Embedding employability in the curriculum: Preparing future ready graduates
Our primary aim was to support teaching staff in preparing graduates for their future lives and careers!
Lecturing staff told us that they were committed to preparing students for their future lives and careers. They said this means developing students’ capabilities in: solution seeking, proactivity, professional ethics, independent and critical thinking and more. BUT lecturers were uncertain, they asked for guidance on how to do this within discipline based courses.
As part of an Ako Aotearoa national funded project, representatives from several tertiary institutions and the New Zealand Association of Graduate Employers partnered to discover, trial and disseminate means of embedding employability in the curriculum.
We have built understanding of curriculum based and co-curricula approaches to building employability attributes.
We have developed and tested effective approaches to teaching for employability.
We have produced a pedagogical framework to guide learning designers and teachers who are embedding employability within degree programmes.
We have delivered a national programme of workshops to lecturers, programme designers and leaders in learning and teaching. The workshops have been very successful in showing people how to apply the pedagogical framework and redesign their courses.
Get the one-page overview
The easy-to-follow one-page handout provides an overview of the Future Ready Grads Project, including the background of the project, the pedagogical framework and the resources created.
The Four Es of Employability
The Future Ready Grads pedagogical framework identifies four archetypal strategies for teaching. The 4 Es stand for: Enthuse, Explore, Expand and Exhibit. Executed in concert these teaching strategies promote transformative learning and build transferable employability capabilities.
Our tried and tested materials can be used and adapted to run your own workshops.
Community of Interest in Employability
Yesterday I joined a group of academics and listened to senior staff from Auckland Council, XERO, KiwiRail and MYOB talk about the characteristics they seek in graduates. It was fascinating. They illustrated how important it is for us to develop our students’ abilities to learn and learn fast, to be adaptable, communicative, culturally aware and collaborative.
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Applying translational research principles to the Future Ready Grads Project
It was very important that the ideas developed in the Future Ready Grads project were developed and delivered in ways that people would use them. To this end, the project team have tried to apply the principles of good translational research using Mitchell’s (2016) guidance.
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The 4Es model to embed employability in the curriculum
After nearly two years of research, we have developed a theoretically informed model that aims to help teaching staff incorporate pedagogies that enable the development of employability capabilities…
read moreMeet the team
Susan Geertshuis
University of Auckland
Helena Cooper-Thomas
Auckland University of Technology
Rob Wass
University of Otago
Jennifer Curtin
University of Auckland
Narissa Lewis
University of Auckland
Peta Mobberly
University of Auckland
Gavin Brown
University of Auckland
Barbara Kensington-Miller
University of Auckland
Now that you know who we are and what we do… how can we help you?
