Using Reflection to Promote Career‐Based Learning in Student Employment

Abstract

5 College students employed on campus are in a setting ripe for learning career-based competencies related to leadership. Through incorporating intentional reflection opportunities into student employment settings, institutions can increase their contribution to graduating students ready to lead in the workforce or any other setting. This chapter presents models of reflection that enhance transfer of work related skills.Scan the missions of colleges and universities across the United States and around the world and a word cloud of phrases such as critical thinking, leadership, global citizenship, diverse perspectives, and improving the world emerges. Higher education seeks to produce the next generation of leaders. The complex process of a college education is transformative, both in the development of content expertise in one' s discipline, but perhaps more so, in the dramatic growth in skills related to the process of understanding and reflecting on one' s own views, while confronting the diverse perspectives of others.The curricular and cocurricular activities that populate the college landscape provide students with rich opportunities to develop the leadership competencies denoted in college mission statements. Student employment serves as a testing ground with a safety net to practice developing skills in leadership. This chapter will provide an overview of models of reflection pertinent to the college experience, connect student employment to the process of developing career-based expertise, and illustrate ways that practitioners can ensure that student employment is contributing to the development of key leadership competencies centered in transferrable skills that employers seek.

Improving Communicative Competence Levels of Pre-Service Teachers Through Spoken-Based Reflection Instruction

“…This result is in good agreement with previous studies which showed that although some learners have high levels of spoken language proficiency, they also have difficulties in language use, which affects their communicative competence (Chang, 2019;Matsuo, 2019). Our findings further indicate that communicative competence is a problem among students of EFL as a similar pattern of results was obtained in a study on challenges in language teaching (Branch & George, 2017;Hansen, 2019;Ironsi, 2021). This is another confirmation of similar studies that argue that although communicative competence is often neglected among scholars, it is always surprising to find out that most students in SLA classrooms do not have high competence in using the language for communication regardless of long periods of English teaching (Diane, 2019;Hansen, 2019;Ironsi, 2021).…”

“…Our findings further indicate that communicative competence is a problem among students of EFL as a similar pattern of results was obtained in a study on challenges in language teaching (Branch & George, 2017;Hansen, 2019;Ironsi, 2021). This is another confirmation of similar studies that argue that although communicative competence is often neglected among scholars, it is always surprising to find out that most students in SLA classrooms do not have high competence in using the language for communication regardless of long periods of English teaching (Diane, 2019;Hansen, 2019;Ironsi, 2021). Moreover, the present study confirmed that normal language teaching does not improve learners' communicative competence.…”

“…These researches assume that reflections help to achieve competencies in different areas of language learning (Akhmadjanovna et al, 2019; Chang, 2019). Studies suggest that reflection brings learners closer to the language by enabling learners to ask critical questions, analyze the content of what is being taught, and be able to critically evaluate the language and what they are learning in the language classroom (Branch & George, 2017; Hansen, 2019). This assertion is consistent with other literature that affirms that a more learner-centered language teaching approach should be redesigned to create platforms through which learners can enhance language learning either through reflection or other means (Hansen, 2019; Matsuo, 2019).…”

Community college competencies for student educational leadership development and degree pathways

“…Superficially, it may seem unlikely that low wage/low skill campus work‐study positions are well suited to help develop student leadership (Lewis, 2020). However, these positions serve as an ideal space to gain hands‐on soft skills leadership training in a relatively safe environment (Hansen, 2019; Peck & Callahan, 2019). Such an environment provides the opportunity for experiential learning (Kolb, 1984) that can lead to leadership growth (Carnevale et al., 2017).…”

Lean thinking and higher education management: revaluing the business school programme management

“…The first is that employment skills are multiple, context-specific and continually rehabilitated (Cranmer, 2006). It cannot be confined to the school curricula, and it is better to provide students with the knowledge and skills that help them with self-development, experiential learning and continuous active learning ability, which contribute towards the development of advanced employment skills in the future (Bridgstock, 2009;Oates and Durcan, 2013;Hansen, 2019;Ornellas et al, 2019).The second perspective argues that school curricula should evolve to provide students with the necessary skills that qualify them for the labour market (Delello et al, 2015;Carrie et al, 2017;Antony et al, 2018;Wurdinger, 2018). This perspective is based on the premise that universities can and should produce employable and work-ready students.…”