Description
How can we help students move beyond listing skills and instead explain
the value of what they have learned?
Students are increasingly expected to demonstrate work-ready skills and
articulate their employability, yet many struggle to explain how their
disciplinary learning contributes to their professional capability. Too
often, employability is presented as something separate from academic
study, rather than emerging through engagement with subject knowledge,
critical thinking and professional judgement.
This interactive workshop is designed for colleagues who want to help
students make stronger connections between what they learn in their
degree programme and how that learning prepares them for future
employment, professional practice and wider life opportunities.
Through activities and structured discussion, participants will explore
how reflection-based formative and summative assessment can help
students identify, develop and articulate the capabilities they gain
through their discipline. Rather than treating employability or work-
ready skills as an additional curriculum component, the workshop focuses
on helping students recognise how disciplinary knowledge, academic
learning and professional capabilities develop together.
Drawing on a PGCAP Action Research project, Rebecca will share the
development of a final-year workbook designed to support students
preparing for an assessed mock interview. The workbook helped Child and
Family Studies students explain how degree content informed their
professional practice, strengthened their communication skills, and
enabled them to demonstrate the impact of theoretical knowledge on
outcomes for children and families.
Participants will leave with practical ideas for embedding reflective
activities and assessments that help students communicate the value of
their degree learning in interviews, applications and workplace
contexts. This session is not about adding employability activities to
the curriculum, it is about helping students recognise and articulate
how disciplinary learning itself develops professional capability.
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