time to implement? By reviewing your action points from each section in light of the above questions you may want to use the back page to develop an implementation plan to take your action points forward. A variety of further resources to address employability issues are listed on the employability section of the LTSN website: http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/index.asp

1 Knight, P.T. and Yorke, M. (2002) Skills plus: Tuning the Undergraduate Curriculum. 2nd edition. June 2002 edition online at http://www.open.ac.uk/vqportal/Skills-Plus/documents/ANewIntroSkills.pdf (accessed May 2004) 2 Find a downloadable version of this text at http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/application.asp?app=resources.asp&process=full_record&section=generic&id=338



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Figure 1: Principles of good teaching that are consistent with the development of employability (From Tuning the undergraduate curriculum, June 2002) mapped against Knight and Yorke’s USEM model.


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Subject Understanding 1. Alert them (students) to the ‘rules of

the game’ – make them aware of what is valued and how it may be produced, both in general and in each case.

2. Meet the standard indicators of good teaching, namely, interest, clarity, enthusiasm.

3. There should be opportunities for depth study.

4. Curriculum not so crowded that ‘surface’ learning is encouraged at the expense of understanding.

5. Learning criteria should be available at programme and module levels. In many cases there will be ‘fuzzy’ criteria that guide assessment conversations in low stakes assessment.

S

Skills

1. Use the requisite variety of media (face-to-face, audio-visual, on-line conferencing, asynchronous information and communications technology).

2. Use the requisite variety of methods (presentations, Action Learning Sets, work experience, seminars, proctoring, tutorials, Computer-assisted Instruction, independent study projects).

3. Use a variety of styles (coaching, instructing, facilitating, clarifying).

4. Information and communications technology should be treated as a normal learning tool.

5. Students should expect to work collaboratively, whether learning tasks require it or not.

E

Efficacy

1. Most assessments will be ‘low stakes’…intended to improve understanding, or skills, or reflection, or the development of self-theories that sustain achievement.

2. Summative assessment has the important function of providing trustworthy grades for significant learning achievements. However, by no means all achievements can be affordably and reliably graded with validity. This means that some achievements should not be summatively assessed by academic staff.

3. Teaching should be…structured across a programme as a whole so that they get progressively less help and guidance from teachers as they encounter more complex situations, concepts, arrangements etc.

4. There should be plentiful feedback that is intended to help future performance (rather than identify informational lapses), especially by encouraging self-theories that value effort and mindfulness.

5. There should be plenty of occasions to get feedback on performance, which will tend to be conversational feedback.

6. Peers (other students) will often provide feedback.

In addition, Knight and Yorke also suggest: • A learning culture that is ‘suffused with cues

and clues … conducive to the development of malleability’

• Curriculum aims and design, learning and teaching, and assessment all need to be pointing in the same general direction.

M

Meta-cognition

1. Time for strategic thinking, reflection, planning and portfolio making should be written into the programme; students should know that; and they should know that they are expected to engage with these learning activities and involve peers, friends and tutors at appropriate times.

2. Opportunities and support should be provided to help students create learning portfolios that document their claims to educational and employability achievements. For some achievements, this is the best alternative to more traditional forms of summative assessment.

3. As the programme progresses, students will learn how to become more adept at self-assessment.

UNDERSTANDING (U) Employable students have good understanding of subject matter. Understanding includes retention of information but goes wider in that students should be able to use the complex information they have and be able to reconstruct it and analyse it for their own purposes. Often this ability to use and manipulate complex data is more important to employers that the type of data i.e. having a degree (any degree) can be more important than having a degree in a specific subject. In addition, students may also need to understand what employers value in order that they are prepared for life after University. How can you help them through your teaching?

UNDERSTANDING Goal position 1: Alert them to the ‘rules of the game’ – make them aware of what is valued* and how it may be produced, both in general and in each case. *(both at University and by employers)

Where are we now? Areas for development/Action plan Ask yourself these questions: • How useful do students find the

departmental course handbook? • Are ground-rules as to what is expected

explicit from course tutors at beginning of semester?

• Do you assume that students have tacit knowledge about the way the University/department works? Can you help them by making expectations explicit?

• Are opportunities provided to students for

draft work to be formatively assessed? (Allowing students a chance to pick up disciplinary conventions).

• What opportunities for informal

feedback/advice are available to students from tutors?

