HR9409 - Preparing for Professional Practice

What will I learn on this module?

Your programme aims to ensure that you are learners for business, not just of business, upon graduation. This module starts you on this journey by supporting your professional development. It aims to increase your awareness of and sensitivity to personal and employability/entrepreneurship/enterprise skills. It does this by focusing on programme-specific graduate career opportunities that require you to work on projects similar to those that graduates within your field will undertake once in employment. You are taking an experiential, team-focussed, project/problem-based approach. The module will support you in identifying and developing the essential skills, behaviours, and understanding required to sustainably and responsibly manage organisations and their people. These might include generic areas such as leadership, project management, management, resilience, empathy and professional judgment, and discipline-specific capabilities.
You will use this understanding to evaluate, practise, develop and re-evaluate your capabilities in these skills, behaviours and acumen areas, enabling you to build your own graduate identity. This approach underpins your successful future employability, entrepreneurship or enterprise activity. In addition, the activities provide you with authentic insights into the importance and challenges of team-working within organisations as you work to address real organisations’ issues.
Learner/team-led, tutor-guided sessions aim to support you in enhancing your employability and upon building your graduate identity. During the practical development of the key attributes and behaviours central to your future success within your chosen profession within a project-based environment, you will receive support from the programme team. In addition, by documenting and reflecting upon your progress towards achieving your own team defined KPIs, you will enhance your skills, behaviours, capabilities, and understanding.
In short, at the end of this module, you will:
• Have an understanding and increased awareness of, and sensitivity to, those personal skills and attributes which are central to your future employability in your chosen profession or future entrepreneurial or enterprise activity
• Be better prepared to understand the skills and qualities required by graduates in your field to secure future employment or engage in enterprise activity
Have practical experience of working on a real-life business project appropriate to your programme area, improving your project management, research, employability and collaboration skills

How will I learn on this module?

Your learning journey in this module will consist of a combination of tutor-led, learner-led and team-led session activities.
Tutor-led research-informed seminar sessions will help you develop an understanding and increased awareness of your skills and employability and provide practical support to help you record and document these attributes to support future career progression.
Sessions are student-led, an experiential approach facilitated by the programme team to support the development of your career plan focusing on your future graduate identity.
A team-led, facilitated approach provides the authentic experience of working as part of a team on an appropriate graduate-level project within your field. You will be jointly responsible for identifying your team’s learning needs to provide appropriate recommendations for a real business organisation. The module framework/structure to help you work through the issues, and your facilitator will support you with advice and constructive criticism.

How will I be supported academically on this module?

Support will be provided to you by a member of academic staff who will facilitate your learning and support you through the led sessions whilst disseminating appropriate activities you should be engaging in during your independent study time. They are also available upon request to help you outside of formal session time by responding to questions or concerns you might have either via email or individually pre-arranged appointments or drop-in sessions.
Sessions include tutor-led, tutor-guided and learner-led activities in groups of around 20 working in smaller teams. This approach provides closer, more personal academic support. All workshops and seminar sessions will consist of learners who are also studying on your programme.
Academic support is available through the provision of a range of University learning support services. In addition, a wide range of online support materials is also available through the virtual learning environment. These materials include recordings, webcasts, pre-recorded sessions on specialist software and critical academic skills, also an electronic reading list including RSS feeds that showcase the application of various practices presented in the module.

To support you in your academic progress, you will receive both formative and summative feedback/feed-forward on your work through the course of each academic year. Regular formative feedback on class activities provides you with the necessary guidance to scaffold your knowledge and understanding of critical issues to succeed in the final summative assessment. Summative feedback/feed-forward will be provided on your work after it has been assessed and graded. You should use all feedback you receive to identify areas of strength and areas for future study and improvement.

What will I be expected to read on this module?

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

What will I be expected to achieve?

Knowledge & Understanding:

• To apply your knowledge and understanding of contemporary business to solve a problem related to professional practice using higher-order capabilities [MLO1]

• To appraise knowledge of business and management to complex real-world problems in professional practice in order to identify contextually-justifiable, sustainable and responsible solutions [MLO2]


Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

• To become a self-directed learner with the ability to develop skills in framing your own enquiry questions, impacting on individual engagement and confidence. These will include critical evaluation, synthesis, ethical judgment and communication as well as technical skills in information searching and the use of technology. [MLO3]


• To work collaboratively on a team project. [MLO4]

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):

• To self-reflect and critique your personal skills and attitudes as a means of informing personal development planning and improve your employability and discern your graduate identity. [MLO5]

How will I be assessed?

Formative assessment:
Throughout the module you should actively participate in scheduled and self-directed activities and should engage in discussions, team work and feedback exercises to challenge your own thinking and that of your peers.

Face-to-face sessions will provide you with the opportunity to self-assess your knowledge and understanding through applying the different aspects/topics examined. You will work through small groups activities which will enable you to secure on-going feedback from your peers.


Summative Assessment:
1. Employability Development Portfolio developed through engagement with weekly activities in seminars and reflective statements. (40%) [MLO 3, 5]

2. Team Report/Presentation – Work submitted by the team detailing research conducted and findings and recommendations (40%) [MLO 1, 2, 4]

3. 360° Self, Tutor and Peer Assessment from team project (20%) [MLO 4]

Pre-requisite(s)

None

Co-requisite(s)

None

Module abstract

‘Preparing for Professional Practice’ supports you in applying the knowledge and understanding you’ve developed through the module ‘People, Management and Organisations’ to your professional development. Taking an experiential team-focused, project/problem-based approach, the module equips you to identify and develop the key skills, behaviours and understanding that underpin sustainably and responsibly managed organisations and their people within your chosen field. These might include generic areas such as leadership, project management, resilience, empathy and professional judgment, and discipline-specific topics.
You will use this understanding to evaluate, practise, develop and re-evaluate your capabilities in these identified areas. Thus, enabling you to build your brand to support your successful future employability and enterprise activity. In addition, the activities provide you with authentic insights into the importance and challenges of team-working within organisations as you work to address their real-world challenges.

Course info

UCAS Code N805

Credits 20

Level of Study Undergraduate

Mode of Study 3 years full-time or 4 year sandwich

Department Newcastle Business School

Location City Campus, Northumbria University

City Newcastle

Start September 2024 or September 2025

Fee Information

Module Information

All information is accurate at the time of sharing.

Full time Courses starting in 2023 are primarily delivered via on-campus face to face learning but may include elements of online learning. We continue to monitor government and local authority guidance in relation to Covid-19 and we are ready and able to flex accordingly to ensure the health and safety of our students and staff.

Contact time is subject to increase or decrease in line with additional restrictions imposed by the government or the University in the interest of maintaining the health and safety and wellbeing of students, staff, and visitors, potentially to a full online offer, should further restrictions be deemed necessary in future. Our online activity will be delivered through Blackboard Ultra, enabling collaboration, connection and engagement with materials and people.

 

Current, Relevant and Inspiring

We continuously review and improve course content in consultation with our students and employers. To make sure we can inform you of any changes to your course register for updates on the course page.


Your Learning Experience

Find out about our distinctive approach at 
www.northumbria.ac.uk/exp

Admissions Terms and Conditions
northumbria.ac.uk/terms

Fees and Funding
northumbria.ac.uk/fees

Admissions Policy
northumbria.ac.uk/adpolicy

Admissions Complaints Policy
northumbria.ac.uk/complaints