Session 16: Igniting aspirations: hackathons paving the way to incurriculum workbased learning initiatives

Abstract

Higher Education institutions must ensure that students are equipped with the necessary employability skills and literacy to progress to successful graduate outcomes; indeed, these outcomes are often used to measure the quality of university provision (Cheng et al. 2022). A key element of this is embedding employability and work based experiential learning opportunities within the curriculum, in a way that is responsive to the needs of both LJMU students and different programmes of study.

In our programmes (Nutrition, Psychology, Sport Nutrition), we constantly strive to provide excellent student experiences within and beyond the curriculum to enhance graduate employment and to create positive change. We envisioned a distinctive, symbiotic, work-based learning experience to develop career readiness and a sense of community for our students. Working with a combination of industry Mentors, Academics, the Student Futures’ Careers & Employability and Employer Engagement Teams, and the Start-Up Hub, we collaborated to design and deliver our first ‘in curriculum’ Hackathons.

The Hackathons were designed to be a problem oriented, fast paced, fun, active and engaging process, with a view to stimulating students’ curiosity and creativity. Students were presented with authentic, live industry problems, related to their programmes which were designed to challenge them, and which required collaboration, reflection, and teamwork – they had to think outside the box.

By harnessing the collaborative strength of groups of staff working together, Hackathon teams can develop innovative ideas to apply to real world applications, benefitting not only students, but also strengthening industry-education relationships. In sharing our lessons learned, we will reflect on our successes and challenges of developing innovation in these examples of the employability enhanced curriculum. This presentation will illustrate how the learning experiences from our Hackathons can be effectively replicated across programmes within LJMU.

Igniting aspirations: hackathons paving the way to incurriculum workbased learning initiatives PowerPoint. Only LJMU staff and students have access to this resource.