Career Development Learning:
linking graduate attributes, WiL and
lifelong learning
Martin Smith
Head, Careers Central
University of Wollongong
Who said that?
Session Overview
• My premise
• What is Career Development
• Why is CDL relevant to successful transitions and
employability strategies: the literature
• Linkages to WiL, GA’s and Lifelong Learning
• Emerging andragogy/pedagogy underpinnng CDL
• International and national practices
• UOW initiatives – linking GA’s to WIL to
employability to CDL
What is Career Development?
Career development is the lifelong process of managing
learning, work, leisure and transitions in order to move
towards a personally determined and evolving future for both
private and public
good.
(Career Industry Council of Australia 2006; OECD, 2004)).
“Career development learning puts students at the heart
of the learning process”
(Prof Tony Watts, NAGCAS ALTC Symposium, June 2008)
What is
Career Development Learning?
Career Development Learning …. learning about the content and process of career
development or life/career management.
•
Content – learning about self and learning about the world of work
•
Process – the development of the skills necessary to navigate a successful and
satisfying life/career.
(McMahon, Patton &Tatham 2003)
Systems Theory Framework
(Patton & McMahon 2006)
The DOTS
model
Learning about
Self
Learning about
Opportunities
Learning about
Decisions
Learning about
Transitions
(Prof Tony Watts)
Learning about self?
• Abilities, skills, aptitudes,
competencies
• Interests
• Personality
• Rewards - extrinsic &
intrinsic
• Values, ethics, moral
compass
• Passion & purpose
• Self identity
“we’re like onions”
The literature: CD & Social Inclusion
• awareness, aspiration,
educational attainment
(Bradley, 2008)
• relationship between
career development and
social justice is explicit
within the career
development literature
internationally (e.g., S. S.
Hansen, 2003; Hartung &
Blustein, 2002; Irving,
2005; K. M. O'Brien,
2001)
• pivotal in the work of
access, equity and social
justice (McIlveen,
Everton, & Clarke, 2005)
• benefits with respect to
social equity and human
capital (Access
Economics, 2006; Council
of the European Union,
2009; Organisation for
Economic Cooperation
and Development, 2004a;
Watts, nd)
The literature: FYE
• sense of vocational
purpose, (Wilson & Lizzio,
2006)
• identify and monitor
student purpose and
reasons for attending
university due to the
connections to retention,
satisfaction, academic
performance and
engagement amongst non
traditional cohorts (James,
Krause and Jennings, 2010)
• placing students at the
heart of the learning
process (Watts, 2008)
Learning about opportunities
• gaining information
about opportunities
from print, online
material and individuals
(via networking and
informational
interviewing)
• Immersion in work
related experiences
• Learning is continually
modified by experience
(Kolb, 1984)
• CDL aligns with Kolb’s
experiential learning
(Patton & McMahon,
2001)
WiL and CDL: WiL as an enabling
strategy of CDL
• “Work-related learning involves: learning
about oneself; learning and practising skills
and personal attributes of value in the worldof-work; experiencing the world-of-work in
order to provide insights and learning into the
world-of-work associated with one's university
studies; and experiencing and learning how to
learn and manage oneself in a range of
situations, including those found at work”.
(Moreland, 2005, p. 4)
WiL v Work Related Learning
• WRL can occur inside and outside the
curriculum, and outside of the university itself
in paid and paid work, in mentoring , in group
projects, business simulations. Students learn
wherever the experience occurs (Moreland,
2005)
2 way mirror
QUESTIONS?