Linking learning lifewide and lifelong: The Connected U
1. Linking learning
lifewide and lifelong
Andrew Middleton & Sue Beckingham
@andrewmid @suebecks
ALT-C 2015, University of Manchester #altc
2. Student Teacher
Identity
Being & Becoming
PPDP and Employability
Establishing our standing
Our practice is our profile
social media profiles are a common currency for all aspiring and developing professionals
What's the difference between a student and a teacher?
3. Common ground
employability as a lifelong
challenge and commitment
to professional development
and establishing good
standing
Employability is about
capability
4. Professional Profiling
Developing ‘self’ - lifewide and lifelong
Our
• Social capital - our worth to ourselves and others
• Habitus - continuous improvement reflection and profiling
‘Profile’ a tangible dimension to PPDP and Professional
Recognition
*PPDP: Personal & Professional Development Planning
5. Based on: Dacre-Pool, L and Sewell, P, (2010), Moving from conceptual ambiguity to operational clarity: Employability, enterprise and
entrepreneurship in higher education, Education and Training, 52, 1, 89-94. Also online
Employability
Degree
Knowledge,
Understanding
& Skills
Career
Development
Learning
Experience
Work and Life
Generic Skills Emotional
Intelligence
Reflection and Evaluation
e.g. PPDP
Self-efficacy Self-confidence
Self-esteem
The
Employability
Continuum
Recognising Lifewide Engagement
Life as context Self as context
6. LinkedIn University project context
Digital-Social Age
• Social media: our extended learning environment
• Supporting graduateness as professionalism
• Digital capability
Renamed “Connected U”
Key Challenges:
• make PPDP and RIGS (Remaining in Good Standing)
real
7. ‘The LinkedIn University’ - HEA funded project
Aim
Consider how we can establish and maintain our
professional profiles using social media
LinkedIn as a platform for professionals
• PPDP for students
• Professional Recognition for staff
Developing the habit
8. Connected U is…
A digital toolkit about LinkedIn as a presentation layer for
reflective practice and learning
Video and written case studies
• students
• alumni
• academics
• employers
• advisers
Guidance and links to useful resources
10. Connected U project reflections
Being involved in the project developed our
knowledge
Student Intern
Steering Group
member
11. Listening to the case studies was
very powerful and these will be an
integral part of my toolkit when
delivering sessions on this area for
both staff and students
Steering Group member
Healthy staff-student relationships
can be maintained through
LinkedIn's many tools
Student Intern
Connected U project reflections
Changing practice
14. Listening to the case studies was
very powerful and these will be an
integral part of my toolkit when
delivering sessions on this area for
both staff and students
Steering Group member
Healthy staff-student relationships
can be maintained through
LinkedIn's many tools
Student Intern
Connected U project reflections
Changing practice
What's the difference between a student and a teacher?
Not a lot!
We tend to assume students and teachers are different. Let’s reconsider what teachers and students have in common.
Staff and students both need to develop and maintain their professional profile for lifelong employability
Identity – we need to manage information about ourselves
Being & Becoming - we need to recognise our identities are informed by and inform our social network and this informs our aspirations too
PPDP & Employability -
Who is the HEA talking about in this quote? The HEA say: “PDP can help to:
plan, record and reflect upon their experiences in a way that develops their employment related skills and self-awareness;
make realistic and suitable career plans based upon their heightened self-knowledge;
demonstrate both their employment potential and their ability to manage their future professional development to employers.”
Establishing and maintaining our standing - As professionals, or becoming professionals, we all need to act and reflect on our practice…
Our practice is our profile - actively managing your profile (as a student or a teacher) means you are actively engaged in reflecting on your professional standing
We need to demonstrate our practice:
Commitment to academic practice within lifewide interests and responsibilities
Engagement with developing our capability (employability) - continuously developing and evidencing capabilities
Continuous engagement (CPD) in maintaining academic professional standing - reputation management
'Belonging' and identity management - critically reflecting on 'self'/self-regulation
Evidence of developing our skills and attributes/qualities/dispositions/presence
Common ground
We have a common interest, therefore, in employability.
But we need to understand employability in a more sophisticated way than is often the case: employability as a lifelong challenge and commitment to professional development and establishing good standing
Employability is about developing, maintaining and presenting our capability therefore
Professional Profiling
PPDP: Personal & Professional Development Planning
An active dimension to being a professional How should/do we actually go about managing this?
