Learning to tell a powerful graduate story

Angela Vesey and Anne Owen, Nottingham Trent University, UK

Emails: angela.vesey@ntu.ac.uk; anne.owen@ntu.ac.uk

Click to download Learning to tell a powerful graduate story (.pptx)

Abstract

Oral communication skills have been identified as “one of the most desired graduate employability skills” (Jackson 2014, p. 22 in Heron, 2019).  We know that opportunities for students to develop oracy skills through their higher education experience is critical, not only to enable them to articulate their learning effectively but also to further lifelong personal and professional development.  However, oracy alone does not guarantee graduate success. The ability to tell a powerful graduate story demands the application of effective self- presentation skills to a personal synthesis of relevant knowledge, skills and attributes tailored to specific audiences. This lightening session will share an approach to the learning, teaching and assessment of these skills utilised by two academics within a final year undergraduate module in the Social Sciences at Nottingham Trent University. It will provide insights into the learning and assessment used in this approach and share feedback on its value from the student perspective. It will also demonstrate that such learning has the most value when it is firmly rooted within subject discipline, with student immersion resulting in a fostering of individual self-belief and self-efficacy for employability. 

References

Heron, M. (2019). Making the case for oracy skills in higher education: practices and opportunities. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 16(2). 

Jackson, D. 2014, ‘Business graduate performance in oral communication skills and strategies for improvement’, International Journal of Management Education, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 22- 34