Identify gaps and form action points to meet goal position:

Suggestions

Could you:

Audit? For example, are expectations from the department and for each piece of work explicit enough?

Check that expectations are consistent across lecturers/tutors?

Use senior students to input into course handbooks – what information would they have

valued that they didn’t get?

Provide opportunities for draft submissions in early assessments?

Structure feedback according to assessment criteria?

Include Careers Service information, first destination statistics or alumni case studies in course


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handbooks or websites to alert students to what careers/opportunities available to them?


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UNDERSTANDING

Goal position 2: Meet the standard indicators of good teaching, namely, interest, clarity, enthusiasm.

Where are we now? Areas for development/Action plan

Ask yourself these questions: • What was the outcome of Teaching Quality

Assessment (TQA)? (If applicable) • What was the outcome of departmental

review? (If applicable) • Do you audit your performance internally? If

so, how do you rate yourselves? • What quality measures do you take? • Do you use peer assessment as a

personal/departmental quality assurance check?

• What Continued Professional Development

(CPD) have you undertaken both individually and as a group? What would be helpful?

• What evaluation have you undertaken of

your teaching? What were the results? What have you done as a result?


Suggestions Could you:

What did we do with the feedback you were given from reviews?

Conduct a departmental self-audit?

Review quality measures?

Introduce Peer Assessment Exercises?

Identify appropriate CPD?

Undertake an Evaluation and Review of teaching?


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UNDERSTANDING Goal position 3: There should be opportunities for depth study.

Where are we now? Areas for development/Action plan Ask yourself these questions: • Does the department offer a dissertation? • What other opportunities for depth study are

offered? • Are modules offered that allow depth study

of a particular area/ person/ theory? • Is it explicit enough what skills are needed to

complete a dissertation/in depth study effectively at the outset and what skills will be gained?

• Are guidelines/support available to help

students write dissertations /undertake in-depth study/understand disciplinary conventions?

• Are students given guidelines or helped to

elucidate a set of sub goals or milestones in the production of the dissertation/in the process of a depth study?

• Is the value of writing the

dissertation/undertaking depth study explicitly identified in terms of employability?

• What opportunities do students have to gain

informal feedback from tutors on their dissertation/ progression in depth study?

• Are dissertation drafts formatively assessed? • Is sufficient formative feedback allowed for

during the course of the depth study?



Offer at least one opportunity for depth study during a degree programme?

Outline the skills needed to undertake successful depth study e.g. hold a research skills for undergraduates workshop?

Summarise explicitly what skills students are gaining as the dissertation/module progresses?

Get students to produce a reflective journal/skills map/self-analysis of their progress as part of

the dissertation/depth study?

Help students to map skills gained during their dissertation/depth study to competencies that employers look for in graduates e.g. information seeking, critical thinking etc.?

Agree set times with students at critical points in the process for giving formative feedback and

ensure that you stick to the arrangement?

Make explicit what time you can allow outside these set times for formative feedback and encourage meetings?

Formatively assess dissertation drafts?


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UNDERSTANDING Goal position 4: Curriculum not so crowded that ‘surface’ learning is encouraged at the expense of understanding.


Ask yourself these questions: • What are evaluations from students telling

you about their workload and subsequent learning?

• What is the driver of teaching in the

department – is it coverage or learning-outcome based?

• Could some subject coverage be replaced

by opportunity for depth study?



Review the balance in the programme of breadth v. depth study?

Review what content could be covered by alternative teaching methods to leave more time for deeper understanding of essential areas e.g. Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) or Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) sessions etc.


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UNDERSTANDING Goal position 5: Learning criteria should be available at programme and module levels. In many cases there will be ‘fuzzy’ criteria that guide assessment conversations in low stakes assessment.


Ask yourself these questions: • Are Intended Learning Outcomes (ILO)

used? • Are criteria in the form of ILO’s available for

all courses? • Do you include any course outcomes related

explicitly to employability? Could you? • What low stakes assessment opportunities

are provided that help students build confidence in their abilities (help malleable self-theories develop)?

• What is the ratio of high stakes/low stakes

assessment? • What opportunities do students have to

obtain formative feedback on low stakes/non-assessed pieces of work?



Review ILO’s and ensure that they are useful?

Investigate whether your students understand them and if not take some action?

Think about how to incorporate employability into ILOs?

Review ILO’s with students at regular intervals to reflect on progression and make their use more explicit?

