Developing Students’ Ability to Succeed as Graduates: Embedding Employability as Metacognition

Organised by Centre for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL)

Details of the workshop:
Date : 8 March, 2018 (Thursday) Time : 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm Venue : CPD-LG. 59, Centennial Campus CPD-LG. 62, Centennial Campus Speaker : Dawn Bennett, John Curtin Distinguished Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Creative Workforce Initiative with Curtin University in Australia Facilitator : Dr. Cecilia Chan, Head of Professional Development, Associate Professor, HKU

Abstracts
The development of employability — students’ abilities to negotiate the graduate labour market — is the responsibility of educators, students and leaders; however, teachers are by far the most important and influential people in students’ higher education experience. This workshop addresses how to overcome limited time, expertise and resources to develop employability within the existing curriculum.

This workshop, delivered by leading expert Professor Dawn Bennett, positions employability development as the cognitive and social development of students as capable and informed individuals, professionals and social citizens. It draws on the Australian employABILITY initiative, which locates employability development within the existing curriculum and seeks to engage students as partners in their developmental journeys by creating a better understanding of students’ thinking as aspiring professionals. This cognitive approach aligns employABILITY development with both the purpose of higher education and the future of work.

The workshop utilises the validated Literacies for Life (L4L) measure (Figure 1), which combines six, inter-related literacies to enhance employability and inform personal and professional development.

Figure 1: Student (plain English) version of the Literacies for Life (L4L) model

The interactive workshop engages participants in a socio-cognitive self-assessment profile and follows with resources and strategies to embed employABILITY within existing programs and courses. The workshop will suit teachers, program leaders, curricular designers, senior managers and careers advisors. No prior expertise or experience is required.

Participants will leave the workshop equipped and ready to embed employABILITY thinking and the research-enabled tool into classes. Participants will gain:

Access to the online self-assessment profile tool for students;
Resources and career stories for use with students; and
Examples of the SoTL and educational research that flow from students’ responses and engagement.

For more information on the initiative, visit the educator or student sites below.
Educator site: http://developingemployability.edu.au/
Student site: https://student.developingemployability.edu.au/

About the Speaker

Dawn Bennett is John Curtin Distinguished Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Creative Workforce Initiative with Curtin University in Australia. Dawn is a leading expert on the development of employability. Her research focuses on the development of employability, including identity and graduate work. Dawn is a National Senior Australian Learning and Teaching Fellow and Principal Fellow with the Higher Education Academy in the UK. She is currently leading research to embed a metacognitive model for employability with faculty and students in Australia, the UK, Europe and the US. Dawn is Vice-Chair Australia for the International Federation of National Teaching Fellows. Dawn has a discipline background in music and retains an active interest in arts-based research. Publications appear at Researchgate.