What is AA?
Funded by the Pedagogy Transformation Fund in 2018, AA is an interactive, practical, flexible online course that supports students in the planning of their professional future.
It is designed to support:
- Transitioning into Imperial College and finding information from a range of services.
- Decision making processes for students at transition points in their studies and as they move into their professional lives.
- The development of a core set of professional skills.
- Navigation of application processes for jobs, internships, or further study.
AA is available to students from a month before they start their programme until a year after they graduate. The course employs several unique elements to give students tailored and appropriate access to the content that they need when they need it. This has allowed us to develop bespoke content for undergraduate students, PhD students, and master’s students. The content for master’s students is also bespoke on a discipline level to make it as effective as possible for students considering their options as they approach the job market.
Using AA with students
Staff can make use of AA in whatever way makes sense to them and their students. Click below for some examples.
AA can be used to direct students to specific units or modules to support teaching. Examples include but are not limited to:
- Reading academic papers: Improving Academic Skills units 4 and 5 look at Critical Thinking and Evaluating Information.
- Group work and group assessmeents: Working with Others module looks at Teamworking, Being Assertive and EDI.
- Planning for dissertations: Efficiency and Effectiveness covers a range of Time Management and Organisational topics.
- Lab/workshop problem solving: Problem Solving module offers a range of theories from identifying problems to finding and presenting solutions.
Directing students to specific module can help support students with career planning and general well being.
- Master's/PhD students: Career Planning and CVs and Applications can help with applications to further study, research and industry related careers as well as exploring a variety of options.
- Undergraduate students: Making the Most of Your Studies and Skills Development can help with transition into university and making the most of different types of learning.
- All students – Skills such as Communication, Time Management, Presentations, and Decision Making are covered throughout AA.
AA is available pre-entry to help students get information before they start.
- Introduction modules are available for students at all level of study and cover the changes in learning methods and information on Imperial.
- Inclusive personae are used throughout to help students understand themselves and their peers.
- Careers information is provided for master's and PhD students to ensure they are ready for the deadlines for the career pathways which are most applicable for them.
AA Unique Elements
Core Skills
A set of evidence-based core skills that are mapped to all the content allowing students to make choices about what they want to study. There are twenty core skills addressed throughout the AA modules. Students are provided with a Skills Map to help them decide which units to take based on the skills they want to develop. More information on the skills and how they have been categorized can be found here.
Plan: Me
The reflective portfolio tool Plan: Me which is a method widely used by the Imperial College Careers Service to help students plan for their professional futures.
Inclusive Personae
Inclusive Personae which are used throughout the course to provide elements of inclusive practice and are the primary tool for making the content bespoke for different faculties. This element has been developed into a college wide project Animated Inclusive Personae which aims to provide wider ranging options for the use of these personae.
AA Structure
There are AA versions for the following groups.
- Postgraduate taught students
- Faculty of Medicine (FoM)
- Faculty of Natural Sciences (FoNS)
- Faculty of Engineering (FoE)
- Undergraduate (UG) students
- PhD students
These versions consist of the following modules which are bespoke for the relevant cohorts. Click on the links in the table to find details on what is contained within each module including the skills which are addressed and the learning outcomes.
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Resarch and Publications
The development of the AA course and the unique elements within it has led to the publication of a number of articles which can further explain the processes we use and how they work. This research includes.
Research and Publications
The design of the course to accommodate the bespoke nature while maintaining quality and consistency has been a key piece of development and has resulted in outputs related to the field of learning design.
(Re)defining learning design: a framework fit for the twenty-first century. Stripe, K. and Simpson-Bergel, E. (2023) Compass: Journal of Learning and Teaching, 16(2), pp. 121–136
Bespoke Learning Design – One Course, Multiple Cohorts. Stripe, K. (2024) Educational Designer, 4(16)
AA is a collaboration between the education office and the Careers Service and as such the skills element of the course and how it has been designed to have an impact on certain groups of students. Primarily one-year taught master’s students has resulted in some interesting work in this area.
Supporting master’s students’ employability – a tailored approach. Dallison, K., Stripe, K. and Alexandrou, D. (2021) Advance HE: Employability: breaking the mould, pp. 23–29.
Getting personal with PGT career and skills development. Dallison, K. and Stripe, K. (2023) Pheonix – The Careers Journal, (167), pp. 30–31.
Developed based on a range of careers theories, Plan: Me allows students to add structure to their career planning. The simple model supports students to explore different pathways, reflect on their experiences, and combine what they learn to help them make decisions. Used widely across the careers service and currently being piloted with BSc Medical Biosciences personal tutors to support career discussions, Plan: Me has also received international recognition, being cited as best practice in supporting student wellbeing.
Plan: Me - a practical tool for career decision making. Dallison, K.J. (2019) Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 43(1), pp. 26–32.
Inclusive personae, and now Animated Inclusive Personae, are fundamental to the success of AA and facilitate the bespoke elements as described above. These personae continue to be used in new areas and this work is facilitated and disseminated primarily through CPD workshops to enable colleagues to use these personae as a tool to make their content more inclusive.
Using Personas to Promote Inclusive Education in an Online Course. Stripe, K., Dallison, K.J. and Alexandrou, D. (2021) International Journal of Technology and Inclusive Education, 10(1), pp. 1634–1638
- Plenary Session - UKCGE Conference on postgraduate taught education 2023
- Association of Learning Technologists CPD session 2021
- EDU workshop Focus on developing inclusive curricula using digital personas