Enhancing Employability in Higher Education through Work Based Learning


Book Description

This book focuses on a renewed interest in work based learning in higher education. Due to an increased emphasis on employability in the graduate population, supported by wider policy changes, work based learning is becoming an increasingly pressing issue in higher education. The authors detail innovations from a breadth of UK universities, where academics have creatively addressed changes in work based learning structure, pedagogy and support systems. These changes in turn recognise the impact of real-life learning experiences on student progression, on both an academic development and a personally transformative level. Encompassing a wide variety of topics, the examples within the book are supported by theory and carefully detailed practice pedagogy. This valuable edited collection will be of interest to practitioners and scholars of work based learning and higher education, as well as a useful practical guide for academic developers.




Graduate Employability and Workplace-Based Learning Development


Book Description

This book presents a comprehensive discussion of sociocultural perspectives on graduate employability and workplace-based learning development. It draws on Vygotsky’s theories such as situated learning and sociocultural perspectives, as well as the constructivist learning theory. This book showcases theoretical and empirical analyses that show how institutions, decision-makers or academics can work together to enhance job employability in this age of uncertainty. It discusses issues such as the development of emerging and employability skills, examines research in higher education and workplace-based learning development, and proposes directions for the changing nature in real-world settings. This book details empirical research in the field using quantitative, qualitative and mixed method approaches, and summarizes the key conclusions pertaining to graduate employability skills as well as workplace learning culture and technology-mediated environment. It includes contributions from experienced international scholars, and offers detailed insights for readers who want a timely understanding of research trends in graduate employability and workplace-based learning development.




Graduate Attributes, Learning and Employability


Book Description

In these complex and challenging times, students, teachers and employers are all interested in the development of generic abilities as these typically make the difference between good and indifferent employees, successful and unsuccessful learners. This book explains why generic capacities have become so important and argues that the process of acquiring them is both lifelong and developmental.




Work-Based Learning


Book Description

Work-Based Learning




Graduate Skills and Game-Based Learning


Book Description

This book explores the efficacy of game-based learning to develop university students’ skills and competencies. While writing on game-based learning has previously emphasised the use of games developed specifically for educational purposes, this book fills an important gap in the literature by focusing on commercial games such as World of Warcraft and Minecraft. Underpinned by robust empirical evidence, the author demonstrates that the current negative perception of video games is ill-informed, and in fact these games can be important tools to develop graduate skills related to employability. Speaking to very current concerns about the employability of higher education graduates and the skills that university is intended to develop, this book also explores the attitudes to game-based learning as expressed by instructors, students and game developers.




Higher Education and the Future of Graduate Employability


Book Description

This book challenges the dominant ‘employability skills’ discourse by exploring socially connected and networked perspectives to learning and teaching in higher education. Both learning and career development happen naturally and optimally in ecologies, informal communities and partnerships. In the digital age, they are also highly networked. This book presents ten empirical case studies of educational practice that investigate the development of learner capabilities, teaching approaches, and institutional strategies in higher education, to foster lifelong graduate employability through social connectedness.




Learning, Curriculum and Employability in Higher Education


Book Description

Anyone with a responsibility for curriculum development or policy making within higher education who wants to advance learning and promote employability amongst their students will find this book absolutely essential reading.




Global Perspectives on Work-Based Learning Initiatives


Book Description

The purpose of education has been debated in recent years, especially surrounding its curriculum and structure. In order to fully understand this discussion, the relationship between education and the labor market must be explored. Global Perspectives on Work-Based Learning Initiatives is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on recent progress in selected countries across the globe in educational programs designed to better prepare students for the workforce through the use of work-related learning. While highlighting topics such as degree apprenticeships, integrated learning strategy, and economic development, this book is ideally designed for education administrators, professors, business and education professionals, academicians, researchers, and graduate-level students seeking current research on the relationship between the education and labor market.




Constructing Online Work-Based Learning Placements


Book Description

Constructing Online Work-Based Learning Placements offers a step-by-step approach to understanding and applying the principles of design and delivery in online work-based learning (WBL) placements for students. A crucial component of employability strategies for higher education students, WBL placements are increasingly in need of adaptation to respond to today’s rapidly expanding online work environments. This evidence-based book explores the emergent properties and additional value that online WBL placements provide to student learning and employability prospects, focusing on effective pedagogy, design, planning and implementation. The book also presents the Peer Enhanced e-Placement (PEEP), a pioneering, positively evaluated and award-winning online WBL placement model that is underpinned by pedagogical research and theory. The PEEP has been adapted and adopted by numerous higher education teams organising online WBL placements, and the case example included in these pages will guide readers through their own implementation and collaborations.




Sustaining Employability Through Work-life Learning


Book Description

This book seeks to advance understandings of and approaches to supporting and sustaining working age adults’ learning across lengthening working lives and inevitable transitions they encounter and are required to negotiate. It is founded on the processes and findings of a three-phase practical inquiry into worklife learning and its implications for workplace and educations’ practice conducted in Australia over a three-year period commencing in 2019. Diverse perspectives and orientations were utilised in approaches to data analysis and renderings from the data, thereby opening up the analysis of these complex phenomena to different lines of interrogation, questions and analytical approaches. It elaborates more fully understandings about the processes of adults’ learning and development across their lifespan of adulthood referred to as working life, and what factors and contributions supported that learning. This book also attempts to reconcile a coherent view about development across the work lifespan, and how that can be supported by education provisions, workplaces, communities, and by the adults themselves.