Build in further opportunities for low stakes/formative/confidence building assessments?

Audit the balance between high and low stakes assessment in the programme?


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UNDERSTANDING - SUPPORT AVAILABLE

Try:

• Your institution’s Educational Development Unit. • Your institution’s Careers Service.

• Your institution’s Staff Development Service.

• The Learning and Teaching Support Network Generic Centre

http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/index.asp - see Projects>Employability and LTSN Subject Centres http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/index.asp?id=9

• The Higher Education Academy website http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/

• QAA benchmark statements (to help with the design of ILO’s). • For good introductory material on Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) try Bournemouth

University’s PAL website at http://www.peerlearning.ac.uk/


http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/index.asp?id=9

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/reg/qa/QAABenchmarkStatement.htm

http://www.peerlearning.ac.uk/


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SKILLS (S) Students develop skills throughout their degree – some will be subject specific and grounded in a particular context or discipline, others may be transferable to other contexts and seen to be of value in a variety of situations. The word skills covers a wide variety of things from organisational abilities to interpersonal understanding. These things can be hard to ‘teach’ but it is important that teachers provide opportunities for students to practice and experience certain skills in their course of study. How can you help them through your teaching?

SKILLS Goal position 1: Use the requisite variety of media (face-to-face, audio-visual, on-line conferencing, asynchronous information and communications technology).


Ask yourself these questions: • Do tutors demonstrate best practice and a

good balance in the use of the media? • Are there opportunities for staff development

in these areas? • Are there opportunities to utilise the services

available – e.g. the institution’s educational development unit, staff development services, computing services, media services etc.?

• Do students also have the opportunity to use

a variety of media during their course? To what extent?

• Are there opportunities to integrate student

use of these media into course content? • Do staff have the opportunity to experiment

with media? • Are they supported in this?



Ask a similar department that uses a variety of media for ideas and/or to peer review your media use?

Ensure department staff are comfortable with basic technology?

Organise an IT/media technology refresher course?

Use student expertise where possible to engender a sense of ownership?

Consider how you might use/enhance a Virtual Learning Environment for your department?


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SKILLS

Goal position 2: Use the requisite variety of methods (presentations, Action Learning Sets, work experience, seminars, proctoring, tutorials, Computer-assisted Instruction, independent study projects.


Ask yourself these questions: • Do tutors demonstrate best practice in the

use of methods?

• How familiar are staff with these teaching methods?

• Are there opportunities for staff development in these methods?

• Are there opportunities to utilise the services available – e.g. the institution’s educational development unit, staff development services, computing services, media services, careers service etc.?

• What opportunities for work experience do

the department have? • Could new opportunities be developed?

• Is there a good balance between methods of delivery?

• Do staff have the opportunity to experiment

with new teaching methods? • Are they supported in this?



Seek out examples of the use of alternative methods in departments similar to your own? Consider what would work for you.

Attend Continuing Professional Development events on teaching methods?

Ask students what teaching methods they have found particularly helpful in the past/in other courses?

Ask colleagues what teaching styles they have found particularly helpful in the past/in other

courses?

Better utilise the services available to you in your institution?


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SKILLS

Goal position 3: Use a variety of styles (coaching, instructing, facilitating, and clarifying).


Ask yourself these questions: • Do tutors demonstrate best practice in the

use of styles? • Are there opportunities for staff

development? • Are there opportunities to utilise the services

available – e.g. the institution’s educational development unit, staff development services, student learning services etc.?

• Is there a good balance between styles of delivery?

• Do students get to practice with different

styles during their learning? • Do staff have the opportunity to experiment

with new teaching methods? • Are they supported in this?



Seek out examples of the use of alternative methods in departments similar to your own. Consider what would work for you.

Attend Continuing Professional Development events on teaching styles?

Ask colleagues what teaching styles they have found particularly helpful in the past/in other courses?

Better utilise the services available to you in your institution?


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SKILLS

Goal position 4: Information and communications technology should be treated as a normal learning tool.


Ask yourself these questions: • How does the department use Information

and Communications Technology? • Are staff comfortable using these tools? • What training have staff received? • Are there opportunities to utilise the services

available – e.g. the institution’s educational development unit, staff development services, computing services, media services etc.?

• Do you have a departmental IT expert? • Is there an explicit progression with student

level in the complexity of technology used?



