module specification

Preparation for your future as a professional practitioner starts here. The journey from level 4 to graduation and success in employment is supported from your first week on the course. This work-related learning module is the first of three modules preparing you for employment and is followed at level 5 with Work Ready 2; and level 6 with Work Ready 3.

The course as a whole encourages you to consider yourself as active and valuable players in your industry – as students you are the future of your chosen professional sector. This module is about helping you to understand and feel comfortable and confident in that world and to think about your future as a responsible and well-informed representative of your discipline.

During this module you will:

• Discover your motivation and your individual voice as a creative practitioner, and begin the process of learning to articulate your ambitions and achievements;
• Situate your creative practice in the wider context of your discipline and the working world;
• Understand your responsibilities as a creative practitioner, both to your colleagues and clients, but also to the wider world;
• Get to know the vocabulary and environments of the working world specific to your creative discipline and how it connects to professional practices and job roles;
• Learn how to connect to and feel an active part of the creative industries.

The module creates opportunities for you to understand, encounter and connect with the world of professional practitioners through talks, visits and other touchpoints such as industry competitions, events, and print, digital and social media. You will investigate the work of relevant contemporary global practitioners in visual communication, learn how to analyse and reflect on their work and connect it to your own professional goals and ways of working. You are encouraged to become a self-aware practitioner, to think about the ethical implications of your work and your responsibility as a designer playing an active role in the world.

You will be introduced to the terminology and professional formats required for professional presentation, self-promotion and working practices, for example, through the professional portfolio, CV, website, showreel, and pitch deck. You will be able to access advice on identifying and cultivating transferable skills that are required in the working world, such as teamworking tools and strategies, time-management, communication skills, collaborative working practices.

Throughout the module, knowledge, understanding and skills are supported by an active learning approach and through reflective practice. You will actively connect work-related learning to project briefs in other modules and begin to synthesise the real-world situations in this module with your own practice.

Available for Study Abroad? NO

Through structured learning and individual projects, you will develop knowledge and experience of:

• Sourcing relevant exemplars and case studies of work by a range of global practitioners relevant to your discipline;

• Industry conventions for formats and work-related terminology;

• Industry events, media platforms, competitions and professional resources;

• Analysing and reflecting on work by peers and industry professionals;

• Applying knowledge of professional practices to developing your own thinking and working;

• Presenting work and putting forward ideas in a professional manner

• Giving and receiving feedback in a positive and effective way;

• Collaboration and teamworking techniques and tools;

• Working effectively in a team;

• Industry standard tools for time and project management.

Scheduled teaching provides the guidance and foundation to ensure that independent study is effective in addressing the module’s learning outcomes and assessment tasks.

In-class activity makes use of varied student-centred approaches such as active, flipped and blended learning, so that a range of learning strategies is deployed, and individual learning styles are accommodated. Information is provided through a range of means and sources to minimise and remove barriers to successful progress through the module. The course team seeks to embed the University’s Education for Social Justice Framework in fostering learning that is enjoyable, accessible, relevant and that takes account of the social and cultural context and capital of its students.

Activities foster peer-to-peer community building and support for learning. Reflective learning is promoted through interim formative feedback points that ask students to reflect on their progress, receive help where they identify the opportunity for improvement in learning strategies and outcomes and make recommendations to themselves for future development. Throughout the module, students build a body of work, including written reflections on progress and achievement.

The School’s programme of employability events and embedded work-based learning within the curriculum supports students’ personal and career development planning. Through these initiatives, students are increasingly able, as they progress from year to year, to understand the professional environment of their disciplines, the various opportunities available to them, and how to shape their learning according to their ambitions.

When not attending timetabled sessions, you will be expected to continue learning independently through self-study. This typically will involve reading books and journal articles, going to galleries and exhibitions, working on individual and group projects, undertaking preparing project work and presentations, and preparing for deadlines. Your independent learning is supported by a range of excellent facilities including online resources, the library and Weblearn and Linkedin Learning, the online learning platform.

On successful completion of the module, to the standard expected at Level 4, you will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

1. Investigate, analyse and reflect upon key professional practices, practitioners, terminology, and media in the disciplines of graphic design, illustration and animation;

Cognitive Intellectual Abilities

2. Develop an ability to apply professional approaches in your own practice and to reflect upon your responsibilities and goals as a practitioner;

Transferable Skills

3. Demonstrate an understanding of professional skills including teamworking, time management, good communication and professional presentation;

Subject-Specific Skills

4. Use practical design skills and awareness in developing self-promotional items;

Professionalism and Values

5. Demonstrate engagement with all aspects of the module, professional commitment to study and attention to detail in documenting your learning.

The module will be assessed through the submission of an academic portfolio of creative and reflective work. Typically this will include a body of development work, finalised physical and/or digital work, sketchbooks, and reflective documents. Precise requirements for submission will be given in project briefs.

Work must be carefully organised and presented to communicate the development of ideas and the content must be clearly labeled with name, student number, module code and date.

You must attend and engage with all timetabled studio and workshop sessions and tasks set both in-class and as self-study.

http://Link to digital reading list

Journals:
Creative Review
Eye Magazine
Varoom
Printed Pages

Websites:
linkedinlearning.com
eyeondesign.aiga.org
creativereview.co.uk
itsnicethat.com
theaoi.com/varoom
lectureinprogress.com
creativeboom.com/