Developing the reflective learner: Using e-portfolios for employability

Dr Jeff Waldock - School of Mathematics, Sheffield Hallam University

Employability has become an important issue for Universities, both because of its role in key metrics and because of student concerns – perhaps fed by high tuition fees - about getting a graduate job. As a result, the learning outcomes of many courses now include ‘soft’ skills such as team working, communication, self-awareness and adaptability as well as discipline specific skills.  Such skills also feature in many QAA subject benchmarks.  The difficulty for many course developers concerns how to build such skill development into the curriculum without losing discipline-specific content in a way that is practicable.

Self-awareness is central to the successful development of employability.  Understanding one’s own strengths and weaknesses is the first step to developing an action plan for improvement; the ability to articulate this and to provide evidence to support claims for areas of strength will have a significant impact on successfully finding a graduate job.  It is important to emphasise that such skills will also enhance levels of academic success.

In this presentation Jeff Waldock will discuss a particular approach to developing learners’ skills in reflection to achieve this using e-portfolios, and provide evidence of its success.

Jeff Waldock has been a lecturer in Mathematics at SHU since 1987 and is currently Head of Mathematics.  Alongside this he spent five years as Employability Lead for the Faculty of Arts, Computing, Engineering and Science and associate Director of the CETL in Employability, and co-authored the HEA publication “Pedagogy for Employability” in 2012. Before coming to SHU he spent six years as a post-doctoral research associate in Physics at Leicester University. This followed a first degree and PGCE in Mathematics, and a PhD in Physics. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a National Teaching Fellow.

To book your place please fill in the doodle poll at http://doodle.com/poll/yx98vegnpp9x3wwx . For further information or if you have any queries about this event, please contact the Teaching Academy at teachingacademy@contacts.bham.ac.uk