scholarly journals An Institutional Framework for Scaffolding Work-Integrated Learning Across a Degree

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 80-94
Author(s):  
Bonnie Dean ◽  
◽  
Venkata Yanamandram ◽  
Michelle J. Eady ◽  
Tracey Moroney ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dominant Mode ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
Employability Skills ◽  
Degree Programs ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Integrated Learning ◽  
Pedagogical Strategy ◽  
Degree Structure ◽  
Conceptual Paper ◽  
Work Integrated Learning

Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) is an important pedagogical strategy for developing employability skills by immersing students in real-world understandings, applications and practices. Increasingly, universities are focusing on how WIL can be scaffolded across a degree, to involve students in a variety of WIL activities in order to apply disciplinary knowledge and skills. While placement models appear to be the dominant mode of WIL that are easily recognised within a degree structure, non-placement forms of WIL while emerging, remain less visible. This conceptual paper presents an institutional framework that accounts for a range of placement and non-placement WIL activities, to make WIL practices overt across a degree. It introduces the Work-Integrated Learning Curriculum Classification (WILCC) Framework that supports a university-wide approach for developing, mapping and reporting WIL. The WILCC Framework promotes the visibility of WIL across the institution, offers a common language for WIL across disciplines, and provides a tool to scaffold WIL experiences throughout degree programs.

scholarly journals The work-integrated learning combined with the portfolio method-A pedagogical strategy and tool in nursing education for developing professional competence

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Pennbrant ◽  
Håkan Nunstedt
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Education ◽  
Nursing Students ◽  
Clinical Education ◽  
Professional Competence ◽  
Integrated Learning ◽  
Pedagogical Tools ◽  
Pedagogical Strategy ◽  
Healthcare Needs ◽  
Reflection On Action ◽  
Work Integrated Learning

During nursing education students obtain knowledge and skills to develop their professional competence. Teachers may elect to provide pedagogical tools preparing students for current and future healthcare needs. The purpose of this theoretical article was to highlight Work-Integrated Learning combined with the Portfolio Method as a pedagogical strategy and tool for nursing students to develop professional competence for lifelong learning. This strategy contains six phases: pre-reflection, reflection-in-action, reflection-on-action, self-evaluation, meta-reflection and knowledge-in-action, which can help nursing students, during their clinical education, develop deeper understanding of their future profession, while also providing a teaching planning tool.

scholarly journals Conceptualising work-integrated learning to support pre-service teachers' pedagogic reasoning

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Lee RusznyakI ◽  
Carol Bertram
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Teaching Profession ◽  
South African Context ◽  
Integrated Learning ◽  
Ethical Orientations ◽  
African Context ◽  
Conceptual Paper ◽  
Classroom Routines ◽  
Work Integrated Learning

Much South African research suggests that work-integrated learning (WIL) experiences of pre-service teachers are uneven. Their learning depends heavily on the functionality of the school and on the presence and commitment of the mentor teacher. Even then, mentor feedback tends to focus on generic comments on classroom routines rather than providing an account of their teaching practices. In this conceptual paper, we draw on a range of literature and studies to argue that the value of WIL would be greatly enhanced if pre-service teachers and their mentors discuss both the visible classroom routines and the less visible reasoning that inform the pedagogic choices that teachers make. This focus on pedagogic reasoning could foreground both the principled knowledge base that teachers need, as well as the contextual responsiveness and ethical orientations needed to become a specialised knower within the teaching profession. WIL therefore needs to provide pre-service teachers with explicit, structured opportunities to consider how the teachers they observe enact their teaching and why. They also need to articulate the pedagogic choices they make in the design and delivery of their own lessons. We argue that structuring WIL as a space in which to recognise and engage in forms of pedagogic reasoning addresses some of the challenges of the uneven quality of student learning identified in research on WIL in the South African context.

scholarly journals Embedding graduate employability attributes in management sciences curricula: A case of two Namibian universities

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romanus Shivoro ◽  
Rakel Kavena Shalyefu ◽  
Ngepathimo Kadhila
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Degree Programs ◽  
Integrated Learning ◽  
Learning Modules ◽  
Graduate Attributes ◽  
Core Curricula ◽  
Graduate Employability ◽  
Core Module ◽  
Work Integrated Learning ◽  
Program Modules

Recognising implicit employability attributes within discipline-specific program modules is a critical part of the process of developing new employability modules in the management sciences curricula. The notion of graduate employability has gained acceptance in the higher education sector across the world and furthermore higher education and industry appear to have reached consensus on the importance of enhancing graduate attributes through the curricula at university. This paper offers a qualitative analysis of curricula documents to determine strategies that are effective in enhancing graduate employability. Using content analysis to assess six bachelor degree programs in management sciences from selected universities in Namibia, the study established that, in addition to work-integrated learning modules, there is evidence of graduate employability attributes being implicitly embedded in core curricula and discipline-specific modules. The researchers argue that universities should develop a stand-alone core module specifically to cultivate employability attributes. This should be supported by multiple work-integrated learning experiences for students to practise technical or discipline specific skills and generic employability attributes.