Are there opportunities to integrate student use of technology into course content?

Does any e-learning take place across courses?

Consider whether you could use e-learning to supplement courses.


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SKILLS

Goal position 5: Students should expect to work collaboratively, whether learning tasks require it or not.


Ask yourself these questions: • What use is made of group-work in the

department? • How successful is group-work in the

department? • Are staff comfortable assigning group tasks? • How explicit is the expectation that students

develop this skill? • Is this expectation included and reviewed

using ILO’s? • Do students simply gain this skill as a by-

product of the course or are guidelines for group working explicit/taught /available/?

• Are any group projects formatively or

summatively assessed?



Review the use of group work – where does it work? What is not so successful?

Investigate what similar departments use group work effectively? In what contexts? Think about how could you use it.

At the beginning of courses, make it clear that collaborative activity is an integral part of

the course? Set ground-rules?

Better ensure equity amongst group members in sharing task and taking responsibility? How?

Review ILO’s – how explicit an ILO is group work?

Discuss with colleagues how you assess group work?

Review whether your choice of assessment helps or hinders effective use of group work?


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SKILLS - SUPPORT AVAILABLE

Try:

• Your institution’s Educational Development Unit.

• Your institution’s Careers Service.


• Your institution’s Media Services.

• Your institution’s Computing Service.

• The Learning and Teaching Support Network Generic Centre http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/index.asp - see Projects>Employability and

• LTSN Subject Centres http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/index.asp?id=9

• The Higher Education Academy website http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/





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EFFICACY (E) Personal qualities including self-theories and efficacy beliefs are extremely important to a student’s employability in that they will determine an individual’s response to any given situation – can they make a difference/tackle a problem confidently/bounce back after failure etc.? This is a complex area and one where you may think it is impossible to impact upon. However, there is a wealth of evidence and research to show that a student’s experiences in the classroom can have a great effect on self-theory and efficacy beliefs and teachers can ensure that a climate for learning exists that nurtures these positively.3 How can you help them through your teaching?

EFFICACY Goal position 1: Most assessments will be ‘low stakes’ assessments, which are intended to improve understanding, or skills, or reflection, or the development of self-theories that sustain achievement.


Ask yourself these questions: • What low stakes assessments are offered to

allow students to develop and build confidence?

• What feedback is given to improve future performance?

• What opportunities do students have to obtain formative feedback on low stakes/non-assessed pieces of work?

• What milestones in development are made

explicit?

• How do students know that they are developing/improving?



Build more opportunities for low stakes assessment into coursework?

Review the proportion of low-high stakes assessment. What is the balance?

Review the type and quality of feedback given on low stakes assessment?

Recognise achievements – both at an individual and group level?

Map achievements against ILO’s to make progression explicit?

Introduce Personal Development Planning in order that students have a way of understanding their own progress, can map achievement and plan ways forward?

3 See Dweck, C.S. (1999) Self-theories: their role in motivation, personality, and development. Philadelphia, PA: The Psychology Press and Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education. 5 (1), 7-74.


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EFFICACY

Goal position 2: Summative assessment has the important function of providing trustworthy grades for significant learning achievements. However, by no means all achievements can be affordably and reliably graded with validity. This means that some achievements should not be summatively assessed by academic staff.


Ask yourself these questions: • What is the balance of summative v

formative assessment? • Are any summative assessments being used

for low stakes assessment that could be formative instead?

• Are any summative assessments being used

that should not be used? • Can self- and peer assessment be used

more effectively for formative assessment tasks?

• Can you use alternative methods of teaching

to provide opportunities for low stakes formative assessment e.g. web-based automated testing?



Build in more opportunities for low stakes/formative/confidence building formative assessment?

Audit the balance between high and low stakes assessment in the programme and make

changes as appropriate?

Investigate the use of self- and peer assessment?

Investigate the use of other alternative assessment methods?

Ask colleagues in other departments/institutions for ideas?


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EFFICACY

Goal position 3: Teaching should be… structured across a programme as a whole so that students get progressively less help and guidance as they encounter more complex situations, concepts, arrangements etc.


Ask yourself these questions: • Is there a progression in the use and

complexity of self-directed learning opportunities as time goes on?

• Are students progressively acquiring skills

that enable them to self-direct more and more throughout the levels of the degree programme?

• Does your department have an explicit

‘curriculum map’ that specifies the progression of generic and subject-specific skills for each level of the course?

