University of Lincoln: Teaching the Skills Students Need for Future Career Success

Last month, I attended the BETT education technology trade show in London, where I had the pleasure of taking to the main stage with Tacy Trowbridge from Adobe to talk to delegates about something that is not only a hotly debated topic in the media, but also in schools, colleges and universities across the country – how do we ensure we are teaching the skills students need for the future career success?

Tacy talked through a study released by Adobe just over a year ago, entitled ‘Creative Problem Solving in Schools: Essential Skills Today’s Students Need for Jobs in Tomorrow’s Age of Automation,’ which emphasises the importance of equipping students with creative problem solving skills in helping them to succeed in the workplace, and how the curriculum as it stands doesn’t support this. The research found that three quarters of educators and policy makers predict that professions requiring creative problem-solving skills are less likely to be adversely impacted by automation – making it even more important that the teaching of these skills is prioritised within the education system so the students of today are able to do the jobs of tomorrow.

Technology, specifically tools that encourage and enable young people to be creative, is key to this. It’s something that we at the University of Lincoln believe is critical to the 21st century teaching and learning experience.

As a result, we’ve invested heavily in a Digital Transformation Programme (DETP) – an ambitious change programme covering a broad range of activities, including promotion and showcase events, video feedback on student performance, curriculum design workshops, staff CPD and support for digital learning technologies. A project that I’ve personally been involved in is our student resourced video support assistants, which is a critical part of our digital strategy. The initiative sees students work alongside academic colleagues and professional service staff to create original video resources that teachers can integrate into their lesson plans. It sees them become digital ambassadors by passing on their skills to the next person.

To support the programme, we’ve rolled out Adobe Spark for Education which means our students can very easily create their videos using a very simple tool. They’re encouraged to use their own visual style and tone in the video content so that there’s an authentic student voice at the heart of what they produce. It’s about students being able to create rich digital assets to communicate their thoughts.

Some of the videos our students have created can be found below:

Festival of Creativity 2018 | College of Arts | University of Lincoln

Campus Tour | UoLStudentLife | University of Lincoln

5 Tips For My First Year Self | Adam Earl | University of Lincoln

It’s never been as important as it is now that educational institutions such as ours keep pace with the technological advancements that are happening in the ‘real world.’ We owe it to the young people of today, who are after all going to be driving the economy of tomorrow.

By Andy Beggan, Dean of Digital Education at the University of Lincoln

If you’re interested in finding out how Adobe Spark for Education can help teach your students vital skills such as creative problem solving, visit spark.adobe.com/edu. To learn more about how the University of Lincoln is encouraging its students to learn creative and digital skills, visit https://adobe.ly/2Nkvwac.

About Andy Beggan

Andy leads Digital Education Transformation Programme (DETP) at the University of Lincoln. This is an ambitious change programme managed over 5 interconnecting strands of digital activity and support projects, covering: leadership and governance; Capabilities; Teaching, learning and assessment; Environments; and Communities. Activities cover a broad range of strategic initiatives including: student resourced video support assistants; student enhanced innovation projects; promotion and showcase events; curriculum design workshops; staff CPD; and support for digital learning technologies. Andy has been involved in promoting digitally enhanced learning for over 20 years, including working within e-learning software publishing and the Finance Industry. Before joining Lincoln, Andy was Associate Director for Learning Technology at The University of Nottingham where he was responsible for learning systems across three international campuses for over 40,000 students.