Webinar – Delivering Student Project-learning at Scale
Missed our live webinar? Click the link below and watch our webinar video. To equip students with the skills and capabilities they need for the future of work, educators seek to deliver a range of experiential learning programs in and around the curriculum. However, experiential learning with high proportions of in-person engagement can be complex and costly to deliver at scale.
Online models including team-based industry projects potentially offer substantial benefits including lower cost, broader geographic reach and enhanced scalability – but only if quality can be maintained.
The University of New South Wales Business School partnered with edtech startup Practera to design a new class of digital online ‘nano’ projects. These projects have subsequently scaled up and been deployed with students from >60 other institutions in Australia and around the world, including King’s College London.
In this webinar, presenters and panellists will:
Share experience with designing & deploying digital industry projects & virtual internships to thousands of students
Share Practera’s recently released research into Quality in Online Project Learning, analysing performance and critical success factors across a sample of 7905 participants from 22 universities, across 124 cohorts and 4 types of programs supported by the Practera platform
Participate in the live panel discussion, facilitated by host Professor Laura-Anne Bull, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Students, James Cook University, Director Student Experience Strathclyde
Presenters & panellists include:
Brigitte McKenna, Manager Career Accelerator UNSW Business School, Sydney
Naomi Hewston, Internships Adviser, King’s College London
Beau Leese, CEO & co-founder of Practera
Professor Laura-Anne Bull (Facilitator), former Deputy Vice-Chancellor Students, James Cook University, & Director Student Experience, Strathclyde.
The term ‘work integrated learning’ (WIL) describes purposeful and supervised learning programs and activities that connect university students with real-world work experiences with an industry or community partner in their field of study. WIL is all about integrating what you study in the classroom with its workplace application.
WIL opportunities and activities are linked with one or more study courses, formally assessed, and applied as a credit towards your study program.
WIL allows students to engage in real-world work experiences that support their preparedness for employment. The benefits include the opportunity to apply knowledge in practice, build professional networks, and enhance employability. For employers, it creates opportunities for staff training, meeting potential work candidates, and getting fresh input on projects.
Types of WIL
Work placements
Work placements (also sometimes called clinical placements, internships, or practicums) allow students to engage in authentic, supervised work tasks during time spent within an organisation. For example, a physiotherapy student might complete a placement within a teaching hospital. They enable students to apply academic knowledge and develop professional competencies.
Industry projects
These involve university students working, either individually or as a group, to deliver on a project brief for a community or industry partner. For example, a group of information technology students might work on an IT company’s brief to research and develop a client’s network solution. Students get to apply theoretical knowledge to authentic scenarios, plus develop skills such as client communication, project management, and collaborative working.
In situations where real-world work experience may not be possible or carry too much risk, work simulations enable students to apply their academic learning in an environment designed to approximate the real one as closely as possible. These activities usually involve using industry-specific activities, technology or equipment in a way that simulates the work environment’s complexities. Examples include university law students practising in moot courts and trainee pilots using flight simulators.
Mentoring
This approach allows a student or group of students to build skills by partnering with an industry or community mentor. For example, a communications student might enter a mentoring relationship with a working journalist. Students can benefit from their mentor’s workplace experience, practical knowledge, and feedback about their performance.
The benefits of work-integrated learning – for students
Work-integrated learning has a plethora of benefits for students. Just some of them include:
The opportunity to apply your hard-won academic learning to real-world work scenarios
Building relationships with potential employers and industry colleagues
Enhancing your resume with evidence of authentic work experience
The chance to explore your chosen field and clarify your direction
Developing valued workplace skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, project management and professional communication
The opportunity to better understand a workplace’s culture
A portfolio of work to show potential employers
A deepened understanding of your future career and its real-world requirements.
What are the benefits of work-integrated learning to the employer?
Students aren’t the only people to benefit from WIL. For employers, advantages include:
The opportunity to upskill employees
Building networks with industry and community partners and training organisations
The chance to meet, identify and attract leading graduate talent
Engaging teams of eager, knowledgeable students for work projects
Giving back to your industry or profession.
How to get involved in work-integrated learning
Getting started with WIL might seem daunting, but Practera makes the process simple and streamlined. Our experiential learning platform seamlessly connects students with authentic, real-world work experiences, at scale.
For higher education providers, the ability to offer high-quality WIL is a powerful differentiator. It can help your institution attract and retain students, enhance their employability, and build strong relationships with industry and community partners.
Practera partner with higher education institutions in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia to help them deliver exceptional WIL experiences that simultaneously reduce delivery costs and increase scale.
Employers
Practera helps employers develop the skills and capabilities of their teams while enhancing workflows and engaging with the upcoming generation of university candidates.
Our platform can connect your company with students eager to gain experience through real-world industry projects, internships and experiences.
Government
For government agencies, Practera can partner with you to build industry and education system collaborations.
Our programs support the upskilling and reskilling of workers and helps you identify and attract top graduate talent.
Work Integrated Learning via remote learning
Organising work integrated learning (WIL) projects has become more difficult in a socially distanced world by necessitating a shift to virtual delivery. The Practera platform addresses this issue by ensuring virtual WIL can still take place with a high level of quality. With our managed services, we can help connect your students with industry leaders today, with continuous support throughout their programs with a dedicated program manager.
A vital component of successful WIL opportunities involves providing students with the chance to reflect on their learning experiences. Practera’s experiential learning programs have inbuilt feedback loops designed by industry, peers and educators and backed by research. These are delivered at key moments to help drive critical reflection and deeper learning.
