May Lim, Scientia Education Academy Fellow

Title: Enabling Industrial Training at Scale

Introduction 

Industrial Training is an essential Work Integrated Learning (WIL) component of all UNSW Engineering degree programs. Students have a better learning experience when they can secure quality placement, but they lack the skills and network that is required to obtain such a placement. Moreover, with more than 16,000 socially, culturally and linguistically diverse students who are enrolled in 165 specialisations, of which approximately 4,000 will be seeking industrial placement each year, student skill development and WIL support at UNSW Faculty of Engineering must occur at an unprecedented scale. 

Activity in 2019 

Work Integrated Learning Online App (WILSOn) 

I led a $30,000 UNSW Digital Uplift project to develop a multi-lingual Work Integrated Learning online app (WILSOn). Available in six languages, WILSOn allows industrial training providers (including oversea providers) to evaluate and provide feedback on the student's performance while the student is on placement.  I worked with A. Prof Silas Taylor (SEA Fellow), Michele Hannon (Engineering WIL Manager) and Qingyang Lei (PVCE Education Developer), on the design of a viable online app.  

Evaluation and Badging of Industrial Training 

I developed a set of rubrics and marking guides for Schools and external providers to evaluate what the students learnt during their placement. The rubrics, derived from the Association of American Colleges & Universities’s Integrative and Applied Learning VALUE Rubrics and Engineers Australia’s Stage 1 Competency Standard, standardises and simplifies the assessment and feedback to the students for the whole faculty. I worked closely with Michele Hannon, WIL Manager (Engineering), to ensure our Industrial Training Program meets Engineers Australia’s professional accreditation requirements and complies with the Australian Higher Education Standards Framework and the Fair Work Act. This work also integrates with a university-wide micro-credentialing project led by SEA Fellow, A. Prof Patsie Polly. 

Convenor, Workshop on Work Integrated Learning 

I convened a workshop on Industrial Training (IT), a requirement of many Australian engineering degree programs, for the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) annual conference. The workshop addressed the multi-faceted administrative, quality assurance and compliance requirements of IT through three structured activities:  

1. Managing Industrial Training, where participant discussed what constitutes quality IT placement and reviewed the tools that can be used to administer and meet the compliance requirements for IT. 

2. Supporting Students, where participant shared best practice for supporting students in their search for IT placements, including the use of student as partners approach to create a system that develops the students' job search and employability skills. 

3. Assessing Industrial Training where participant shared best practice for capturing, assessing and evaluating student professional development during their IT placement. 

Invited Talk and Presentation on Industrial Training  

I was a member of a joint UNSW and UTS delegation to Myanmar to convene a two-day workshop on engineering education for the Myanmar Engineering Council. I gave a talk on UNSW Engineering’s Industrial Training Program and convene a workshop on teaching teamwork skills. I also present on industrial training at CHEMECA2019, the national conference of my professional body. 

Outcomes 

The WILSOn app enables the Faculty to administer the Industrial Training Program at scale and capture the students’ experience while on placement. It also allows the Faculty to monitor, for the first time, students’ wellbeing for the entire duration of their placement. The rubrics allow students’ cognitive and behavioural competencies to be evaluated, and the students’ professional skills attainment while on placement to be recognised and certified by a coherent and warranted badging system. This ensures UNSW’s Industrial Training Program is compliant with TESQA quality standards and requirements; it also standardise assessment of WIL for all eight Engineering schools (which is important for micro-credentialing). 

The workshops and presentations on industrial training prompt participants to reflect on how local context, growth in student numbers and diversity, and the changes within the engineering profession necessitate a rethink of what constitutes a quality IT placement. The workshops addressed the insurmountable challenge faced by many Engineering Schools and Faculty to assess or evaluate student performance while they are on placement and the need for a shared framework or resources for IT. 

Next steps 

I will continue to advance WIL and professional skill development UNSW Engineering, having previously demonstrate how the Faculty and Schools of Engineering, Careers and Employments, Legal, student societies and industries can reduce the “burden” of WIL by working together, with clear definition (and no overlapping!) of job roles, as well as utilising digital tools.  I will advocate for clearer definition of academic roles related to WIL, including the incorporation of opportunities for development, scholarship and profile building (especially for Education Focus Academics) into the role, and evaluation of professional learning and development in the Engineering undergraduate degree program.