Oxford Brookes Conference on Graduate Employability: Oxford: 16/06/09

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Oxford Brookes Conference on Graduate
Employability Oxford 16/06/09

• Learning about me as well as the subject
  enhancing employability through critical
  reflective learning
• John Buswell
• University of Gloucestershire

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• Learning to learn is the educational paradigm
  for the twenty-first century (Ruth Deakin Crick
  2004)
• You cannot teach a man anything you can only
  help him find it within himself (Galileo)
• But what does it mean and how do we do it (if we
  think it is important)?

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Outline of session

• Student-centred learning- the why and wherefore
• Metalearning and self-awareness
• A structured, progressive and supported process
• The use of critical storytelling and learning
  inventories
• Their impact

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Why is student-centred learning so important for
employability?

• We are preparing students for a world of
  increasing uncertainty
• Increasingly electronic
• Knowledge society
• Learning in the 21st century requires active,
  autonomous, flexible and lifelong learners
• Increased emphasis on transdisciplinary knowledge
  and competences?

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Changing HE context

• Numbers, diversity, AWP
• Outcomes-based approaches
• Dearing vision
• The opportunities provided by active learning and
  reflective thinking
• The centrality of reflective learning to PDP
• Potential to transform the HE curriculum by
  placing the student at the centre and moving away
  from content-based models (Broadfoot 2006) What
  does this mean? Do you agree with it?
• Links between PDP and employability
• The Leitch Report

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The Leitch Report (December 2006)

• Even if the UK were to reach all of its skills
  targets for 2010, it would still be trailing
  behind other key competitors in the knowledge
  economy
• Complex based knowledge roles forecast to be 45
  of workforce by 2014
• Challenging targets for 2020, especially in
  higher order skills

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• Consequent importance of developing self-reliant,
  independent and collaborative learners who know
  and understand themselves and are prepared for
  the increasing complexities of employability and
  citizenship
• Transferability
• In our rapidly changing world, the ability to
  learn quickly, to be flexible, to be comfortable
  with newness, is a core skill. It might even be
  the most important (Parker and Stone 200319)
• This helps in presenting a clear and positive
  image to employers and others

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• at the end of the day, it is the graduates of
  our universities and colleges who will need to
  have the clearest idea of their skills,
  capabilities and achievements, both in order to
  sell themselves to employers and academic
  selectors and to manage their own careers in
  increasingly less supported working environments
  (Burgess 2005)
• The key lies in self-awareness and metalearning

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Metalearning

• Bourner points out that
• developing students capacity for reflective
  learning is part of developing their capacity to
  learn how to learn (Bourner 2003267)
• Employers are not interested in seeing extensive
  documented outcomes, but they do wish to see for
  themselves how candidates think and behave in new
  situations (Edwards 20018)

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(University of Gloucestershire

Metalearning
Awareness and control of ones own learning How?

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• Self-empowerment and autonomy
• Self-awareness and strategic awareness
• Ownership self-regulated learning
• Capacity for lifelong learning
• Reflective practice and reflective learning,
  especially learning from experiences

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Reflective thinking

• experience is not quite the same thing as
  learning from experience (Moon 2004105)
• Reflective learning is not what happens to a
  student it is what the student does with what
  has happened (Bourner 20034)
• And it requires us to mediate and create the
  appropriate learning environment

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• metalearning capacity requires a skill in
  learning that is quite different from, and
  superordinate to, the acquisition of
  complementary skills (such as how to take notes,
  use the library and so on (Meyer and Shanahan
  2004444)
• i.e. skills in learning as well as skills for
  learning

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University of Gloucestershire case study
SELF-AWARENESS (Metacognition)

Metalearning
Emphasis on transdisciplinary learning
Which depends on
Level
Self-management
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SKILL OF TRANSFERABILITY

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Self-identity
THROUGH

• 1. Tools/techniques of reflective writing
• 2. Peer support
• 3. Self-assessment of capabilities
• 4. Language to describe learning
• 5. Making sense of experiences
• 6. Fully embedded model of PDP

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Self-authorship
Key challenges

• Engagement by students and
• staff
• 2. Action and reflexivity

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Metalearning through

• Constructivist and socio-constructivist
  approaches to learning and
• An integrated and progressive approach to PDP,
  incorporating
• A model of progression in metalearning
• The tools and techniques of reflective writing
  (including recording and planning)
• Methods of peer support and mentoring
• Learning inventories/self-assessment tools
• ELLI
• ECI-U (Emotional Competence Inventory-University
  Edition

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Reflective writing (but critically reflective)

• Learning agreements/diaries/logs/journals
• R cards
• Unsent letters
• Portraits
• Critical incidents
• Critical storytelling see handout

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1. Using Stories to reflect on placement
experiences

• Creating social environments to encourage
  reflective thinking and peer support
• Developing techniques for encouraging reflective
  writing and peer support
• Creating a placement story which includes
  developing skills in reflective writing,
  listening and questioning techniques

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• when we tell stories and process them, using
  reflective dialogue, we create the possibility
  for change in ourselves and others. Our capacity
  to express ourselves through narrative forms not
  only enables us to reshape, reassess and
  reconstruct particular events, it allows us to
  learn from discussing our experiences with
  individuals who raise alternative views, suggest
  imaginative possibilities and ask stimulating
  questions. (McDrury and Alterio 200338)

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2. The use of learning inventories

• Self-assessment
• Concepts of learning
• Provides language with which to understand,
  evaluate and articulate learning and capabilities
• They are an important element of learning to learn

