OutductionThe Transition to Students’ Futures

Peter Hughes, University of BradfordMarion Webb, Kingston University

Ruth Whitfield, University of Bradford

HE Academy Annual Conference22-23 June 2010

University of Hertfordshire

Session Outline

Scoping the Final Year Experience

• ‘Final Year’ of undergraduate honours degree.• Final Year students might be:– p/t– Direct-entry– Sandwich– 3rd, 4th, 5th yrs– International...

• Domains of the final year

Scoping the Final Year Experience

Outduction Project

• Research-informed development project.• Four collaborating academic schools.• Portfolio of mini-projects and case studies.• Student interns.• Intra and Inter-institutional activity and

learning.• Sector engagement.

The Final Year: A Capstone Experience

International perspectives:

– USA (e.g. Connecticut, South Carolina)– Australia (e.g. Swinburne UT, Melbourne)

The Final Year: A Capstone Experience

Includes:• Autonomous learning zones.• Project/dissertation/exhibit.• Real-world/employer engagement.• Ethical development.• Life-wide learning.

The Final Year: A Capstone Experience

• Some cases and examples:

– From you.– From the project.– From the sector.

Outduction as Transition

Resilient Graduates

• Pessimism about graduate futures.• Future graduates will need to be resilient.• Resilient graduates will aid a world in

transition.• Can we identify resilient graduate attributes?• Can we frame a capstone final year

experience to develop them?

Contact Us

• With insights, advice, arguments, examples, case studies.

• Find us at: www.outduction.ac.uk