How do we teach institution-wide graduate attributes?  How can we measure the capabilities of our graduates?   How can universities bridge the gap between institutional rhetoric and the reality of the student learning experiences?

Theresa Winchester-Seeto and Agnes Bosanquet from the LTC attended the National Graduate Attributes Project (GAP) Symposium which was held at the University of Sydney on August 11.

The project findings so far include some interesting responses:

“People think it is simply about showing teachers “how” to ‘integrate’ generic attributes, its not. The people trying to implement this change haven’t recognised that it brings up fundamental questions about the purpose of a university – not to mention the problems of positioning students as consumers.”

“Our graduate attributes are primarily a marketing response to employer feedback.”

“We have gone through the motions of changing our curriculum - but really nothing has changed except that we use some graduate attributes words in our course outlines.”

“We had a project to embed Graduate Attributes but after a while we realised it meant we had to change all aspects of teaching and learning.”

“It’s difficult to assess things like ethical understanding, intellectual curiosity or lifelong learning so we don’t try to embed them”

“We have mapped the teaching (but maybe not the learning) of graduate attributes in the curriculum.”

“Accreditation of the professional degrees has been the main driver for assuring that graduate attributes are visible in the curriculum for staff and students.”

What do you think?  Do any of these comments resonate for you?

Filed under: Assessment and Marking, Graduate Capabilities by Agnes Bosanquet