Career Matters Article, January 2018 issue

An article written by myself and Marjorie McCrory will be featured in this month's issue of Career Matters, the Career Development Institute's professional publication. 

In our article, The Medium is the Message: Taking a Career Development Approach to Curriculum Design and Delivery at the University of the West of Scotland, we talk about the changes we have brought to the MSc Career Guidance and Development at UWS over the past year since we took over and our rationale for doing so. 

NVL Career management skills conference - keynote

From 23-24 November 2017 I attended the NVL Career Management Skills conference in Malmo, where I delivered a keynote speech, The blueprint framework for career learning in Scotland.

Presentations and additional material from this highly informative, discussion and thought-provoking conference are now available here.

CDI Student Conference Scotland 2017

On 22 November we hosted the annual Career Development Institute Student Conference at the University of the West of Scotland.

I presented a workshop, Equality Aware Career Conversations. The slides to accompany this workshop are available at: https://www.slideshare.net/secret/cOTYoKwscAsb49

The slides to accompany all keynote speeches and workshop presentations are hosted on the CDI website at: http://www.thecdi.net/Student-Conference-2017-Presentations

OERs for Career Development and Career Development Professionals

I have been collating a list of free or ‘open’ online learning activities relevant to career development and career development professionals, as part of one of the modules I teach on the UWS MSc in Career Guidance and Development.

A good description of what open education practices (OEP) and open education resources (OERs) are is available on the Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) website at:

https://oepscotland.org/about/definitions/

A list of relevant OERs can be found below. I hope you find this list useful and please contact me if you know of any others I can add to the list!

OpenLearn: Thinking about how I work with other professionals

OpenLearn: Developing career resilience

OpenLearn: Succeed in the workplace

OpenLearn: Careers education and guidance

FutureLearn: Understanding Autism

FutureLearn: How to Succeed at Writing Applications

FutureLearn: How to Succeed at Interviews
FutureLearn: Smart Advice: Broadening Your Students' Horizons (UCAS)

FutureLearn: Smart Choices: Broadening Your Horizons (UCAS)

EmployID: The changing world of work

Online learning modules from the National Guidance Research Forum on Labour Market Information

Welcoming student-parents into libraries

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about the difficulties of library access for student-parents. So I am absolutely delighted to see this news story today about the new family study lounge at the University of Glasgow library.

https://universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com/2017/09/07/new-family-study-lounge-uofglibrary/ 

I didn't name and shame at the time but it was in fact at the University of Glasgow library where I had the demoralising experience that set me off looking into the issue. 

I can only hope other universities take note and follow suit. What a fantastic addition to the service offered and much-needed acknowledgement of how many students have to balance their studies with having the responsibility for children.