Departmental Teaching Development Grant History Work Placements Reflection Toolkit Project

1. Departmental Teaching Development Grant History Work Placements Reflection Toolkit Project Richard Hawkins & Harvey Woolf

2. Introduction • The academic literature, the media and government have highlighted the importance of work placements in terms of both the private and public good for students • Being able to reflect effectively on work experience is seen as central to personal and career development

3. Introduction • Our previous Higher Education Academy Teaching Development Grant funded research project established that the dominant modes of assessment in history workplace learning modules are the reflective essay/report and the learning log/journal • We also established that nearly a third of all UK undergraduate history courses had workplace learning modules as part of their provision • These were predominantly courses offered by post-1992 HEIs ‘The Assessment of Workplace Learning in UK Undergraduate History Courses’ in Lisa Lavender (ed), History Graduates With Impact (Warwick: Higher Education Academy History, 2011), 37, 39

4. Introduction • Our new project aims: • i) to develop an online toolkit for staff and students to address the gap identified by the research referred to above; • ii) to encourage history work placement module leaders to reconsider how students are prepared for workplace learning reflection; • iii) to show how the creation of freely available web-based resources to support students’ learning can allow HEIs to do more with less; and • iv) to demonstrate the value of creating a resource through both the collaboration between staff and students in four UK HEIs and the participation of the wider history community

5. B) The Content of the Toolkit • We intend to include in the toolkit • Definitions of reflection • A tip sheet • A select bibliography • Links to relevant websites • Short video clips of students, work placement tutors and providers talking about what contributes to good practice in reflection and reflective writing

6. C) Progress Report • Workshop on 9 May • As an activity linked to this project we organised a very successful Higher Education Academy History one day workshop on 9 May at the University of Wolverhampton Science Park on work placements • This participants at the workshop identified some gaps in our understanding of history work placements • Some history work placements at pre-1992 universities are organised by careers departments independently of history departments and are not assessed • Indeed several pre-1992 universities, including the University of Birmingham, have recently invested in the establishment of work placement programmes managed by their careers departments • The ESRC and AHRC are sponsoring postgraduate history work placements for holders of PhD. studentships • This reflects a concern that only a very small proportion of PhD. students can realistically expect a post-doctoral academic career

7. C) Progress Report • Reflection – assessment issues • Power relationships - giving tutors what they want • Class • Gender • Ethnicity • Disability

8. C) Progress Report • Technical issues • Digital residents/visitors • Identifying the correct platform • Technical quality of audio-visual content • Sustainability