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ELLI (Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory)

• Based on learning power
• Learners are
• All different
• Constantly learning
• Able to change to become better learners
• Able to reflect on their learning
• Motivated to be better learners

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ELLI contains seven dimensions of learning power
Positive pole Negative pole
Changing and learning Being stuck
Meaning making Data accumulation
Critical curiosity Passivity
Creativity Rule bound
Learning relationships Isolation
Strategic awareness Robotic
Resilience Dependent
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ELLI measures learning power

• The qualities and dispositions that enable
  students to learn and go on learning throughout
  life
• A research project in schools in 2002 led by
  Professors Patricia Broadfoot and Guy Claxton
  (University of Bristol)
• Contains an online questionnaire (ELOISE)

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ELLI contains an online survey that

• Takes approximately 20 minutes for each student
  to fill in
• Comprises 97 statements
• Produces individual profiles about each students
  learning power
• Produces class profiles to show how groups of
  students view themselves as learners

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ELLI can

• Identify dimensions of learning to work on with
  students
• Focus students attention on learning
• Give them am immediate profile and supportive
  material
• Help students think about how to improve learning
• Help to provide students with a language with
  which to understand and articulate their learning
• Be a learning experience in itself

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Individual Profiles can show

• how each student feels about learning
• who are the fragile learners
• which students could achieve much better if they
  worked on one or two aspects of learning

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Example 1
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Example 2
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2. ESCI-U (Emotional and Social Competency
Inventory-University Edition

• Applied to learning from 12 month placement and
  other experiences
• Focuses on self-awareness social-awareness
  self-management relationship management and
  cognitive competencies
• 70 statements in paper-based questionnaire plus
  opportunity for feedback questionnaire from
  someone who knows the student well
• Supported by a work book explaining each
  competency and containing sections for reflective
  writing

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The growing importance of EI to employability

• EI is essential for
• Self-management
• Developing others
• Facilitating relationships between others and
• Management of our relationship with others
• (Sparrow Knight 2006)

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OK Corrall Life Positions (Sparrow Knight
2006 40)

• Im NOT OK
  Im OK
• I-U
  IU
• Youre OK
• Youre NOT OK
• Stuck
  Critical
• I-U-
  IU-

Submissive EI
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Student feedback on both inventories

• A little mixed on ELLI but overwhelmingly
  positive on the ESCI-U
• Perhaps influenced by the stage of the students
  progression in their degree
• However, there was a correlation between the
  perception of ELLI and the academic attainment of
  students in one group

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• Student feedback and student assessments
  suggested that their ability to learn from
  reflecting critically on their experiences was
  enhanced by the use of learning inventories,
  particularly in the following ways
• Identifying and analysing strengths and
  weaknesses
• Seeing themselves in a different light
• Increased self-identity
• Greater awareness of how others viewed them
• A trigger for critical reflection (rather than
  simply descriptive reflection) and strategic
  awareness
• How to learn better

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Conclusions

• Learning about me as well as the subject
  (particularly when it is contextual knowledge
  and involves applying subject theory) can be
  effective and critical (including the highest
  order cognitive skills and metacognition)
• PDP is, I believe, helping to transform the
  higher education programme from one that is still
  primarily geared to the transmission of knowledge
  to one where self-identity is also important.
  When the specialist knowledge we acquire through
  a higher education becomes redundant, all we are
  left with is our capacity to keep learning. This
  has to be the key skill for life which higher
  education equips us with and it is the one that
  PDP serves (Jackson 2005)

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References

• Broadfoot, P (2006) Empowering the learner
  theories, tools and techniques. Keynote address
  to Researching and evaluating PDP and
  e-Portfolios, International Seminar, Oxford,
  October 2006
• Bourner, T (2003) Assessing reflective thinking,
  Education and Training, Vol.45, Issue 5, pp
  256-272
• Burgess, R (2005) Measuring and recording student
  achievement Report of the Scoping Group at
  http//bookshop.universities.ac.uk/downloads/measu
  ringachievement.pdf

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• Deakin Crick, R (2004) in (Tew, M Deakin Crick,
  R Broadfoot, P Claxton, G (2004) ELLI, Learning
  Power A Practitioners Guide, Lifelong Learning
  Foundation, Manchester
• Edwards, G (2001) Connecting PDP to Employer
  Needs and the World of Work, LTSN Generic Centre,
  York
• www.hea.ac.uk/resources
• Jackson, N (2005) Towards the tipping point an
  intensely personal view of Progress Files and PDP
• www.recordingachievement.org/downloads?/ISSUE6PDP
  UKDEC05.pdf
• McDrury, J Alterio, M (2003) Learning through
  Storytelling in Higher Education Using
  Reflection and Experience to Improve Learning,
  Kogan Page, London

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Further reading

• Meyer, J Shanahan, M (2004) Developing
  metalearning capacity in students actionable
  theory and practical lessons learned in
  first-year economics, Innovation in Education and
  Teaching International, Vol.41, N.4 4, November
  2004, 443-455
• Moon, J (2004) A Handbook of Reflective and
  Experiential Learning, RoutledgeFalmer, Abingdon
• Parker, C Stone, B (2003) Developing Management
  Skills for Leadership, Pearson Education, Harlow
• Schon, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner how
  professionals think in action, Arena Publishing,
  Boston
• Sparrow, T Knight, A (2006) Applied EI The
  importance of attitudes in developing emotional
  intelligence, Chichester, John Wiley Sons