Workbased Learng Ruth Helyer
Workbased Learng Ruth Helyer
Workbased Learng Ruth Helyer
Contents
Introduction 1
Ruth Helyer
1 Adapting to higher education: Academic skills 13
Ruth Helyer
2 Building capabilities for your future 31
Ruth Helyer and Judie Kay
3 Developing yourself, developing your organisation 51
Kevin Ions and Norma Sutcliffe
4 Build your degree 71
Barbara Workman and Tracey White
5 Make your learning count: Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) 96
David Perrin and Ruth Helyer
6 Planning and negotiating your learning 120
Elaine Hooker and Ruth Helyer
7 Support and guidance for work-based learning students 142
Jenny Naish and Ann Minton
8 What can social media (SoMe) do for me? 162
Conor Moss and Matt Bromley
9 Social learning: Supporting yourself and your peers 184
Susan Smith and Laurie Smith
10 Learning to be an international work-based learner 205
Tony Wall and Ly Tran
11 Making the most of your assessment opportunities 227
Sue Graham and Garth Rhodes
12 Work-based projects 253
Barbara Workman and Paula Nottingham
Work-based learning terminologies 278
Ruth Helyer and Jenny Fleming
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viii Contents
Introduction
Ruth Helyer
1
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2 The Work-based Learning Student Handbook
RPL is especially empowering if you initially felt out of place and in a hurry at
university; there need be no such thing as ‘missing your chance’. You may also
find that you are able to include, in your programme, Continuing Professional
Development (CPD) activities that you undertake anyway (see Chapter 6).
As well as the unusual aspects of being a WBL student you will also benefit
from the traditional outcomes of HE – the development of intellectual,
personal, critical and analytical skills, which will support and complement
your practical skills and knowledge. You are likely to have much more life
experience than an 18-year-old student; furthermore you will probably find
that your student peers in your class or study group differ widely in age,
background and aspirations (this can even be the case when you are all from
the same company). However, as motivated, employed people prepared to
work hard in order to successfully fit studying into already busy lives you will
also have much in common. Because HE-level WBL programmes take account
of your existing knowledge and expertise they are the best, and certainly most
time-effective, HE study route for you. Some of WBL’s best features are that it:
• Offer generic skills modules – invaluable whatever your job role or career
stage (Chapters 1 and 2).
• Operate beyond the academic calendar – for example, many recruit and
run modules more than once a year.
• Support reflective practice and self-analysis (Chapters 2 and 6).
• Offer innovative methods of learning, teaching and assessment (Chapter 11).
• Utilise technology, e-learning, distance learning, peer-learning and social
learning (Chapters 8 and 9).
They also offer an ideal progression route, if you already hold a smaller award
(see Chapters 4, 5 and 6); or some kind of professional qualification that you
can, potentially, accelerate to full honours degree status. The multiple step-on
and step-off points characteristic of WBL programmes make this possible.
Schemes often use a skeleton structure (see Chapter 4 for more information
on this as well as the example below), which can be ‘fleshed out’ in ways
flexible enough to meet your individual requirements.
Level 4 Subject- 30 30
specific 20 20
module
Level 6
Example Student B
at Level 5 by matching the precise learning gained from her HND against the learning
outcomes of her new course. She then gained further credits at Level 5 for undertaking
a core module about the process of recognising, and claiming for, prior learning
(this module carries 20 credits, but through its assessment process – a portfolio of
evidence – she was able to claim a further 50 credits at Level 5 for her experiential
learning). This completed the equivalent of the first and second year of traditional
undergraduate full-time study. At Level 6 she studied a taught module about continuing
professional development (20 credits, evening attendance), undertook ‘Research
Methods’ (20 credits, evening attendance), an engineering module (20 credits, day
release) and two work-based projects, one carrying 20 credits and one 40. The large
project, equivalent to a dissertation, involved developing a completely new process for
her employer. This student was awarded a 2:1 classification for her BSc in just two years.
Level 5 HND 50
RPL module APL claim 20
50
Work-based
1 ¥ 20 &
projects
1 ¥ 40
Graduation 360/360
of great things through engagement with HE, not least because of your
professional approach to being assessed (Chapter 11).
Assessment Chapter 11
Collaboration Chapter 9
Enterprise Chapter 2
Frameworks Chapter 4
HE skills Chapter 1
Identity Chapter 9
Internet Chapter 8
Interns Chapter 2
Mentors Chapter 7
Modules Chapter 4
MOOCs Chapter 8
Negotiation Chapter 6
Networking Chapter 9
Professionalism Chapter 3
Progression Chapter 4
Tutors Chapter 7
Reference
Boud, D. and Solomon, N. (eds) (2001) Work-based Learning: A New Higher
Education (Buckingham: Society for Research in Higher Education/Open
University Press).
Index
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Index 297