FFYE Forum: Traversing the liminal spaces between education and professional practice: the primacy of belonging and agency | 3 November

Hot Topic Theme: Work Integrated Learning

Students undertake their degrees to prepare them for their professional careers, and this journey commences from first year. The Work Integrated Learning (WIL) framework is designed to scaffold this practice from the classroom to experience in the workplace. But as the space between education and the workplace can often be experienced as liminal, uncertain, and even risky, we need to do more than focus on professional practice, we need to also attend to issues of belonging, purpose, and mastery.

In the FFYE forum, we plan to address the notion of belonging and its importance in supporting students to thrive in their workplace practice. Academics, Professional staff and students are warmly invited to attend.

Professor Tracy Levett-Jones will draw on her research and practice in belongingness, to illustrate how Nursing prepares their students for the workplace and discuss why it matters. Her Ascent to Competency framework provides a useful lens into the considerations we might all give to this experience for students, no matter what their discipline and profession.

You will hear from students who will relate their own stories of belonging or alienation, in the classroom, in industry experience, and beyond.

We are also looking at the liminal spaces for first year students as they journey towards their ‘future selves’ Hear from Annette Dowd from Physics who has designed and implemented an industry mentor program for first year students to help them understand which career pathway they might want to go. This work was trialled as part of her 2020 FFYE grant and is ongoing.

And we will look at how transition fits in the Circle of WIL with Dimity Wehr (TACT, in IML)

As usual, there will be lots of opportunities to network and engage in small group activities. These are designed for participants of the FFYE community to share experiences and practices of enhancing student belonging, whilst preparing them for their professional lives.

Please come, learn, share and experience our next FFYE Forum.

Note: This is final webinar in the Hot Topic series [Work Integrated Learning (WIL) and external partnerships].

Guest Speaker

Professor Tracy Levett-Jones
Professor Tracy Levett-Jones is the Head of School, School of Nursing & Midwifery and Professor of Nursing Education at UTS. Her research interests include: belongingness, clinical reasoning, empathy, simulation and patient safety. Tracy was recently named by The Australian’s Research magazine as the top researcher in Health & Medical Sciences in the field of Nursing. She has authored over 200 publications including ten books, led a number of Category 1 funded research projects, and has been awarded ten national teaching and learning awards. Tracy leads the Empathy Initiative and the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning research groups and she has also designed a number of educational websites including the Virtual Empathy Museum and The Patient Safety for Nursing Students website.

What is FFYE?

The UTS FFYE (First and Further Year Experience) Program is an institutional wide program, designed to support the successful transition of students in their journey through their degrees and into the workplace. The program has three foci: curriculum, people and the university infrastructure.

One key element of the program is community building. FFYE Forums (regular meetings) and FFYE community (MSTeams) provide spaces for sharing, learning and ongoing collaborations connecting research, practice and student experience. Contact Kathy Egea (FFYE coordinator) to join.

What are Hot Topics?

The Teaching and Curriculum Team from IML invites you to participate in the explorations of Work Integrated Learning (WIL) and external partnerships, the final topic in the Hot Topics series.

Be part of the conversation and share with us how you use WIL as a vehicle to engage in public and private sector and community partnerships, design real-world relevant courses, develop public-good professionalism and strengthen graduate employability.