Sponsor/year: Faculty of Business and Law, 2014 – 16.

Project leads: Assoc. Prof. Kerrie Bridson, Dr Marion Steel, Dr Siew-Mee Barton, Sabrina Chakman, Maria Sponza.

Aims:

• Develop students’ career readiness and sense of purpose.
• Streamline development of career readiness throughout the BComm.
• Develop staff capacity to teach career readiness.

Underpinning theories/literature:

• The DOTS analysis original version (PDF 47kb): description of the DOTS career planning model.
• Authentic learning: website with explanation of authentic learning, examples.
• Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development (PDF 1.33MB): Kolb’s foundational short book describing experiential learning.

• Clarity and relevance: The unit has a clear, simple aim and structure. Students can see that activities and assessments are all highly relevant to helping them form, research and achieve their personal career goals. At the same time, the relevance of developing key employability skills including teamwork, digital literacy and communication skills for their career goals is also made explicit and supported through the activities and assessments.
• Active, reflective, team-based learning: Rather than the traditional class-plus-seminar teaching model, students have one ‘flipped classroom’ two-hour seminar per week and three to five ‘focused events’ per trimester. The seminars emphasise active, reflective and team-based learning.
• Contextualised: The context for most activities is industry-specific rather than generic, with an emphasis on establishing the particular capabilities and attributes students will need to succeed in the contemporary employment market. The ‘focused events’ generally involve guest speakers from industry, to maximise experiential learning in a real-world context learning.
• Scaffolded literacies: Students build their awareness of personal opportunities and challenges in their particular segment of the employment market through scaffolded database and web-searching activities, which develop students’ critical analysis and digital literacy skills at the same time.
• Demystifying and encouraging: Students are introduced to a range of ways to access employment opportunities they might not otherwise have had if they lacked social and cultural capital in the industry. The emphasis is on demystifying processes of accessing these opportunities and at the same time helping students recognise and maximise the strength of their own offering.
• Skilful teaching: Teaching and marking staff have professional development in teaching WIL, as well as detailed marking guides, rubrics and templates to embed ongoing support in this specialised area. This helps ensure students gain the individualised support and feedback they need to develop their self-awareness and sense of being able to manage their own career pathway.
• Supported: Technical requirements surrounding students’ submission of a ‘me in a minute’ interview are supported with templates, examples, FAQs and discussions.
• Customer service model: A ‘customer service’ model around responding to email and online discussion-based communications helps manage student expectations and staff workload.
• Logistically efficient: Strong logistics systems ensure the efficiency and quality of students’ final panel interview assessments, which involve industry representatives, around 1200 on-campus and cloud-based students, and supported peer assessment.

• Student satisfaction: Trimester 1, 2017 eVALUate data showed an overall student satisfaction rate for the unit of 83% (n=171, 22%). Some 88% (n=222) reflected that they had had positive learning experiences in the unit.
• Student benefits: In their feedback on the unit, students overwhelmingly report learning a considerable amount from the unit and gaining a range of benefits from completing it. These include gaining confidence in developing a personal career plan and taking opportunities for work experience that will contribute to their employability:

• Self-ratings on key skills: Independent ‘Creating Impact through Evaluation’ (CITE) Trimester 2, 2016 student survey showed increased average confidence in job search skills (employability), rising from 3.38 to 4.50/5 by the end of the unit; increased average confidence in ability to write a good resume and cover letter from 3.25 to 4.75/5 (internal report).
• Faculty outcomes: The Faculty of Business and Law now has a scaffolded whole-of-faculty WIL approach embedded as a core unit.