Mark Bagley is a Professor of Organic Chemistry in the School of Life Sciences. Mark delivers many of the taught modules in Synthetic Organic Chemistry as part of the Chemistry degree programmes offered by the University and leads a vibrant research team in the School. Mark also serves as Degree Convenor of the Chemistry BSc and MChem UG programmes.

What I did

As part of a major review of our undergraduate Chemistry curriculum, I developed a new Level 5 module on ‘Researching and Communicating Chemistry’ which uses a 100% portfolio assessment designed to help students articulate their transferrable skills and experiences in a way that is relevant to future employers. This is one of a number of expressly skills focused modules woven through our new undergraduate curriculum, developed in collaboration with Kaz Field, our partner Careers and Employability Consultant, to scaffold students’ disciplinary and transferrable skills development from year one onwards.  

Why I did it 

Feedback from the Chemistry PSRB, the Royal Society of Chemistry, at our reaccreditation visit in May 2019 emphasized the need for a shift from our very academic focused curriculum to a more skills-oriented approach to match the shifting needs and expectations of employers and Chemistry graduates nationally.  This coincided with a School wide curriculum review and an expansion of the remit of university Careers and Entrepreneurship Consultants at Sussex to support Schools to embed employability in the curriculum. One outcome of this was the creation of an Embedding Employability Steering Group, guided by Kaz, and comprising cross school membership.  We quickly recognised that, while we were already teaching our students a wide range of skills, our students really needed them to be scaffolded through the curriculum and also needed our help to recognize and articulate them, for example in CVs and interviews.  

How I did it

The module is assessed by a 2-minute presentation, and a skills portfolio submission. The portfolio comprises a self-assessment of competency in employability skills (conducted in week 1 on which students were required to reflect at the end of the module), a CV and interview (with marks and feedback provided by CV360 and BigInterview respectively), a group poster and essay, and an individual chemical data analysis task.  Students were given the chance to deliver a formative, 1-minute, flash presentation and to submit an essay draft. I also mapped out for them the many activities they would undertake through the semester which they could draw on as evidence in their portfolio (an example is provided below). 

The CV and interview elements were supported by sessions delivered by Kaz, who also contributed a workshop on effective team work which helped launch the group assessments. Finally, I attached to the group essay a Buddycheck peer evaluation which made it possible to easily to adjust marks easily for individual group members based on their peers’ ratings of their contributions to the project.  

How it went

The module ran for the first time last semester and went really well (of course there are tweaks to be made).  I could see the students were nervous going into the module, especially about their oral presentation skills. This was despite, when it came around to it, them being capable of giving very high-quality presentations.  They were also nervous about the career skills assessments, despite having been taught about writing CVs and preparing for interviews in their first year and being familiar with skills focussed portfolio assessments, having completed lab skills focused versions in their first year.  It was also clear from reading the students’ competency self-assessments that they tended to under value their existing transferrable skills (such as oracy) and had a real lack of confidence using the skills language.  

By the end of the module, it was really nice to see that most students showed significant improvement in their self-assessment and confidence levels. In fact, at the end of the semester we ran an informal session in which students were asked to step up to give a flash presentation on their group’s poster, and many of those who volunteered mentioned they’d hated public speaking at the start of the module but now actively enjoyed it!  It was also clear in the portfolio submissions that the module had helped them develop a language to describe their skills, which was beneficial for future employment.  

The biggest surprise was how dysfunctional many students were at working in teams. While some groups functioned well, others really struggled with communicating and working effectively together. This included working to deadlines and managing the responsibility of working for a team. It was clear that, while non-attendance likely reflected wider issues with engagement, the students who didn’t attend Kaz’s introductory workshop were those most likely to struggle with the group task. Having attached a Buddycheck peer evaluation to this assessment meant students were able to score their peers’ contributions to the group assessment against a range of criteria. This meant those who contributed least got a lower mark, and vice versa, which mitigated against some freeloading behaviours.  Interestingly, because students also scored their own contributions to the group, the same pattern of under confidence could be seen, with many giving themselves lower scores than they received from their peers. The automated feedback from Buddycheck compares self-scores with those from their peers so will, I expect, have boosted many students’ confidence in working in groups going forward. 

Student feedback demonstrated that they liked that the module was dynamic, that it felt relevant and was taught enthusiastically, but I think they hated the fact they were being taught skills rather than in depth chemistry (which would be less relevant for most career destinations). This is despite me having packed in a lot more hardcore chemistry teaching than they seem to have realised! Nevertheless, many have said it was their favourite module and they have developed important skills.   

I think they also came away with a wider understanding how skills development is embedded in their degree and how many of the activities we get them to do build on, or support, activities in different modules, which bodes well for when they come to complete the NSS!  

Future practice

Next time I think we’ll trim and focus the introduction to team work session to give students more time to get on with the activities, which might include asking them to designate a leader whose role it will be to keep them on track. I also plan provide more guidance on how to communicate with each other and organise the activities of the group. I’ll also be much clearer with them what’s likely to happen if they don’t engage; that students who don’t meet with their peers will likely have their contributions scored poorly which will affect their mark. But also, that students who give that little bit extra can also be rewarded by the team ad see their marks increase, which is important because you need people with enthusiasm to help drive the team forwards.  

I also want to get the groups up and running much more quickly, so will require them to plan out and timetable their future meetings and activities after the introductory session. I’m also going to make the groups bigger (up to 6-7 in a group, rather than 4-5), to account for drop out. 

Top tips

1. Plan out skills training sessions, session learning outcomes, and the structure of the portfolio well in advance and take advice on all aspects, especially with your partner Careers and Employability Consultant, as they have lots of really valuable experience to offer. 
2. Buddy check is a really powerful tool but can be a bit intimidating at first, so I would advise people to be cautious and to take advice from people who’ve used it (e.g. the Educational Enhancement team).   
3. Be certain to review any reasonable adjustments to ensure students are able to perform to the best of their ability in the multifaceted nature of skills training and assessment. 
4. Allocate sufficient staff resources to govern and guide the students, as well as mark their portfolio assessments as skills training and evaluation can be resource intensive. 

Additional Links and resources

Embedding Employability and Entrepreneurship Toolkit [Sussex login required] 

Guidance provided to students on how their weekly activities and assessments contributed to the module portfolio.  

Overview of Portfolio Assessment