Pedagogy for employability

Including:• Using questions• Discovery learning• Case studies

Peter ScalesLifelong LearningFurther and Higher Educationwww.peter-scales.org.uk

What is employability?

If you were an employer, what skills, qualities, attributes, abilities would you expect from an employee?

“Employability is, at heart, a process of learning.”(Harvey, Locke and Morey, 2002: 2)

For companion paper “Employability: a process of learning” see:

http://www.peter-scales.org.uk/he-and-he-in-fe-resources/

“We take as a premise that there

is no necessary conflict between

employability and traditional

academic values. Good teaching

and learning practices can serve

both kinds of end...” (Knight and Yorke, 2003)

How can your students develop these skills, etc.?

Employability

Reflection and PDP

Graduate attributes

Deep learning

Constructivist

T & L methods

Complex learning

Pedagogy for employability

We will consider some teaching and learning methods can foster employability, e.g.

Questioning Case study Discovery

Why do teachers ask questions?

•Management and control•Keep students interested and alert•Gain attention/ check paying attention•Check understanding and pitch sessions at an appropriate level•Recall of information•Revise

Why do teachers ask questions?

•Develop thinking skills

•Encourage discussion

•Encourage discovery

•Stimulate new ideas

•Draw learners into the lesson

•Symbolic value - sends message that learners are expected to be active participants in learning

Closed questions

• Usually only one correct answer• Can usually be answered with one word – usually

yes or no• The initiative is forced back on the questioner. No

need for answerer to extend or develop• Example: “Do you

come here often?”

Open questions

May have several possible answers Requires the answerer to provide a fuller response

than just one word Can develop discussion and develop thinking Example:

“What’s a nice person like you doing in a dump like this?”

Lower-order and higher order questions

• Lower-order questions

• Higher-order questions

Require students to remember

Require students to think

Linked (or Socratic) questioning

This style of questioning is based on the belief that people already know a lot. The purpose of education is to draw it out of them.

“Socratic questions provide a stimulus for thinking and responding, and Socratic questioning differs from random open-ended questioning in that it follows a pattern, a progression of follow-through questions that probe reasons and assumptions and which take the enquiry further”Fisher, R. (2003)

Linked? Socratic questioning – an example

Why is there a cliffhanger at the end of a soap opera? To make sure people keep watchingWhy is it important that people keep watching? To maintain high viewing figuresWhy do TV companies need high viewing figures? To attract advertisersWhat do advertisers provide? IncomeAnd what do the TV companies do with the income? Make more programmes

“Can you explain that…”?Explaining

“How does that help…?” Supporting

“Do you have evidence…?” Evidence

“What if someone were to suggest that…?” Alternative views

“Does it agree with what was said earlier…?” Consistency

“How does what was said/ the question help us…?”Connecting

Examples of questions to develop Socratic dialogue

Using Bloom’s taxonomy to encourage different levels of questioning

Comprehension

Synthesis

Analysis

Application

Knowledge

Evaluation

Discovery learning

“The learning that takes place when students are not presented with subject matter in its final form [expository learning] but rather are required to organise it themselves. This requires learners to discover for themselves relationships among items of information.”

Lefrancois (2000) p158

Discovery learning

“Discovery learning involves confronting the learner with a problem and allowing them to explore the problem and try out solutions on the basis of inquiry and previous learning under the guidance of a teacher”

Armitage, et al (2003) Teaching and Training in Post-Compulsory Education

Discovery learning

Discovery as ‘process’ Learning how to learn Metacognition Transferable skills

Discovery as motivation A better way to learn a prescribed knowledge

and/or skills

An example of discovery learning

Vocabulary buildingMuch of our language is based on Greek and Latin roots, prefixes and suffixes. This is particularly true of academic, especially science-based, subjects. If students have a stock of word roots, prefixes and suffixes, they should be able to work out the meanings of unfamiliar words.

Discovery – vocabulary building

Prefixes (Latin)a, ab, abs = from, awaycon, com = with, togetherinter = between, among, in betweenre = back, again

Greekauto = selfpoly = many

See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_and_Latin_roots_in_Englishfor a comprehensive list

Case studies

What is a case study?

“… student-centred activities based on topics that demonstrate theoretical concepts in an applied setting.”(The Higher Education Academy – Guides to Lecturers)

A history of an event or set of circumstances where relevant details are examined by learners

Case studies

Case studies fall into two broad categories:

Those in which learners diagnose the causes of a particular problem or draw conclusions about a certain situation.

Those in which the learners set out to solve a particular problem

Case studies

What skills are developed by the use of case studies? Group working Study skills Information gathering (in long-term case study) Analytical skills Thinking skills Time management skills Presentation skills Practical skills (in practical case study)

References

Armitage, A., Bryant, R., Dunhill, R., Hayes, D., Hudson, A., Kent, J., Lawes, S. and Renwick, M. (2003) Teaching and Training in Post-Compulsory Education Buckingham: Open University Press

Fisher, R. (2003) Teaching Thinking London: Continuum

Harvey, L., Locke, W. and Morey, A. (2002) Enhancing employability, recognising diversity (Executive Summary) Universities UK

Knight, P and Yorke, M. (2003) Employability and Good Learning in Higher Education Teaching in Higher Education, Vol. 8, No. 1

Lefrancois, G. (2000) Psychology for Teaching (10th Ed.) Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Thomson Learning

Links

Pegg, A., Waldock, J., Hendy-Isaac, S. and Lawton, R. (2012) Pedagogy for Employability York: Higher Education Academyhttp://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/employability/pedagogy_for_employability_update_2012.pdf

Pedagogy for Employability Group (2006) Pedagogy for employability York: Higher Education Academy http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/employability/id383_pedagogy_for_employability_357.pdf