Personal, Social, Academic and Career Development in Higher Education

SOARing to Success

Arti Kumar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000555622
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book is about SOARing to Success: a pedagogy that engages individuals in a structured and supported process of personalised learning, leading to the development of transferable career management and employability skills.

The SOAR model (as it has come to be known and used) provides tried and tested ways for educators to implement Personal Development Planning (PDP), Career Development Learning (CDL) and employability agendas. The theoretical concepts and practical activities that are interpreted and integrated within SOAR require all learners to make meaningful dynamic connections within and between S elf, O pportunity, A spirations and R esults, through inbuilt requirements for self-reflection, action and interaction, research, analysis and synthesis.

Especially relevant for regeneration in the post-pandemic world, this fully updated edition emphasises and addresses the needs to:

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• focus more broadly on multidimensional employability, enterprise and entrepreneurship

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• take account of post-Covid-19 educational and employment landscapes, changing labour market realities and employers' technology-enabled recruitment methods

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• engage proactively and positively with ways to strengthen resilience, health and wellbeing in ourselves and others

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• tackle academic learning and assessments with digital research and information literacy skills

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• be(come) adaptable and/or adaptive according to the demands of different contexts

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• co-create (with social enterprise and business skills) a better world in which self-actualisation aligns with the actualisation of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals

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• reflect globalisation in the internationalisation of higher education (HE).

Packed full of useful practical features, this text and its e-resources will help all staff and education development professionals, teachers in HE and advisers to motivate and enable students to relate their learning and achievements to the demands of life and work in our times.

Part 1 A theoretical and practical approach Integrating and enabling personal, social, academic and career development

Chapter 1 Introduction Key concepts and aims driving the evolution of SOAR

DOI: 10.4324/9781003126362-2

Welcome to all who venture here – familiar users of SOAR and new readers in SOARing to Success territory – or should I say airspace? Having ‘retired’ (really?!) in 2010 and getting sucked into caring responsibilities, I wondered whether SOAR had soared into a pandemic ash cloud or been swept away by a tsunami of challenges. It was therefore heartening to receive positive feedback following market testing by my editor. Being given a chance to write this second edition is both daunting, given the complex challenges over the past decade, and exciting, given the opportunities we have for regeneration in the post-pandemic world.

SOAR has long recognised that risk and uncertainty are part of the economic cycle, and job opportunities will always be differentially accessible to individuals. In the diversity of student populations today, we see the whole spectrum of abilities, interests and aspirations. Some may be capable of absorbing skills by osmosis from role models and their environment, but students’ choices and chances of success are subject to many external variables – both assets and constraints. The SOAR approach is inclusive while also acknowledging and valuing diversity.

Student activities included here help individuals to recognise the impact of both internal and external constraints in their lives and identify opportunities, sources of support and influence they can use to overcome or compensate for the challenges they face. The impact of Covid-19 has presented exceptional challenges and brought many inequalities sharply to the fore. Although it is not possible to eliminate all the socioeconomic and cultural problems that beset us, I believe the education sector can role-model and lead the way. There is no doubt that we need to prepare students for transition into a world where work, life and employment conditions are changing, career concepts have changed, and students themselves have changed.

The basics of SOARing to Success

How then can SOAR provide solutions for our super-complex needs in a world that has changed considerably and is still rapidly changing? SOAR is an acronym for Self, Opportunity, Aspirations and Results: four essential, mutually supportive and dynamically related elements within this framework. You can use it flexibly to integrate personal, social and career development with good academic learning – all key components contributing to employability, enterprise and entrepreneurship.

The acronym itself is simple and positive. I use it hereafter as shorthand to represent the pedagogy that motivates students to discover and build their unique identity positively and proactively through a process of Self-discovery, effective participation in learning Opportunities both within and outside the formal curriculum, the formation of realistic career Aspirations and the achievement of more intentional Results as they move towards and beyond transition points. They identify, critically appreciate and develop their strengths and address their development needs through inbuilt requirements for reflection, action, interaction, collaboration, analysis and lateral thinking.

SOARing to Success methods and resources have been tried and evaluated in learning and training contexts in the UK and internationally. This has worked as an inclusive approach with diverse cohorts of students at different levels and programmes of study, including mature students, international students and those with disabilities or other special needs, consistently proving that students gain valuable insights while they make recursive connections between the four dimensions of SOAR. Educators will find that SOAR pedagogy works with minimal adaptation to suit the needs and demands of their institution and subject curriculum, and suggestions are given throughout this book for realising the potential of SOAR with its associated concepts, tools and techniques.

I have interpreted and distilled SOAR into developmental stages, around the synergy within and between its four dimensions, which iteratively build on each other. Each stage is facilitated by specific inquiry, information and guidance. They are underpinned by a principled and productive set of concepts and associated with practical learning and assessment activities. The main ‘Result’ (or learning outcome) intended is to develop the ‘behavioural competencies’ typically required and recruited by employers. The same permutations of skillset and mindset are universally needed for effective functioning in learning, work and life in general.

