Track B: Employability

Track B: Employability

View more presentations from Kirsteen Macdonald

TRACK B - Rea Prouska, Mike Mimirinis : Empowering Students by Enhancing Employability Skills: The Case of the BA Human Resource Management Programme

This informative and interactive session from Mike and Rea highlighted an approach from the BA Human Resource Management programme on how to focus students on identifying and developing their employability skills through the use of e-portfolios. Both Mike and Rea were interested in; the wealth of skills and attributes students enter into higher education with, how these skills are added to and develop during their time in HE and how they continue to develop skills after HE. The use of e-portfolios with first year students helped to engage students in both thinking about employability but also to reflect upon and evidence the skills they had and furthermore think about the skills they wished to develop.

It was lovely to see firsthand some e portfolios presented by two HRM students who discussed their experiences of, the benefits and uses they felt creating the portfolio had and the different ways in which the e-portfolios had been used (to apply for jobs, share resources between students, etc). It was interesting to note that students on this programme had been encouraged to engage with the e-portfolios with the incentive of marks, however not all students chose to produce or engage with the e-portfolios. Those students who did engage with the e-portfolio found it to be beneficial in numerous ways; in boosting confidence in identifying skills, in helping to articulate and evidence their skills and helping them to reflect on their experiences and identifying learning from their experience. Within the session the common problem of ‘how do we engage the students that are not engaging?’ arose, particularly as the engaged students cited many benefits. Learning from this year, Rea is making the use of e-portfolios compulsory for first year students within HRM and discussion centred on what more can be done to encourage students to engage with e-portfolios throughout their studies. No definite answers as yet but we look forward to hearing more as the project progresses.

Deeba Parmar
Senior Researcher
Centre for Learning and Teaching Enhancement

Track E: ePortfolios

TRACK E – ePortfolios for eReflection and eMployability

Ellie Franklin’s enthusiastic presentation of PebblePad for ePortfolios raised awareness of an important method for students to build a web-based store of personal ‘assets’. Focusing on employability, the presentation highlighted PebblePad’s versatility as a tool for building an electronic portfolio that could be used at the point of applying for work and aid students in the application process. Rather than a heavy (loseable) folder, students have their own web pages which can be viewed online or exported to disk or memory pen if desired.

Through ‘gateways’ students can submit work/assets electronically and receive feedback and assessment likewise. PebblePad also features an Action Plan ‘wizard, which takes them step by step through action planning and setting their own targets. This can be adapted by tutors to fit their particular situations.

The tutor encouraged use of Pebblepad for eReflection by linking it specifically to employability and awarding marks (admittedly only one per session) for engagement with the tool. After a year of using the tool for reflection both tutor and students found a number of advantages. The tutor had more insight into her students by reading their eReflections and the students found it ‘helpful’ ‘enjoyable’ and ‘useful’ although one or two felt it was an ‘invasion of privacy’. Overall – Pebblepad was seen as a really useful tool for articulation and an easy and efficient way to e-submit, e-assess and give e-feedback.

Celia Cozens
Centre for Learning and Teaching Enhancement

Presenter profile - Track B: Rea Prouska, Mike Mimirinis

Mike Mimirinis: : Empowering Students by Enhancing Employability Skills: The Case of the BA Human Resource Management Programme

Mike Mimirinis

I am an Educational Developer at the Centre for Learning and Teaching Enhancement, Middlesex University. I have previously worked as an educational consultant and researcher on a number of  projects for organisations such as the European Union, JISC, the Higher Education Academy as well as national organisations in Eastern Europe, Japan, South East Asia and the Pacific. My research interests include phenomenographic methods of research in student learning in higher education, students' approaches to learning in blended learning environments and the pedagogy of portfolio-based learning and assessment. I am delighted to present at the Annual Learning and Teaching conference, an event that has been going from strength to strength; I will co-present with Rea Prouska on the enhancement of students' employability skills through embedded e-portfolios. We are hoping to bring students' voices to the fore and to open up the discussion on programme-level approaches to employability.

Mike's co-presenter: Rea Prouska

Presenter profile - Track B: Rea Prouska, Mike Mimirinis

Rea Prouska: Empowering Students by Enhancing Employability Skills: The Case of the BA Human Resource Management Programme

Rea Prouska

I am a Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management (HRM) and Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) HRM at Middlesex University Business School. My research interests include, among other areas, student and graduate employability. Prior to joining Middlesex, I was a research assistant for University of Manchester funded research projects relating to (i) career aspirations and career skills of British and non-British students, and (ii) cultural differences between Chinese and British students in their selection of working environments and recruitment. I have recently been awarded a Learning & Teaching fund from the Business School for the purpose of exploring the ways in which the use of e-portfolios can enhance student employability.

The workshop will have a unique feature. It will partly be run by students who have participated in an e-portfolio project with the purpose of showcasing their work and reflecting on the e-portfolio process and their overall experience. The session will also explore the meaning of e-portfolios and employability, as well as show how e-portfolios have been used for the purposes of assessment. Main research findings from this project will also be incorporated into the discussion.

Rea's co-presenter: Mike Mimirinis