scholarly journals Work-integrated Learning and Skill Development in a Master of Public Health Program: Graduate Perspectives

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 9-26
Author(s):  
Sue Durham ◽  
◽  
Helen Jordan ◽  
Lucio Naccarella ◽  
Melissa Russell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Student Perceptions ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Skill Development ◽  
Employability Skills ◽  
Learning Approaches ◽  
Integrated Learning ◽  
Master Of Public Health ◽  
Work Integrated Learning ◽  
Learning And Collaboration

It is increasingly understood that work-integrated learning (WIL) opportunities are critical in providing graduating students with employability skills which allow them to gain employment and effectively operate in work environments. This is particularly relevant within degrees such as public health that cut across very diverse fields of practice. Little research has previously investigated student perceptions post-graduation of skill development within public health degrees. This investigation aimed to identify the range of skills gained within a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree which graduates felt assisted them to obtain employment, and to determine the teaching and learning approaches that contributed to the development of these skills. Graduates responding to a questionnaire self-reported that they had good levels of both technical and employability skills especially in the domains: Informed Decision Making, Professional Practice and Standards, Lifelong Learning and Collaboration. Students agreed that there were frequent opportunities for applied learning and enablers to employment within their degree. However, graduates indicated that the employability domain: Commencement Readiness and confidence at point of graduation, could be strengthened. The implications of this research for the development of non-placement WIL experiences, capstone subjects, the overall curriculum and broader university student experience are discussed.

scholarly journals Evaluating Alternative Work-Integrated Learning Opportunities: Student Perceptions of Interdisciplinary Industry-Based Projects

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 95-107
Author(s):  
Melanie Hayes ◽  
◽  
Leela Cejnar ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Student Perceptions ◽  
Teaching Practice ◽  
Course Delivery ◽  
Degree Programs ◽  
Integrated Learning ◽  
Transferable Skills ◽  
Community Project ◽  
Unique Experience ◽  
Work Integrated Learning ◽  
World Industry

Industry and Community Project Units (ICPU) are a work-integrated learning (WIL) initiative designed to provide an interdisciplinary, project-based experience for students based on real-world industry problems. With any new program, reflecting on the course delivery is essential for future quality improvement. Brookfield (2017) has suggested many student-centred approaches through which we can reflect on teaching practice, including Letters to Successors, whereby current students reflect on their experience and provide guidance for surviving and thriving the course, in a letter to future students. This study aimed to analyse the anonymous Letters to Successors penned by four separate ICPU cohorts, to understand students’ perceptions of undertaking interdisciplinary, industry-based projects. The text within the Letters to Successors was analysed adopting a thematic analysis, using a realist and inductive approach. Four key themes were identified in the letters: working with others, focusing on tasks, having fun, and the unique experience. The students were overwhelmingly positive in describing their experience and were grateful for the opportunity to participate in a unit unlike others in their degree programs. Many of the skills and behaviours the students attributed to success align with the transferable skills required to develop their employability; this demonstrates the value of this non-placement WIL initiative as an alternative for traditionally lengthy placements or internships that can be burdensome for both student and industry. Further research to expand our findings, or to alternatively explore the views of staff and industry partners, would be valuable in ongoing evaluations of interdisciplinary, industry-based projects as an alternative model of WIL.

scholarly journals An institutional framework to guide the comparison of work-integrated learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-100
Author(s):  
Mollie Dollinger ◽  
Jason Brown
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Field Trips ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
Integrated Learning ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Related Research ◽  
Graduate Employability ◽  
Work Integrated Learning ◽  
Australian Universities

Work-based placements, site visits, field trips and embedded industry-informed curriculum are employability strategies frequently applied by universities, and clustered under the umbrella term – work-integrated learning (WIL). Referring to each of these strategies as WIL can complicate comparisons (e.g. long-term placements vs. field trips) and can lead WIL related research to diverge in multiple directions. To support comparison and help guide institutional decision-making relating to WIL, the positioning of this article aligns with a recent stream of literature that attempts to outline, contrast and differentiate between various activities aimed at enhancing graduate employability. Four distinct WIL case studies from three Australian universities are described in this article: (a) students working in teams with industry partners (n=23), (b) students co-creating learning resources (n=7), (c) a student-staff partnership (n=2), and (d) students acting as peer-learning advisors (n=5). The cases were considered across five key factors: 1) ease of implementation, 2) barriers, 3) scalability, 4) authenticity, and 5) proximity. Using empirical data, the findings within the article contribute an institutional framework that highlights the benefits and drawbacks associated with differences across WIL types, intended to support good WIL practice among administrators, teachers and staff.

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