Showcase Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia 2015

Global employability and creative practice pedagogy futures  (#194)

Fiona Peterson 1 , Louise McWhinnie 2 , Graham Forsyth 3 , Noel Frankham 4
  1. School of Media & Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
  2. Faculty of Design, Architecture & Building, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  3. Faculty of Art & Design, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  4. Faculty of Arts, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia
Technology has changed the workplace and new roles are emerging, requiring staff who are mobile, flexible, adaptive, creative and innovative. Organizations are seeking employees for these emerging roles, but there is a skills shortage. Creative arts, where making sense of ambiguity is integral to practice, shows promise for addressing the new employability skills needed – encompassing ‘agility, creativity and connectedness’. This discipline group has experienced strong growth in Australian higher education enrolments over the last decade, creating a larger pool of creative graduates; however, their full-time employment rate remains below the sector average. This paper proposes a fresh pedagogical and industry-connected strategy to bridge the gap. Employability skills could be developed for emerging roles and new ways of working, globally and locally, by co-developing a networked learning model with industry. This paper outlines a framework for implementing a hybrid creative studio network model in existing curricula, utilizing technology and work-integrated learning opportunities across institutions. 
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