• If yes, how is the acquisition of the skills

specifically monitored? • How explicit is this expectation? • Is guidance available on effective self-

directed learning? • Is feedback available on their self-directed

learning skills? • Are students aware of support available to

them e.g. Effective Learning Advisers? • Are students encouraged to peer assess to

help with their own self-assessment?



Review the complexity of self-directed opportunities throughout the programme. Is progression evident. If not, build in more complexity as appropriate?

Review your teaching role as time goes on? Do you increasingly move from director to

facilitator in parallel with student seniority? Map your progression.

Rate your teaching on a scale of one to ten at each level in the course from one being tutor-centred to ten being learner centred? Can you see any pattern? What does this tell you?

Provide explicit guidelines on any self-directed learning tasks that you expect students to

undertake? Monitor progress?

Advertise and encourage students to use student learning support services both in class and in the department?

Investigate further opportunities to use self- and peer assessment methods?


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EFFICACY

Goal position 4: There should be plentiful feedback that is intended to help future performance (rather than identify informational lapses), especially by encouraging self-theories that value effort and mindfulness.


Ask yourself these questions: • Is there a consistency in feedback provision

across different levels and tutors to enable student to have clear guidelines?

• Does feedback relate to ILOs? • Do you make use of marking proformas? • Do you encourage drafts to be submitted for

feedback before final assessment? • Are there opportunities for staff development

in feedback techniques? • Do you encourage students to self-assess

and identify their own strengths, development areas and possible ways forward?

• Do you encourage peer assessment and

feedback to supplement tutor advice? • Do you use other feedback methods e.g.

automated testing via a VLE/web etc?



Ensure staff are aware of different feedback methods?

Review your feedback provision? Do you have consistent feedback mechanisms?

Use feedback proformas or other methods of giving effective feedback?

Encourage students to self-assess during each assessment task?


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EFFICACY

Goal position 5: There should be plenty of occasions to get feedback on performance, which will tend to be conversational feedback.


Ask yourself these questions: • How approachable is the department and its

staff to informal student enquiry? • Are students at all levels encouraged to use

the department? If not, is there an alternative area that students can use and identify with?

• How available are staff for informal

consultation? Is availability advertised? • Are students encouraged to seek informal

feedback?



Increase your availability for student support?

Change the format of office hours to increase approachability and encourage students to use this opportunity?

Get student evaluation of feedback in the department and act upon it?

EFFICACY

Goal position 6: Peers (other students) will often provide feedback.


Ask yourself these questions: • Does this happen? • If so, to what extent? • Are students given a framework from which

to provide this feedback? • Does this happen progressively as time goes

on in the degree course?



Raise awareness of successful uses of peer assessment within the department?

Use student evaluation of peer assessment to ‘sell’ the method to staff?

Research the benefits of peer assessment and the ways in which it can be used?


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EFFICACY

Goal position 7: ‘A learning culture suffused with cues and clues … conducive to the development of malleability (i.e. developing in students the belief that their intelligence is not fixed but can be developed with effort and work).


Ask yourself these questions: • Are the above ‘cues and clues’ present? i.e.

do you encourage students to learn from mistakes, move forward and progress after disappointment, map their progression throughout a course so that progression becomes obvious to them, celebrate success and encourage the notion that they can achieve beyond their expectations?

• If, so, how explicit are these cues and clues? • How could you make them more explicit to

students? • If not, what cues and clues could be

introduced?



Introduce learning signposts and review points in courses where activities allow reflection on progression and achievement?

Recognise and make explicit student achievement?

Ensure that you provide effective and encouraging feedback that students can act upon?

EFFICACY Goal position 8: Curriculum aims and design, learning and teaching, and assessment all need to be pointing in the same general direction. (Aligned curricula).


Ask yourself these questions: • Are assessment tasks appropriate to ILOs

and teaching and learning methods? • Are courses across the curriculum in

alignment? • Are courses progressively aligned as time

goes on?



Review ILOs in relation to assessment methods used? Are they in alignment? If not, consider if your ILOs/assessment are correct and amend them as appropriate.


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EFFICACY - SUPPORT AVAILABLE

Try:


• Your institution’s Staff Development Service. • Your institution’s Student Learning Service.



• The Higher Education Academy website http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ • QAA Progress Files for Higher education (for advice on Personal Development Planning).

