University College Plymouth St Mark & St John

This glossary has been compiled from information provided by The National Council for Work Experience, The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, Association of Sandwich Education and Training (ASET) and Marjon staff involved in the administration of placements.

The terminology of placements can often be unfamiliar, conflicting and ambiguous we hope this glossary will make it clearer.

Academic Tutors: Have an overview of the academic timetable, and are responsible for coordinating the year group activities.

Accreditation: The practice of awarding an officially recognised mark, grade or certificate to a student on the basis of a certain level of performance against agreed criteria and standards. They can be awarded by the university or outside agencies. In the former it may be awarded as part of, or separate from, the degree classification.

Approved: The placement/placement provider has been authorised as meeting the learning outcomes of the course.

Assessment: The critical monitoring or evaluation by an academic and/or employer of a students’ performance against agreed criteria and standards. Assessment does not always lead to accreditation.

Clinical Educator: A person in the placement responsible for overseeing placements and assuring agreed procedures are adhered to. Generally an employee of the placement organisation.

[The] College: The College of St Mark and St John, Marjon.

College Placement Advisor (CPA): See Placement Tutor.

Co-operating Teacher:  The teacher in the placement school who is responsible for overseeing and mentoring the placement.

Course embedded placement: An academically assessed or accredited period of placement with an employer, forming a structured part of a degree programme and which draws on and develops course content skills.

Course related/content skills: Specialist skills relating to the subject matter and techniques of the course of study/degree subject.

Employability: A set of achievements, understanding and personal attributes that make individuals more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations.

Employability skills: A UUK and Coopers & Lybrand Report of January 1999 described the emerging consensus that the skills concerned with employability should includes:
Traditional intellectual skills: critical evaluation of evidence, the ability to argue logically, to apply theory to practice, model problems qualitatively and quantitatively, to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions.
The new core of key skills: see QCA below.
Personal attributes: self-reliance, adaptability, flexibility, ‘nous’ and creativity.
Knowledge about how organisations work.

Experiential learning: Is an integration and an alternation of thinking and doing. It is the method by which effective, progressive and eventually self-directed learning can occur, with all that this means for individual and collective confidence, ability and progress. When the doing and thinking have been sufficiently iterated, a reliable conclusion is reached and knowledge progresses to understanding. There must be time for learners to selectively critically reflect on their experience, to reach reasoned conclusions or to modify their experience so that further opportunity for learning is given. 

Generic skills: General skills, which are basic to and necessary for employment, such as analysis, synthesis and practical evaluation.

Internship: A work placement or period of work, frequently unpaid, in a commercial organisation working alongside paid employees.

Key skills: Certain attributes and aptitudes sought by potential graduate employers, and often best developed on the job. They may well include specialist technical skills, in addition to others that are universally sought.

[The] Qualification and Curriculum Authority (QCA): Has identified six key skills: communication, application of number, information technology, working with others, improving own learning and performance, problem solving. These are graded into assessable units through the curriculum.

Learning: The process of acquiring skills and knowledge which brings about a change in behaviour, attitudes and understanding.

Learning outcomes: Refer to what a student will be able to know or do at the end of a module.

Mentor: A person, usually an employee of the host company, to whom the student can turn for advice and help. This may be a different person from the Placement supervisor and could be another student, or a member of the supervisory or management staff.

Module: A course of study that together with other modules counts towards a qualification.

Module leader: A member of academic staff that has overall responsibility for the content, leadership and management of a module.

On the job training: Training that is conducted at the work station whilst doing the job.

Off the job training: Training that is carried out separately from the work at a different time or place.

Personal skills: Social skills, which relate to the individual’s ability for self-management, self-learning and self-presentation.

Personal Tutors:  Every student is allocated a personal tutor. Personal tutors offer academic, professional and personal support and act as a first point of contact if a student encounters a problem.

Placement-based project: A specific piece of assessed work, undertaken at an organisation’s premises, that enables a student to develop key and subject specific skills.

Placement Coordinator/Administrator: A member of College staff who is responsible for the setting up of placements with providers in liaison with relevant academic departments.

Placement learning: Placement Learning is different from work experience in that it is a planned period of learning, normally outside of the College, where the learning outcomes are intended as part of students’ degree studies. Credit is not awarded for undertaking work, but for the learning and skills achieved and demonstrated as a result of the experience.

Placement provider: The organisation/individual providing the placement opportunity.

Placement Supervisor: The person in the placement responsible for overseeing placements and assuring agreed procedures are adhered to. Generally an employee of the placement organisation.

Placement Tutor: A member of the College’s academic staff responsible for the assessment or accreditation of a placement student.

Professional practice: A placement that is mandatory to the fulfilment of professional body requirements.

Professional Tutors:  Responsible for overseeing the operation of clinical education, organisation and monitoring of placements, arranging visits, and evaluation.

Reflective learning: Refers to a great or deeper degree of processing of material to be learned. Whereas in non-reflective learning, material is simply taken in with little or no active thinking (e.g. memorisation) or understanding, reflective learning engages a large amount of the learners thinking or cognitive capacities.

Sandwich placement: An assessed paid work placement which is necessary and integral to the students’ course. It is often of one years’ duration – i.e. constituting one year of a four year programme of study.

SME: Small or medium-sized enterprise. A small business employs less than 50 people, a medium up to 250 and a micro business employs up to 10 people.

Transferable skills: Skills that are gained in one working environment, but can be applied quickly and productively to another. See key skills.

Work-based learning: Learning which takes place whilst being employed (temporarily or permanently) from and through the experience of work; where the status of the learner is an employee of the workforce rather than a student from higher education; the nature of the learning is predominantly concerned with an ability to do work rather than personal development.

Work placement (paid/unpaid): A period of work experience usually part of a course of study. It can be arranged by the College in liaison with the employer, or by the student. The student usually works full-time with the host organisation for an agreed period. Work placements are generally assessed or accredited as part of the degree course.

Work shadowing: A student observes a member of staff working in an organisation, and thus gains an increased understanding of what a particular job entails.