Personal development planning, employability and learning in partnership

Presentation to UWS PDP User Group, 2015

Dr Gordon Heggie Dr Neil McPherson

School of Media, Culture & SocietyUniversity of the West of Scotland

The G21C attributes and qualities

Graduates for the 21st Century, QAA Scotland Enhancement Themehttp://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/docs/publications/graduates-for-the-

21st-century-integrating-the-enhancementthemes-leaflet.pdf

It is a 21st century reality…

‘…that such skills are in ever greater demand, while those of

specific subjects are likely to erode at an increasing rate as technology advances. Careers themselves have become more volatile and employers are seeking 'change makers' as much as those who can adapt to change.’

(Lines, 2011: 7-8)

So we…

‘…cannot sit in our ivory towers, observing and imagining that we will be unaffected by the changes taking place around us. If you keep doing the things you’ve always done, you keep getting what you’ve always got – and in the future that might not be enough.’

Professor Craig Mahoney, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, University of the West of Scotland. Launch of the UWS Corporate Strategy, Houses of Parliament, 28 January 2015.

http://www.uws.ac.uk/news---categories/corporate/uws-houses-of-parliament-event/

What we need is a radical rethink…

‘…not just to improve employability, vital though that is, but also to enable students to evaluate information critically and convert it into knowledge and action; to solve problems by collaborating with people from very different backgrounds and cultures, and to combine entrepreneurial creativity and technological know-how with humanistic values and vision.’

(Lines, 2011: 8)

What we need is a vision of higher education…‘…where academics work collaboratively in partnership with students as members of inclusive scholarly knowledge-building communities; where teaching and research are integrated, and where both students and academics are engaged in the challenging process of coming to understand the world through systematic investigation and collaborative decision-making.’

(Brew, 2006)

What we need is renewed emphasis…‘… on a point strongly made by John Dewey almost a century ago: learning is based on discovery guided by mentoring rather than on the transmission of information.’

(Boyer Commission, 1998: 15)

Heggie & McPherson, 2014

What we have done:

Learning in partnership a model for sustainable change

Locating learning in partnership at the centre: a model for the 21st century university

Making employability ‘real’

Our employability-integrated assessment map