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.

Teaching

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. 

AA Unique Elements

A librarian wearing a facemask replaces a book on a shelf in the Central Library

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.

Year 12 STEM Futures students taking part in a workshop in the Enterprise Lab.

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.

Module

FoM

FoE

FoNS

PhD

UG

Introduction to AA

x

x

x

 

 

Introduction to AA for PhD

 

 

 

x

 

Making the Most of Your Studies

 

 

 

 

x

Assessment Centres

x

x

x

x

x

Communication for PG

x

x

x

x

 

Communication for UG

 

 

 

 

x

Career Planning

x

x

 

 

 

Career Planning for PhD

 

 

 

x

 

CVs and Applications

x

x

 

 

 

CVs and Applications for PhD

 

 

 

x

 

Developing Transferable Skills

 

 

x

 

 

Efficiency and Effectiveness for PG

x

x

x

x

 

Efficiency and Effectiveness for UG

 

 

 

 

x

Improving Academic Skills for PGT

x

x

x

 

 

Improving Academic Skills for PhD

 

 

 

x

 

Interviews

x

x

x

x

x

Problem Solving

x

x

x

x

x

Skills Development

 

 

 

 

x

Working with Others for PG

x

x

x

x

 

Working with Others for UG

 

 

 

 

x

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

Learning Design

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)

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