Employability in Practice: Making Sense of Employability Through an Active Blended Curriculum

Background

ARU became a university in 1992. Having nearly 40,000 students, it is located on campuses in Cambridge, Chelmsford, London and Peterborough in the UK. It delivers a diverse portfolio of courses in its faculties of Business and Law; Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences; Health, Education, Medicine & Social Care; and Science & Engineering. The University is proud of its diverse student body and its commitment to offering an inclusive and stimulating learning experience.

The University committed to implementing its Active Curriculum Framework through a cross-institutional development programme of more than 30 two-day Course Design Intensive (CDI) events run through the first half of 2019 for all undergraduate provision. CDIs involve diverse stakeholders, including academics, students, educational developers, and employers, who come together with the purpose of creating or enhancing courses through a series of facilitated design conversations. ARU’s Active Curriculum Framework has eight dimensions, several of which articulate the development of graduate employability as an outcome of active learning (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Employability dimensions highlighted in ARU's Active Curriculum Framework

Forming The Employability In Practice Team

It took the University longer than initially planned to appoint to the posts and, by the time the institutional project lead came to the post at the beginning of 2019 as a senior member of the University’s educational development team, it was urgent to progress EiP so that it coincided with the rollout of the CDIs. The project lead had previously led curriculum enhancement initiatives at other universities, which helped to integrate the employability work within the wider development requirements being addressed in the CDIs.