Graduate Attributes, Employability and PDP
While graduate attributes, employability and personal development planning (PDP) are not interchangeable concepts, they are closely related. All three agendas seek to enhance the student experience by helping students to unlock their full potential:
Graduate Attributes provides a language for students to articulate their skills and strengths, and a framework to self-assess their personal development.
Employability enables students to translate their generic graduate attributes into an employment context and practise their skills in applied workplace scenarios.
PDP is a process to assist students in reflecting upon experiences, identify their strengths, skills and weaknesses, and set goals for personal growth.
The most effective means of embedding these three agendas into your practice is to approach them in a holistic manner – a cyclical process of applied learning (employability) and considered reflection (PDP) contextualised within a developmental framework (graduate attributes).
This good practice resource is intended to aid you in thinking about the opportunities open to you to tackle real world curriculum issues through this holistic approach. Please send contributions, comments or suggestions to Jamie.Wightwick@Glasgow.ac.uk.
Graduate Attributes provides a language for students to articulate their skills and strengths, and a framework to self-assess their personal development.
Employability enables students to translate their generic graduate attributes into an employment context and practise their skills in applied workplace scenarios.
PDP is a process to assist students in reflecting upon experiences, identify their strengths, skills and weaknesses, and set goals for personal growth.
The most effective means of embedding these three agendas into your practice is to approach them in a holistic manner – a cyclical process of applied learning (employability) and considered reflection (PDP) contextualised within a developmental framework (graduate attributes).
This good practice resource is intended to aid you in thinking about the opportunities open to you to tackle real world curriculum issues through this holistic approach. Please send contributions, comments or suggestions to Jamie.Wightwick@Glasgow.ac.uk.
While graduate attributes, employability and personal development planning (PDP) are interchangeable concepts, they are closely related. All three agendas seek to enhance the student experience by helping students to unlock their full potential:
Graduate Attributes provides a language for students to articulate their skills and strengths, and a framework to self-assess their personal development.
Employability enables students to translate their generic graduate attributes into an employment context and practise their skills in applied workplace scenarios.
PDP is a process to assist students in reflecting upon experiences, identify their strengths, skills and weaknesses, and set goals for personal growth.
The most effective means of embedding these three agendas into your practice is to approach them in a holistic manner – a cyclical process of applied learning (employability) and considered reflection (PDP) contextualised within a developmental framework (graduate attributes).
This good practice resource is intended to aid you in thinking about the opportunities open to you to tackle real world curriculum issues through this holistic approach. Please send contributions, comments or suggestions to Jamie.Wightwick@Glasgow.ac.uk.
Resources from Glasgow
Graduate Attributes Spotlight Papers (GRASP)
This series of internal briefing papers provide short, simple 2 page overviews of the significance of graduate attributes to a variety of key aspects of the university experience:
The undergraduate lifecycle model and graduate attributes
This resource conceptualises the undergraduate learner journey as a series of developmental milestones and encourages reflection how graduate attributes can respond to common student challenges.
Mapping graduate attributes development opportunities on a variety of programmes
This document collates an extended mapping exercise of intra-curricular opportunities to develop graduate attributes within the programmes offered by Schools/Colleges. The mapping approach used may be useful to you in making a more specific map for your own subject area.
Mapping our Graduate Attributes to Employer Competency Frameworks
This document demonstrates alignment between the competency frameworks suggested by industry bodies and our own graduate attributes.
Final report of the Graduate Attributes Working Group
The final report of the Working Group includes useful information on the rationale behind graduate attributes at Glasgow and the distinctive nature of our approach.
Guide to graduate attributes for staff
This student-written guide is the product of an institutionally funded student-led project which explored staff and student perspectives on how best to develop graduate attributes within the University.
Mapping of Graduate Attributes in MSc Management Programme Overview
This programme overview document for the Management MSc is a great example of how the graduate attributes developed during a course of study can be made explicit and understandable for students.
Employability pages from the College of Social Sciences
The COSS employability pages are an institutional model of good practice in providing students with opportunities to enhance their employability that are contextualised within their disciplinary area.
Mahara is Glasgow's e-PDP portfolio tool. These webpages explain the features and benefits of using Mahara for reflection.
External resources
Teaching for Capabilities Toolkits
This excellent resource comprises of a series of toolkits covering practical methods for embedding specific graduate attributes within the curriculum (free sign up required).
The National Graduate Attributes Project (Australia)
GAP focused on the reinvigorating of the Graduate Attributes implementation processes and debate within Australian universities. This website collects together a variety of useful outputs from the project, including a broad range of ideas for implementation approaches.
Higher Education Academy employability resource page
This web page comprises useful information and resources jointly produced by the Higher Education Academy and the Enhancing Student Employability Skills Co-ordination Team.
Teaching for employability audit tool
This tool, developed by a former Glasgow colleague, helps to identify existing areas of good practice in employability, as well as opportunities for enhancement.
Enhancing student employability: innovative projects from across the curriculum
This guide gathers together innovative examples of embedded employability from across the Scottish higher education sector.
This site provides practical advice on helping students to develop their employability skills, with a particular focus on inclusive strategies to develop the employability of students with disabilities.
E-pdp and e-portfolio practice in UK higher education
This Centre for Recording Achievement survey from 2007 provides an interesting snapshot of the approaches taken to embed PDP with curricular practice.
This University of Plymouth website demontsrates the potential of Mahara through a number of example portfolios from students and staff.
Threshold concepts surrounding the use of e-portfolios
This website and accompanying video sets out five important threshold concepts to grasp for effective use of e-portfolios.