• The SENLEF (Student Enhanced Learning through Effective Feedback) Project website

http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/index.asp > Projects>Assessment>SENLEF (for advice and case studies of practice in feedback methods).

• Look at the literature on constructive alignment in the curriculum. Start with John Biggs

(1999) Teaching for Quality Learning at University.

http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/tls/sls/




http://www.qaa.ac.uk/crntwork/progfileHE/contents.htm



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METACOGNITION (M) Metacognition is about learning how to learn. To do this students need to be aware of what they know, what they can do and how they can progress. Tools and methods that teachers use can help students with metacognitive processes and enable them to have the awareness of their learning they need to become self-directed lifelong learners. How can you help them through your teaching?

METACOGNITION Goal position 1: Time for strategic thinking, reflection, planning and portfolio making should be written into the programme; students should know that; and they should know that they are expected to engage with these learning activities and involve peers, friends and tutors at appropriate times.


Ask yourself these questions: • Is time for critical reflection built into the

course? • Is this reflection self-reflection as well as

reflection on subject matter? • Are the benefits of reflection made explicit? • Are there frameworks/ guidelines/skills made

available to aid the development of critical self-reflection?

• To what extent are students encouraged to

share that reflection with others including peers, friends, and tutors?

• Are the benefits of doing the above made

explicit? • Are students made aware of support

services available to them e.g. Effective Learning Advisers, Student Counselling Service etc.?



Review where this is done explicitly. How could you build this in?

Review whether your students aware that their degree is helping them to learn about learning? What tools could you build in to help them with this?

Introduce Personal Development Planning (PDP)? Look at what other

Universities/departments do.

Introduce Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) sessions?


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Build structured time for reflective questioning on learning into lectures/tutorials.


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METACOGNITION

Goal position 2: Opportunities and support should be provided to help students create learning portfolios that document their claims to educational and employability achievements. For some achievements, this is the best alternative to more traditional forms of summative assessment.


Ask yourself these questions: • Are portfolios used in the current curriculum? • If not, is there opportunity to use these? • Could these portfolios be assessed/replace

a traditional method of assessment? • If yes, how? If not, why? • Is there potential for the development of a

tool/process (portfolio, PDP or other method) to record achievement and provide a vehicle for reflection?



Introduce Personal Development Planning? Look at what other Universities/departments do.

Consider where in your courses the use of portfolios might be a useful assessment tool?

Investigate the benefits of using learning portfolios?

Ask colleagues about their experiences of using portfolios?


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METACOGNITION

Goal position 3: As the programme progresses, students will learn how to become more adept at self-assessment.


Ask yourself these questions: • How is self-assessment used in the

department? • What guidelines are available for students? • Are staff comfortable with students’ self-

assessment? • Do students become more adept? If so,

how? • Is this expectation implicit or explicit? • What tools are available to help students

achieve this? • Do students have opportunities within the

course to self-assess and receive feedback? If so, to what extent?

• How is peer assessment used to help with

students’ self-assessment skills?



Consider where in your courses the self-assessment could be used beneficially?

Provide guidelines on self-assessment for all involved?

Run an awareness session on the benefits and uses of self-assessment in HE for staff?

Consider what frameworks you would use for self-assessment?

Ask colleagues about effective ways of using self-assessment?


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METACOGNITION - SUPPORT AVAILABLE

Try:



• Your institution’s Student Learning Service.



• The Higher Education Academy website http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ • QAA Progress Files for Higher education (for advice on Personal Development Planning).

• The SENLEF (Student Enhanced Learning through Effective Feedback) Project website

http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/index.asp > Projects>Assessment>SENLEF (for advice and case studies of practice in feedback methods).

http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/tls/sls/




http://www.qaa.ac.uk/crntwork/progfileHE/contents.htm



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IMPLEMENTATION PLAN By completing the audit you will have put together a small action plan for each goal position area. Review these action points now and use this page to develop an overall implementation plan to take your action points forward. Remember, in doing this you might also want to take into account whether there are any:

• Quick wins. There may be something that you or your colleagues could do very easily that would not cost a lot in terms of resources or time.

• Changes that require longer term planning? Does the change require agreement of

others/resource allocation/time to implement?

WHAT - Action Point WHO will take this forward?

WHEN will this be completed?

teaching for employability audit tool - quality research … · · 2018-01-24teaching for...

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