This key ingredient helps university students gain employability skills such as creativity and resilience, and ensures their virtual learning makes them ready for real-life careers.
Practera is proud to be one of 10 teams globally advancing to the qualified teams round of the $5M XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling Competition, sponsored by nonprofit venture philanthropy organization New Profit in partnership with Jobs for the Future (JFF).
Working with future-focused workforce boards across the US, Practera will develop and demonstrate breakthrough experiential learning solutions to more rapidly train and place displaced & vulnerable American workers into higher-wage, higher-skill jobs. Qualified Teams were selected by an independent panel of experts from among 118 teams from 20 countries.
At Practera, we are inspired by XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling’s vision of a future in which all workers have access to gainful and meaningful employment. A vision that so closely aligns with our mission, values, and work to date.
XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling incentivizes teams to develop and demonstrate the effectiveness of rapid training and reskilling solutions for individuals most vulnerable to employment loss in the United States. The solutions developed in this competition will reduce training time by at least 50% for occupations with a living wage and will be provided at no cost to the individual.
Congratulations to all teams on their achievement – we’re proud to be working alongside some amazing innovators as part of the Future of Work Grand Challenge.
We’re super excited and are looking forward to the competition!
The Lunar New Year marks one year since the start of the current pandemic for most people.
As we usher in the year of the OX, let’s hope it bring along what it stands for. A year of calmness, stability, great opportunity and economic prosperity.
Wishing all our partners, friends, students and families around the world a very ” Happy Lunar New Year.”
We look forward to another year of achieving positive outcomes for “Learners, Students, Businesses, Universities, Educators and Mentors through Practera’s technology platform, learning design, and programs.
Dino Willox director of student employability at the University of Queensland, and Laura-Anne Bull executive director for academic partnerships at Practera, explain how to develop employability skills virtually especially after the upheaval of Covid-19 to Times Higher Education The Campus. They emphasise that while there are plenty of options for enhancing employability virtually, it is how students reflect upon and learn from their experiences as an important factor. At practera, we power experiential learning programs with our feedback loops to drive critical reflection, deeper learning and improved performance. As the authors point out, this important ingredient makes students gain enhanced employability skills and get them career ready.
Feedback from students and employers has indicated that by engaging in digital industry projects, enhanced by feedback loops from industry, peers & educators at the right points students fostered and developed much sought-after employability skills and capabilities such as innovation, resilience, emotional intelligence and creativity.
The King’s Careers & Employability team will be using the Practera platform to deliver digital industry projects for students to gain professional insights and develop essential employability skills needed for a modern career.
We look forward to unfolding the partnership and its digital projects in the year ahead.
Andrew Wright, Head of Employer Engagement at King’s said, “Practera has demonstrated itself as an industry leader across Australia and other key geographies and we are delighted to help them launch in the United Kingdom in 2020. The platform allows us to develop, design and implement high-quality virtual meaningful work projects for our students, working alongside industry at scale to build unique experiences in these challenging times. We are excited about what we can achieve in 2021 through group projects targeted at final year undergraduate students and those from under-represented groups.”
Practera Co-Founder & Co-CEO Beau Leese said, “We’re proud to be partnering with a leading Careers Service like King’s College, and delighted to be supporting their vision to build success for students, graduates, staff and employers across King’s College London.”
Practera also starts 2021 with a new UK team led by Jane Hallett, Senior Manager Academic Partnerships. Jane returned to London to work with our UK customers following 3 years with Practera in Sydney. Read more about the partnership.
Practera is very proud to be part of The University of Sydney Business School’s Job Smart Edge “BIG” program win at the Global QS Quacquarelli Symonds “Reimagine Education Awards”.
Job Smart Edge is The University of Sydney’s Employability program powered by Practera. The program prepares young people for a rapidly shifting future through access to career coaching, masterclasses and authentic real-life industry project experience.
The University of Sydney dominated this year’s QS Reimagine Education awards. The Business School’s Job Smart Edge initiative won the overall Global Education Award for its comprehensive program to provide international students employability skills and experience for their future careers.
The Reimagine Education Awards program, the world’s largest awards program for innovative teaching, is led by the Wharton SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management at the University of Pennsylvania and the World University Rankings. It aims to reward innovative approaches that enhance student learning outcomes and employability.
Massive applause to all involved on a well deserved and outstanding award!
If you want to learn more about our products or discuss how we can help you design an award-winning employability skills program, please contact us here at connect@practera.com. We look forward to having a chat!
As 2020 draws to a close the Practera team wishes you and your families a happy festive season, and a bright, healthy 2021. In particular, all our love and support to those who are unable to see friends and family this year.
In 2020 we were privileged to be able to continue with our mission and help more educators deliver high quality, digitally-enabled experiential learning to students and professionals. Thanks to our awesome customers and team for your support in this most volatile of years – your resilience and spirit have been our inspiration.
We are also delighted and excited to be ending the year on a hight by being nominated as a finalist for 👉Excellence in International Student Employability and Career Development 👉 Victorian International Education Awards. It’s great to be acknowledged by the Victorian Government and Study Melbourne for demonstrating excellence/innovation in employability and careers services to International Students. Find out more here
We look forward to updating you on Practera’s continued success in January.
For now, if you can’t wait for 2021, here’s some light reading;
We released key research on Quality in Online Project Learning analysing a sample of 5237 students from 22 Universities. Get the whitepaper
