Strategic Engagement with the Media Industry

Establishing and maintaining close links with industry to equip BA Journalism students with the professional skills needed in a constantly evolving media marketplace. Embedding engagement with the media industry at a strategic level within the course via guest lecturers, recruitment of teaching staff from industry, a focus on freelance work and employment, and on gaining practical skills at an early stage in preparation for work placement

Mapping Course Content to Job Requirements

Using employers’ job advertisements to identify the technical and non-technical skills being sought in the local and national workplace, and mapping these skills to the curriculum to determine where changes could be made. Consideration of ways of integrating employer involvement in curriculum design

Students as co-researchers

Student engagement in researching aspects of their own course to enhance learning and teaching and the student experience. Students in different roles as co-researchers on projects, peer teachers and peer mentors, and in co-research with the ECS Course Leader, impacting positively on ECS course design and content

VLE for Dual Career Sports Officials Undertaking a Part-time MA in Personal and Professional Development Nick Holyoake

Advantages and disadvantages of using a Virtual Learning Environment to support part-time students impacted by significantly reduced opportunity for face-to-face contact. Suggestions on tackling student disengagement from the virtual learning interface by introducing a range of activities specifically designed to enhance the remote student experience

Flipping the Tax Classroom

Energising teaching and learning in a highly technical and knowledge transfer-heavy subject area by pushing passive learning activities outside the classroom. Using video clips as part of students’ pre-sessional work, and relating these to interactive classroom tasks. Motivating students in class with challenging learning set quizzes and the use of leader scoreboards

Audio/Grid Feedback: finding the right blend

A blended approach to assessment using voice recording to address the student personally alongside the application of traditional grid-based criteria, achieving a qualitative and holistic evaluation whilst preserving the transparency of a clear rationale for grading

Towards a Model of Multi-organisational Work-based Learning: developmental networks as a mechanism for tacit knowledge transfer and exploration of professional identity

This paper is based on the experience of a multi-organisational workbased learning degree programme run by Sunderland Business School which has produced some remarkable and unexpected results in terms of the learners’ academic, personal and career development. The programme was built on a three-part model of tacit knowledge transfer designed to make use of learners’ work experience and knowledge in the context of a taught academic programme. Fundamental to the model was the formation of action learning sets through which students from varied organisations explored workbased enquiries, shared ideas and engaged in dialogue and debate. Evaluation of the programme suggests that these learning sets were a key factor in its success, promoting effective active learning. An additional hypothesis explored in the paper is that the programme model created an environment in which learners were able to clarify or redefine their professional identity, promoting clearer contextualisation for their learning. The paper closes with a dilemma that encourages further reflection on the relationship between work-based learning and traditional pedagogical practices

Study Skills for Dyslexic Students

Book review of Study Skills for Dyslexic Students Sandra Hargreaves (ed) London: Sage Publishing, 2007, 166pp. plus CD-ROM, ISBN: 978-1412936095 (pbk