1. The University of the Future: Preparing for Curriculum Refresh
Debra Easter – Student Employability Service Manager
Becci Hubbard – Senior Careers Consultant

2. NTU – what does the future hold?

3. Nottingham Trent University
27,000 Students
9 Schools
500+ Courses
1,400 Placements each year
25% WP*
79.2% graduate outcomes
* UK undergraduates c.21,300

4. Curriculum Refresh: Employability Actions
All students will develop relevant professional attributes gained through meaningful work placement or experience embedded into the design, learning, and assessment of every course.
Early in the course, students are engaged in learning core employability skills (e.g. CV, interview, selection, search, networking) and in career planning activity.
The course includes a number of opportunities for all students to translate theory into practice in a range of relevant work-like contexts or simulations (e.g. employer-led projects, activities with employer involvement, work that is held to professional standards).
Later in the course, there is a synoptic assessment, allowing students to combine learning in relation to their employability from a range of activities and experiences, and which requires a significant element of reflection in relation to their future employability aspirations. This synoptic assessment is integrated into an appropriate module.
The first three actions of Curriculum Refresh relate to employability. Early in the course all courses are required to include employability skills and career planning – this could include setting goals for their time at university, developing skills through team challenges and learning and exploring the different pathways available to them with their degree.
The course also requires ALL students to develop PROFESSIONAL ATTRIBUTES through MEANINGFUL work experience. Whether through a placement or a employer led consultation project, whichever work experience model you decide on should give all students the ability to translate theory into practice.
Finally the course should include a synoptic assessment. This assessed piece of work should combine learning from a range of activities and experiences throughout the course in relation to their employability aspirations. This will require a significant element of reflection.
There are many ways these actions can be interpreted and implemented. The Employability Team are here to support you in finding the most appropriate method for your subject displine.
How would you approach / have you approached this?
What are the challenges / opportunities?

5. Opportunities Team profile one of the highest in NTU
Influencing/negotiating academic module content
Academic staff team working towards a shared agenda
Reaching previously unengaged students
Early interventions with NTU students

6. Challenges Influencing central academic standards team
Central vs School support
Communication with academic staff
Anticipating demands on the team workload
Academic approval process
Bureaucracy and ‘paperwork’
Introduction of new tools eg. Pebblepad
Moving beyond CVs
Short term vs long term planning

7. Academic engagement: our progress so far…
Action group at high strategic level
‘Advice for course leaders’ guidance
Defining key terms
Module outline
Learning outcomes
Road map – good practice outline
Work experience guidelines
Online ‘learning room’ for staff
Teaching materials provided
Contribution to staff training and conferences

8. Staff Employability Resource Room
In order to support academic teams in integrating employability within the curriculum we have created a new ‘Staff Employability Resource Room’, containing guidance, examples of good practice and a wide range of teaching materials for you to use on your course.
All staff have access to this room via NOW. You can find this under the ‘staff development’ section of your NOW homepage.

9. Employability Online
You also have access to Employability Online: our Employability portal for student.
Here you will find resources, videos and links to the key employability platforms.
Signpost students here – or use content in lectures, seminars or online learning.

10. Professional Attributes

11. Work Experience

12. Learning Outcomes

13. What could good practice look like?
For each of the NTU ‘Curriculum Refresh’ actions:
What do you think would constitute ‘good practice’?
What should be included within the curriculum to help achieve this?
How have you achieved this at your university?

14. Careers Professionals of the Future
Image you are managing a team of Careers Consultants faced with this challenge.
Where are the gaps in expertise / knowledge / experience?
How would you adapt the role to meet this new demand?
What training would you put in place (share any useful training from your team/organisation!)

15. Careers Professionals of the Future…
CPLD course
Delivery audit to establish gaps
Restructured caseloads and workloads
Increased culture of peer observation, collaborative planning
New planning processes
Improved online provision (Abintegro)
New central extra-curricular programme
New coordinator roles

16. CPLD course for Careers Consultants
Context: changing nature of HE
What does 'good' learning and teaching look like?
Features, basics of learning theory, active learning.
Understanding academic processes
Curriculum design, CLOs / MLOs/ SLOs, constructive alignment, assessment processes.
Sharing Learning and Teaching Practices
What are you trying to achieve with your students?
Student engagement and inclusion, large group teaching, exploring a range of teaching activities. Handling challenging behavior.
Introduce some teaching observation and reflective practices resources
Teaching Observation within Employability Teams
Reflection and way forward
Review experiences of teaching observation
Identifying individual development opportunities
Overview of HEA professional standards and accreditation process

17. Moving forward Our next steps: Our advice to you:
Increase staff training
Consultation with academics
Respond to student feedback
Our advice to you:
Don’t be afraid to be the expert
Create easily accessible guidelines – start with the basics
Collaborate with your quality/assurance teams, and CPLD
Reconsider resource available, map out workloads

18. Useful resources:
HEA: Defining and developing your approach to employability
Stage 1: ‘Creating and defining a shared point of reference’
1. Ensure you are aware of your institution’s strategy and support for employability
• This will influence and inform how you integrate employability, what you prioritise, who you work with, resources and support available and actions to be taken.
2. Involve all stakeholders
• Having identified stakeholders, involve all of them in your reflections especially the students.
3. No single model
• Recognise that the intention is not to prescribe a model but to model a flexible and collaborative approach to the integration of employability.
4. Ownership: employability is a university-wide responsibility
• This requires a combined effort, working in partnership with other institutional services and departments, e.g. all schools of study, careers centre, enterprise and business departments, placement support, students’ union, student support services, library and information services, etc.
• This should also involve working with external partners, e.g. alumni, employers, professional bodies, etc., as appropriate.

19. AGCAS Careers Education Benchmark Statements (2005 – needs updating!!)
Useful resources:
AGCAS Careers Education Benchmark Statements (2005 – needs updating!!)

21. NUS: Personal Development
Useful resources
NUS: Personal Development
Benchmarking Tool

22. Interested in collaborating?
We’re interested in putting together a ‘Curriculum Design’ best practice group – are you interested in joining us?