title: Transferable skills for global employability in PhD curriculum transformation

authors: Johnson, E. Marcia

abstract: Over the past twenty years, higher education has experienced greatly increased doctoral enrolments and corresponding changes in career destinations. Until recently, most graduates could expect to secure academic positions, but this career path is no longer assured or necessarily desired. For example, in the UK, only 14% of PhD students now secure an academic post, and only 19% of UK PhD holders were in higher education research roles three years after graduating. The increasing proportion and diversity of people holding a doctorate is leading to a transformation in how governments, employers, and degree holders themselves consider career possibilities for doctoral graduates.
This change in the doctoral demographic and concomitant employment possibilities has precipitated a focus on the development of generic (transferable) skills in addition to the PhD research content itself. Consequently, a range of researcher development programmes has been established, notably national initiatives such as Vitae in the UK and institution-specific initiatives. This expansion of focus has implications for curriculum, with employability as a key driver for what and how we teach doctoral students. However, in facilitating and achieving such curriculum transformation, students’ views of how their experiences and learning have supported, enhanced, or hindered their career and life opportunities have seldom been sought.
This issue becomes even more pertinent when discussion is extended to the global sphere. The OECD average for international students in doctoral programmes is 24%, which includes traditionaltype international students who travel to host countries to study. The number increases further when doctoral students in programmes designed in line with “international” standards, but taught by international faculty in a home country context, are added. What do these students consider appropriate preparation for their future employment in terms of transferable skills, and what challenges do they perceive when seeking jobs?
Using perspectives gained from an empirical study on transferable skills conducted with doctoral students in New Zealand and the experiences of curriculum transformation in a PhD programme in Kazakhstan designed in collaboration with strategic partners in the UK and USA, the presenters will engage delegates in discussion of doctoral curriculum transformation and transferable skills in a global context. Doctoral candidates are especially welcome at the round table to share their own experiences.

text: Transferable skills for global employability in PhD curriculum transformation Over the past twenty years, higher education has experienced greatly increased doctoral enrolments and corresponding changes in career destinations. Until recently, most graduates could expect to secure academic positions, but this career path is no longer assured or necessarily desired. For example, in the UK, only 14% of PhD students now secure an academic post, and only 19% of UK PhD holders were in higher education research roles three years after graduating. The increasing proportion and diversity of people holding a doctorate is leading to a transformation in how governments, employers, and degree holders themselves consider career possibilities for doctoral graduates.
This change in the doctoral demographic and concomitant employment possibilities has precipitated a focus on the development of generic (transferable) skills in addition to the PhD research content itself. Consequently, a range of researcher development programmes has been established, notably national initiatives such as Vitae in the UK and institution-specific initiatives. This expansion of focus has implications for curriculum, with employability as a key driver for what and how we teach doctoral students. However, in facilitating and achieving such curriculum transformation, students’ views of how their experiences and learning have supported, enhanced, or hindered their career and life opportunities have seldom been sought.
This issue becomes even more pertinent when discussion is extended to the global sphere. The OECD average for international students in doctoral programmes is 24%, which includes traditionaltype international students who travel to host countries to study. The number increases further when doctoral students in programmes designed in line with “international” standards, but taught by international faculty in a home country context, are added. What do these students consider appropriate preparation for their future employment in terms of transferable skills, and what challenges do they perceive when seeking jobs?
Using perspectives gained from an empirical study on transferable skills conducted with doctoral students in New Zealand and the experiences of curriculum transformation in a PhD programme in Kazakhstan designed in collaboration with strategic partners in the UK and USA, the presenters will engage delegates in discussion of doctoral curriculum transformation and transferable skills in a global context. Doctoral candidates are especially welcome at the round table to share their own experiences.

year: 2017

title: Parents as teachers: Using parent helpers to guide young children’s technological practice

authors: Milne, Louise

abstract: Technology Education is one of eight learning areas of the New Zealand national curriculum. It aims to develop a broad technological literacy through students participating in learning programmes in which they engage in technological practice and through this practice develop capability, knowledge and an understanding of technology as a domain in its own right. Experiencing and exploring contemporary examples of technological practice is recognised as an effective way of developing technological literacy and, in this study, students visited a chocolate factory in order to find out how to make a chocolate gift for Mothers’ Day. While the value of learning experiences outside the classroom (LEOTC) is well documented in learning areas such as science, there are few studies which explore LEOTC in Technology and specifically those of junior primary students.
A key element of this process, and the focus of this paper, is the role that parent helpers play in guiding and supporting students during both visits outside the classroom, and construction tasks within the classroom. It also raises the issue of the preparation and scaffolding parents require to enable them to help students effectively carry out these tasks. The role of a parent helper is a crucial one and the data from this study suggests that the status and time given to this preparation is, at times, varied and can have significant impact on children’s learning outcomes.

text: Parents as teachers: Using parent helpers to guide young children’s technological practice Technology Education is one of eight learning areas of the New Zealand national curriculum. It aims to develop a broad technological literacy through students participating in learning programmes in which they engage in technological practice and through this practice develop capability, knowledge and an understanding of technology as a domain in its own right. Experiencing and exploring contemporary examples of technological practice is recognised as an effective way of developing technological literacy and, in this study, students visited a chocolate factory in order to find out how to make a chocolate gift for Mothers’ Day. While the value of learning experiences outside the classroom (LEOTC) is well documented in learning areas such as science, there are few studies which explore LEOTC in Technology and specifically those of junior primary students.
A key element of this process, and the focus of this paper, is the role that parent helpers play in guiding and supporting students during both visits outside the classroom, and construction tasks within the classroom. It also raises the issue of the preparation and scaffolding parents require to enable them to help students effectively carry out these tasks. The role of a parent helper is a crucial one and the data from this study suggests that the status and time given to this preparation is, at times, varied and can have significant impact on children’s learning outcomes.

year: 2012

title: Whaikoorero: a study of formal Maori speech

authors: Mahuta, Robert Te Kotahi

subjects: Whaikoorero

abstract: Whaikoorero is regarded as the traditionally valued mode of communication. It is the language of the marae, the language of the chiefs and elders, and the only acceptable form of public statement in the Maori world. At the same time it is an artistic form, difficult to master, and demanding long years of practice and experience.
It is true, as I have pointed out, that one can read and listen to the myths and traditions of the Maori in books, on tapes, and through radio broadcasts. Yet it is the public rendering, the synthesising of myth and tradition, the living and the dead, and the interweaving of topical matters with the beliefs and values of the society, which hold the greatest interest for the Maori. For in whaikoorero history is relived, man reaffirmed, and status gained. The dead are recalled to participate with the living in social gatherings where tradition is orally transmitted, reaffirmed and relived. These then are some of the reasons why whaikoorero persists as a literary form and as a social feature within contemporary Maori society.

text: Whaikoorero: a study of formal Maori speech Whaikoorero is regarded as the traditionally valued mode of communication. It is the language of the marae, the language of the chiefs and elders, and the only acceptable form of public statement in the Maori world. At the same time it is an artistic form, difficult to master, and demanding long years of practice and experience.
It is true, as I have pointed out, that one can read and listen to the myths and traditions of the Maori in books, on tapes, and through radio broadcasts. Yet it is the public rendering, the synthesising of myth and tradition, the living and the dead, and the interweaving of topical matters with the beliefs and values of the society, which hold the greatest interest for the Maori. For in whaikoorero history is relived, man reaffirmed, and status gained. The dead are recalled to participate with the living in social gatherings where tradition is orally transmitted, reaffirmed and relived. These then are some of the reasons why whaikoorero persists as a literary form and as a social feature within contemporary Maori society.

year: 1974