Do students need to collect evidence against, for example, a competency framework or set of industry standards? This may include collecting, organising and arranging work samples, reflective practice exercises, and presenting or sharing evidence.

Yes? Great! PebblePad can provide your students with a platform in which to create, collect and curate samples of their work to demonstrate their skills against relevant industry standards.

How can PebblePad support Competency Frameworks?

PebblePad offers a number of exciting benefits for both student and teaching teams, as well as contributing to institutional goals.

Benefits for students include the ability to...

• Rate or re-rate their development over time
• Create development plans linked to specific capabilities or skills
• Record multiple forms of evidence for articulated skills
• Create portfolios of learning and achievement with links to selected evidence
• Share assets (e.g. portfolios) with placement supervisors, industry accrediting bodies or employers
• Retain a personal learning space beyond graduation allowing them to continue to collect, curate and showcase their personal and professional growth

Benefits for the teaching team include the ability to...

• Create specific templates to support skill profiles, competency frameworks and self-audits
• Apply relevant tags to worksheets and workbooks (resources) to help students sort collections of evidence as they are used for reflecting on or evidencing a competency
• Prompt students for justification or a rationale for claims made
• Verify student work and provide marks and feedback
• Allow external assessors to be involved in the assessment or accreditation process

Benefits for the institution...

• Provides an institutional platform for students to collect, curate and share evidence of transferable skills and achievements to enhance graduate employability
• Supports application for accreditation of university programs against industry or professional standards by providing institutional records of assessment processes and decisions, and student exemplars so that validation activities can be conducted efficiently and quickly

Examples of PebblePad in Action Competency Frameworks

The following are Griffith examples using PebblePad to support Competency Frameworks, via reflection activities, work samples, industry requirements and curriculum decisions.

• Play video

  Senior Lecturer, School of Medical Science - Dr Andrew Pearson

  Required student competency modules evidenced in eportfolios and awarded badges

Related Readings

• Jones, H. & Warnock, L. (2015). Competency framework for student work-related learning. York, United Kingdom: Higher Education Academy

Consider

Competency frameworks are most useful when they contain specific and measurable indications of skills and abilities, for example the number of hours of lab training undertaken by a student (Jones & Warnock, 2015).

• Assessment criteria needs to ensure the evidence requested is compliant
• Using evidence-based reflective practice activities to support the process
• Templates or samples that consider how it aligns with the curriculum, with student achievement and the competency framework

Learning More...

• By reviewing Faculty Sparks from your peers relating their use of PebblePad
• By attending PebblePad workshops
• Watch our Using PebblePad for Competency Frameworks webinar recorded on 9 August 2018 with Ronelle Hewetson (open the Chat to access links and questions discussed in the session)

Programmatic Approaches...

Consider collaborating with the Program Director and other Course Convenors to implement a Program-wide approach to the use of PebblePad. While this is not necessary, PebblePad allows students to access the content and activities over the length of their program.

Conducting Research...

Consider conducting research related to your use of PebblePad for publication in discipline-specific journals or those with a higher education focus.