Combining Novel Pedagogic and IT Approaches to Align the Assessment of Workplace Learning with Criteria for Academic Credit

Employability of graduates is high on the agenda of both the UK Government (UK Government's White Paper on Higher Education, 2003) and HE Institutions (Knight & Yorke, 2002). Arguably, there is no better way to prepare graduates for the world of work than to integrate work experience within degree programs (Hills et al., 2004). Professional courses, such as medicine, nursing, construction and engineering, etc. already demand the integration of practice with theory. For many non-professional degrees, work placements are either absent or optional.

We run science Sandwich degrees in which students go on placement for the third year of the four year program. As the placement year offered a highly diverse experience to the student group, assessment for academic credit was difficult. Therefore, the Sandwich year attracted only a notional 120 "p" credits which did not contribute to the degree classification but did confer the title "Sandwich" on the degree. Although not rewarded with academic credit, students benefited enormously from their experience in terms of networking, having greater employability prospects, being better prepared for the final year and improving their academic performance (Gomez, 2004).

Over the years the quality of the placements offered to the students has improved to the extent that many students work at graduate level and an increasing number are co-authors of publications arising from their placement work. Given the students' involvement in cutting edge research and industrial activities, we felt that this high calibre of learning on placement was not being adequately represented by the notional "p" credit awarded to the Sandwich year. This undervaluing of the academic worth of the placement year compared to the taught parts of the degree was also thought to be partly responsible for the increasing proportion of students who were exempting themselves from the placement year.

We therefore decided to address the issue of credit-rating our Sandwich year by producing a transparent, pedagogic system for accrediting work placements that would be generic enough to be adopted by other disciplines. We discuss the rational underpinning the pedagogic assessment model we devised and provides details of the IT solution we created to make the pedagogic approach workable.

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اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

استعدادًا لزيارة الأربعين العتبة العباسية المقدسة تعقد اجتماعًا لتنظيم عمل الهيئات التطوّعية في الصحن الشريف

قسم الشؤون الخدمية يواصل تنفيذ أعمال الوقاية ومكافحة الحشرات في مواقع العتبة العباسية المقدسة

المجمَع العلمي للقرآن الكريم يواصل تنفيذ مشروع بيوت النور القرآني

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يبحث التعاون في مجال البحث مع كلية التقنيات المتعددة في نيجيريا

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

تسارع الشيخوخة.. متى يبدأ وأي الأعضاء أكثر تأثرا؟

9 مسببات شائعة للالتهاب المزمن قد تهدد صحتك

باحثون يطورون علاجا لهشاشة العظام.. النتائج مذهلة

تحمي من أمراض عديدة.. 6 فوائد لتناول البطاطا الحلوة

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

عودة التعاون الفضائي بين روسيا وأميركا.. وبحث ملفات "هامة"

المعلمون في خطر.. خاصية جديدة في "تشات جي بي تي" تشرح الدروس

بشرى لمرضى الشلل.. شريحة في الدماغ قد تتيح التحكم بالأدوات

مدينة غارقة.. هل يخفي قاع البحر الكاريبي سرّ حضارة مفقودة؟

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Learning processes Qualitative differences in placement experiences

Results, analysis and discussions

Research methodology

Conceptualizing learning and its assessment in community placements

Ecology, Identity and Assessment: The Implications of a Case Study of Police Students Learning in Community Placements for Assessment

Combining Novel Pedagogic and IT Approaches to Align the Assessment of Workplace Learning with Criteria for Academic Credit Conclusions

Learning Agreement web-form

Profile e-portfolio forms Profile homepage

Flexibility and devolved management

Features of webforms

Communication tool

Different user roles