Embedding academic literacies and skills into courses through graduate competency maps

The University of Bedfordshire will launch our updated Curriculum Framework in autumn 2024. A core feature will be for all courses to include a Graduate Development Pathway which spans pre-arrival, induction, first assessment, on course teaching, and beyond graduation. A central part of the pathway is a universal ‘learning to learn’ six-week induction that addresses the development of core academic literacies and skills. This is then followed by course specific graduate competency maps that outline how institutional graduate competencies are developed across units within a course. Institutional graduate competencies such as ‘communication’, ‘problem solving’, and ‘digital learning’ align to topics historically supported by our Learning Development Team. As such, it is pivotal that the Learning Development Team is involved in the development of these maps. Our approach to developing Graduate Pathways will therefore position Learning Developers at the heart of curriculum co-creation. Course teams will work in partnership with our Learning Development Team (along with Careers and Employability Advisors) to develop graduate competency maps. This empowers Learning Developers to draw upon their expertise and support the embedding of academic literacies and skills across the institution. This both positions and recognises the LD team as institutional experts in ‘learning to learn’ and mitigates the need for our LD Team to ‘fight against the notion that we are teaching ‘study skills’ in a deficit way’ (Hood, 2023, p.200) as often still seems to remain the case in the HE sector. I foresee (and hope) that ‘Learning Development for the future’ will see more universities introducing similar processes that facilitate and empower Learning Development teams to share their expertise. This in turn would mean the ‘third space’ (Holley and Biggins, 2023, p.84) typically occupied by Learning Developers will become increasingly expansive in the future.