Developing our social capital - our worth to ourselves and others
Habitus - continuous improvement and continuous reflection and profiling, (a form of experiential learning)
Hence, PPDP and Professional recognition - managing oneself …
The need to establish an active and concrete dimension to ‘being’ a professional: the common need to manage one’s identity.
The Employability Continuum:
See slides from L&T Conf paper with Graham… include the self-esteem diagram
Employability can be understood as: Self regulation, self-confidence, reputation and self esteem and therefore receives inputs from all aspects of life and in the context of life trajectories
Context
So, the LinkedIn University (Connected U) was devised as a digital toolkit’ to use rich digital and social media.
Digital-Social Age
Coming to finally recognise social media in terms of it being our extended learning environment
Supporting graduateness as professionalism
The need to invest in digital capability
Renamed: Connected U
Purpose to re-imagine and re-invigorate PPDP for students
Enabling RIGS
Using LinkedIn to “concretise” worthy ideas which are often not perceived to be critical
Main challenge is to develop the habit
establishing professional profiles using social media as a lifewide lifelong space
Personal & Professional Development Planning (PPDP) for students
Professional Recognition for staff
Demo
https://blogs.shu.ac.uk/profiles/
1. In what ways did being involved in the project develop your knowledge of LinkedIn?
It made me think quite a bit... about the parts of Linkedin that I don’t use and why - Academic
It has helped me to refocus on developing new activities for my own students - Steering Group member
It taught me...the literal day-to-day tips for maintaining an interesting and engaging LI profile - Student Intern
Its limitations in terms of privacy controls inhibit the ability of academics and students to use it as a development space, but it remains highly important as a presentation space for all professional profiles - Steering Group member
I was particularly interested in staff receiving endorsements and recommendations from students and these being visible to all. The idea of students contributing to the online professional identities of staff... Changing relationship between staff and students. Creating identities in partnership? - Employability Adviser
2. In what ways did being involved in the project develop your understanding of how LinkedIn can be used to develop staff and students and their engagement in maintaining their online professional identity?
Listening to the case studies was very powerful and these will be an integral part of my toolkit when delivering sessions on this area for both staff and students - Steering Group member
It became apparent that healthy staff-student relationships can be maintained through LinkedIn's many tools - Student Intern
It helps staff to stay abreast of developments in student thinking and ways of learning and allows students to keep up to date with their lecturers professional development - Student Intern
It is a different kind of social media space - quite distinct in relation to professional profiling and employability. Being involved in the project has convinced me that every member of staff and every student should seriously consider why they wouldn't establish and maintain a LinkedIn presence - Steering Group member
Using LinkedIn’s alumni function to source speakers (often SHU alumni) for lectures and events- Employability Adviser
Students sense they SHOULD be on social networks but don’t always understand why - Employability Adviser
3. How have you changed your own LinkedIn profile because of your involvement in this project?
[I changed] my photo and re-write my profile to sound and look more professional - Student Intern
I have not developed the 'habit' - which is such an important part of using LinkedIn professionally - Steering Group member
Also conscious that I should probably start to explore long-form posts but don’t always feel that I have anything significant to write - Employability Adviser
It’s a “safe space” to start exploring your professional digital identity - Employability Adviser
4. The project advocates habitual engagement in developing and maintaining one's employability. On reflection, given your deep knowledge of LinkedIn now, how important is LinkedIn as a tool to promote the employability, digital capability and professionalism of students and staff?
Not only is it a digital showcase of your own skills, it provides a window to see what other professionals and companies are doing - Steering Group member
I think it is essential as far as students employability is concerned - Academic
2. In what ways did being involved in the project develop your understanding of how LinkedIn can be used to develop staff and students and their engagement in maintaining their online professional identity?
Listening to the case studies was very powerful and these will be an integral part of my toolkit when delivering sessions on this area for both staff and students - Steering Group member
It became apparent that healthy staff-student relationships can be maintained through LinkedIn's many tools - Student Intern
It helps staff to stay abreast of developments in student thinking and ways of learning and allows students to keep up to date with their lecturers professional development - Student Intern
It is a different kind of social media space - quite distinct in relation to professional profiling and employability. Being involved in the project has convinced me that every member of staff and every student should seriously consider why they wouldn't establish and maintain a LinkedIn presence - Steering Group member
Using LinkedIn’s alumni function to source speakers (often SHU alumni) for lectures and events- Employability Adviser
Students sense they SHOULD be on social networks but don’t always understand why - Employability Adviser