11-17 January 2010

Our Assessment, Learning and Teaching Strategy commits us to "helping students to engage in learning in exciting, flexible, stimulating environments where creativity and individuality of approach are encouraged", as well as ensuring that our courses promote employability and engage our students in work-related learning.  This week's ALT reflection focuses on how we educate students for the professions at Leeds Met, ensuring that the latest research and policy developments drive the curriculum.

A revised version of the Employability priorities for 2010 - 2012 is being presented to the Quality Enhancement Committee on 28 January.  This has been developed collaboratively with staff from the Careers Service, Teacher Fellows, course representatives the Institute for Enterprise and the Students' Union.  It is designed to set out what our commitments are to students in terms of employability and sets some action targets for achieving this commitment.  A final version will be made available via the ALT resource website and in hard copy as soon as possible.

Reflection

In December 2009 the Social Work Task Force published its Report.  The Government has pledged to implement a radical package of reforms in response to its recommendations.  The Chair of theTask Force, Moira Gibb, said: "The profession, knocked by widespread public criticism in individual cases, has been low on the esteem and self-belief needed to drive forward the improvements required to make social work the high quality profession we know it can become."

The Social Work team at Leeds Met is committed to ensuring that the next generation of social workers is prepared for the challenges of practice.  We constantly strive to provide opportunities for students to develop their professional confidence and skills.  Last month we ran a new workshop for final-year students in order to disseminate innovative developments in social work practice.  Our Professor, Nick Frost, worked with us to provide input about recent research and policy initiatives related to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults.  Students were given the opportunity to role-play a Family Group Conference or Case Conference.  The workshop provided a supportive atmosphere in which students could develop their competence in order to be ready to deliver high quality practice in a changing and demanding professional role.

Tracey Race and David Mercer
Social Work

Update

Professor Janet Finlay, co-director of the TEL Team, and Laura Dean, Head of Employability, together with a team from across the University and involving all three Leeds Met Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs), have been successful in bidding to the Higher Education Academy for £20,000 to complete a synthesis of current good practice in the use of Technology Enhanced Learning in Employability and Employee Learning.  As well as a report, the project, STEEL, will produce an online resource giving access to case studies and learning resources.  Laura Dean and Becky Baldaro, who will be the primary researcher on the project, attended a start-up meeting at the Academy on 5 January.  The project will be completed by July 2010.

On Thursday 14 January Jon Yorke from Curtin University, Perth, Australia is visiting Leeds Met.  He hopes to spend some time talking about assessment and leadership issues with colleagues here, to visit 'assessment centres' and to talk to those with assessment as a primary or prominent role in a Faculty or at cross-institutional level.  Curtin University is about to undertake a comprehensive review of its approaches to technology supported assessment, from mobile formative assessment to supervised summative assessment in a centre.  Jon is also interested in meeting staff with a remit for employability and the assessment of work-integrated learning.  My office is putting together a programme of meetings for him: if you would like to meet him, please contact Louise Conyard (l.conyard@leedsmet.ac.uk) urgently.

Also on 14 January, the Employability Office will be running a workshop on e-portfolios at 11:30am in D309, Civic Quarter. 

Alison Jones will be running workshops on 19 and 21 January based around the forthcoming National Student Survey; they will take place both at Headingley Campus and Civic Quarter.  These sessions provide essential information about the background to the sector's largest measure of student satisfaction and how we can and should be preparing for the 2010 exercise.  To book for any of these sessions please email l.conyard@leedsmet.ac.uk

Sally Brown
Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic)
S.Brown@leedsmet.ac.uk