Engaging students with SOAR in a coherent and continuous process empowers them to take control of, and deal constructively with, the variety of factors that influence their personal, educational and professional success in ‘an age of supercomplexity’ – a term coined by Barnett to express the idea that the information age has brought us a surfeit of data associated with complexity, but a situation of supercomplexity means that we are also faced with multiple frameworks of understanding, of action and of self-identity. All disciplines and institutions are currently challenged to educate ‘for the formation of human being that is going to be adequate to conditions of supercomplexity’ (1999: 154).

The proven widespread appeal of SOARing to Success may be attributed to the universal human need to find personal purpose in our lives and self-actualise towards that purpose in ways that suit our individual strengths, interests and circumstances. Self can essentially be impelled by a unique personal aspiration and vision of success. But Self does not exist in a vacuum. The inner world of Self is also fundamentally shaped by the external world of Opportunity and Others. Simultaneously aligning self-actualisation with the actualisation of a better world – co-creating sustainable eco-friendly and socially just development – is too important to ignore. Some may consider these to be opposing concepts and find it difficult to bear both in mind, but we can think of this as a revolving door that swings both inward to Self and outward to the external world of Others and Opportunity.

The S–O dynamics at the heart of this book are not to be interpreted as selfish opportunism or an isolated view of Self. SOARing to Success does not pre-conceive ‘success’ in terms of wealth creation and fame as an end in itself. Although SOAR is not didactic or judgemental, it is based on ethical assumptions about invoking positive human potential. For example, educators and students in partnership can consider the social and environmental implications of the personal values and vision of success they espouse (as in Chapter 5). And discuss: is there a gap to be bridged between the values we espouse and the values we live? We have both individual and social ‘response-abilities’ so we can engage with vast intersecting global problems such as pandemics, climate crisis and social justice for all.

Achieving global sustainable development goals requires a shift in mindset and the development of skills and attributes such as resilience, creative problem-solving, adaptability and adaptivity. Rebuilding the economy on green principles with different business development models and social enterprises will need everyone to make complex collaborative decisions and be(come) part of the solutions rather than part of the problem of climate heating. In this edition, I have included activities that can lead to genuine commitment and action.

It is imperative that students, graduates and young professionals can adapt, believe in themselves, see challenge as opportunity and proactively create their post-pandemic world. Career resilience, innovation, positive and creative thinking, entrepreneurship, and the ability to pivot according to demand will be needed as never before – and SOAR can help to develop these attributes with its broad and inclusive approach. As an educator, you have probably demonstrated amazing resilience and adaptability during the disruption of lockdowns and can role-model these attributes while you enable students to achieve more of their potential. This book is for you if you believe it is more important than ever to motivate and empower all learners to develop the requisite skills, knowledge, attributes and experiences in a broad holistic frame and to do this with more personal motivation, sense of direction and destination.

Readership

I speak directly to you in your capacity as an ‘educator’ and I interpret that term broadly to include all learning enablers/providers, assuming you are in some way involved or interested in implementing personal, career and employability development, preferably within curricula. SOAR is most relevant and useful for careers and employability professionals, academic and learning support staff members, personal tutors, coaches and mentors, trainers and talent developers and continuing professional development (CPD) services.

Education developers, external examiners, quality assurance officers and external stakeholders (employers, professional bodies, policymakers) will gain ideas of what is being done and can be done to enhance curriculum development, and how they can contribute. Staff working in other sectors (further education, schools) and in related departments such as work-based learning, placement offices, volunteer bureaux and job shops should find that the SOAR concepts and applications give their work a new coherence and relevance. Although this book is addressed to educators, it is also on some students’ reading lists.

You should find material of interest in this book regardless of prior knowledge and experience. No specific ability will be assumed but, for the activities to work, a conviction of their relevance and value and an ability to facilitate (and role-model) optimistic developmental processes are required. In sharing my experience of resolving the many tensions that can occur in this area, I hope you will find your own ways of integrating these principles into the design and delivery of interactive approaches that suit your subject, students and circumstances. This book provides structure, direction and coverage that are applicable to programmes of study, modules/units, course components and assessment tasks. As you apply this framework, you will gain a fuller understanding of content and process, and your students will bring it to life with their personal experiences.

A parallel process and dual benefit are at work here as subtext. If you use SOAR for students, you will be able to apply the same principles to your own personal and professional development and have this validated by the UK Professional Standards Framework (PSF). The PSF is now a globally recognised framework for benchmarking success within higher education (HE) teaching and learning:

A comprehensive set of professional standards and guidelines for everyone involved in teaching and supporting learning in HE, the PSF can be applied to personal development programmes at an individual, institutional or national level to improve teaching quality and celebrate success.

(Advance HE, 2011)

The intention is to encourage personal development within CPD requirements for academic staff in higher education institutions (HEIs), as is the case in most other industries. When you are seen to be involved in and supportive of CPD processes yourself (e.g. as preparation for your career reviews or performance appraisals), students perceive the value of personal development planning (PDP) processes (reflecting, recording and improving) in a new light. They see the relevance of forming good habi...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of self-assessment questionnaires
• List of eResources
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Acronyms and terms explained
• Part 1 A theoretical and practical approach Integrating and enabling personal, social, academic and career development
• Part 2 ‘Self’ in the SOAR process Building a MAP for the journey through life
• Part 3 ‘Opportunity’ in the SOAR process
• Part 4 ‘Aspirations’ in the SOAR process
• Part 5 ‘Results’ in the SOAR process
• Bibliography
• Index