University West England Case Study - Academic Degree Apprenticeships

The ‘Supporting New Academics’ Ambition

This is a large-scale programme. with between 200 and 300 participants, nearly 150 mentors, and over 30 colleagues in the programme’s teaching and support team. The programme is an atypical UWE programme, as the participants are in both staff and student roles. The team was mindful that new academics on the programme are often facing a steep learning curve in terms of doing their job, are low on time, and are dealing with many competing pressures. Our aims were:

To use PebblePad to best facilitate the learner journey.
To house many of the apprenticeship’s administrative and structural processes in one place, and aid in the reporting and auditing processes.
To model the effective use of PebblePad in supporting teaching, learning and assessment activity, since the programme assembles many colleagues from across the whole institution.

PebblePad offered greater flexibility than our Virtual Learning Environment and greater scope to aid participants’ regular engagement with mentors and tutors.

The Successful Workflow

The UWE Academic Professional Programme has transformed the University’s traditional Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert) into an apprenticeship, focusing on developing and enhancing academic practice, especially in teaching and supporting learning, in part through engagement in regular reflective practice.

The team designed a single PebblePad workbook to be used throughout the programme which locates all participant-generated and related digital material in one place, including activities, reflections, documentation and assessments. The workbook is thoroughly embedded into the programme, supports the learner journey throughout, and requires regular engagement. This supports the programme’s aim of encouraging participants to develop a sustained, reflective and deliberate approach to academic practice.

Our PebbleVision video, while not specifically about this case study, provides a brief overview of how PebblePad can support some of the pedagogical and pebblegogical practices discussed in this case study.

The PebblePad Difference

"Several participants who had not previously used PebblePad are also now interested in using it in their own teaching. In the first ten months of our programme we have been contacted by four separate colleagues from one faculty asking for guidance in implementing PebblePad in their own modules. We are now supporting these colleagues, in the hope that these trailblazers will help disseminate this practice more widely."

PebblePad has helped the University of the West of England achieve these benefits ...

The ability to easily record all off-the-job learning and relevant development activities undertaken whilst on the programme.
PebblePad feedback templates enable live edits to be made and better facilitates contributions by multiple authors, thereby making second marking easier.
The ability to gather up-to-date progress information rapidly via the inbuilt reporting features in PebblePad's Assessment Engine, ATLAS.

Want to learn more about how PebblePad can make a difference to your project?

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR ACADEMICS.

A PEBBLEPAD AND UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND CASE STUDY

Disciplines & Themes

Learning focus:

Design focus:

Melding the Workplace and The Real World

The ‘Supporting New Academics’ Ambition

PebblePad offered greater flexibility than our Virtual Learning Environment and greater scope to aid participants’ regular engagement with mentors and tutors.

The Successful Workflow

The PebblePad Difference

Four reasons why institutions like The University of the West of England trust us to help them make a meaningful difference to learner success.