Developing Employability Skills by Using Blended Learning

Abstract

What are the employability skills that students should acquire in order to increase their chances of gaining employment on being awarded a degree? To what extent do students develop each of these skills in face-to-face teaching? To what extent do students who learn in a purely online environment develop each of the employability skills? The thesis is that face-to-face teaching alone or online learning environments alone are not sufficient to fully develop employability skills. The way forward is to adopt blended learning. What is blended learning? It is a combination of face-to-face teaching with online learning. Is the provision of learning materials in the form of lecture notes, power point slides, interactive self-test questions, access to an online library to encourage independent learning, effective blended learning? The presenter advocates blended learning which takes the form of online discussion forums, in combination with face-to-face teaching, as an effective student learning and skills development experience. Is the provision of an online discussion forum for student discussion alone sufficient for effective learning and skills development? Research indicates that the presence, participation and constructive feedback of the teacher/facilitator are essential for an effective online discussion forum. The paper will be based on theoretical research as well as empirical evidence (obtained by observation of skills development in face-to-face classes and online discussion forums). The empirical evidence includes the embedding of employability skills (including ethical awareness) at the Law School in the London School of Business and Management in 2014/15. The main aim of this proposal is to compare face-to-face teaching with online teaching, consider the advantages and disadvantages of both forms of teaching/learning to enhance students’ employment opportunities, and then to put forward the recommendation that if academics wish to ensure the enhancement of students’ employment opportunities, they should adopt blended learning with an effective online discussion forum to co-exist with face-to-face teaching.