Managing the transition to work: the role of the planning network in British town planning education

The development of town planning education in the United Kingdom can be traced back over at least sixty years and has always enjoyed a close relationship with practitioners, employers and the professional body, the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). In order to ensure an intake of sufficient quality to a growing profession, the Institute offered its own exams until the 1980s and then initiated the current system of accrediting both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of study. This system of accreditation emphasises the importance of relevant knowledge, skills and values as well as core and specialised studies. The vocational nature of town planning requires that graduates have the breadth of understanding as well as the practical skills in order to practice effectively. Thus accredited courses have over time developed strong links with employers and practitioners. Rapid developments in the scope and range of planning, and the skills needed to work in it, have reflected changes in public policy and growing number of agencies concerned with the built environment. The system of regular quinquennial visits to accredit courses has helped ensure that this acceptance of change has become part of the culture of planning schools.

Higher education, professionalism and skills in the built environment: the impact of the new urban agenda on teaching and learning

In the mid-to-late 1990s, the New Urban Agenda initiated a rethinking of urban development strategies placing a greater focus on regeneration of central urban spaces. The skills and competencies required by urban planners and built environment professionals to successfully implement regeneration schemes tend to differ from those required for greenfield development. The working paper summarises skills and competencies required by urban regeneration practitioners and how they are delivered through public and/or private sector providers at present. The role of the newly established regional Centres of Excellence and the professional bodies of the Built Environment professions in defining skills and educational requirements and providing training are explored. An analysis of supply and demand of skills training reveals that there is a mismatch rather than a lack of provision. The report draws on a conference where research findings were presented and discussed. It concludes with suggestions for improving the skills provision at the local government as well as community level. Skills audits were found useful tools in defining training needs. A set of sample workshop programmes outline flexible, tailor-made approaches guaranteed to address specific and identified needs.

Professionalism and skills enhancement in the built environment: the role of higher education in a changing policy context in England

Since the election of the Labour Government in 1997 there have been a series of policy initiatives emphasising the importance of co-ordinated and integrated approaches to the delivery of urban regeneration and in particular Sustainable Communities. This changing policy context has given rise to a shortage of practitioners with both the technical skills to deliver specific programmes, and more especially the generic skills to work in multi-disciplinary teams in conjunction with partnership-based management boards. This paper discusses the origins of the debate about skills shortages and deficiencies and reviews the main government reports which have advocated a new approach to the provision of skills for community regeneration. It focuses particularly on the work of the Planning Network which was funded by the Centre for Education in the Built Environment (CEBE) to examine the contribution of higher education to the wider skills debate. It concludes by arguing that higher education has an important part to play in the provision of a more appropriate skills set for professional practice within a broader and more inclusive strategy involving all key stakeholders. However, employers also have a major responsibility in ensuring that key skills are maintained and enhanced within their own organisations.

Enhancing the student experience by embedding personal tutoring in the curriculum

This paper evaluates an initiative to improve the effectiveness of personal tutoring by embedding it into the curriculum. Structured group tutorials help students make the transition to learning in higher education. These tutorials are delivered within a core module and focus on enabling students to develop study skills, reflect on their learning and plan for their future. The tutor has a role in familiarising students with the practices, norms and skills required for learning at university. The system developed provides a structure and rationale for the interaction of tutors and students, with a clear place and value within the curriculum.

A dynamic role-playing platform for simulations in legal and political education

One big challenge in deploying games-based learning, is the high cost and specialised skills associated with customised development. In this paper we present a serious games platform that offers tools that allow educators without special programming or artistic skills to dynamically create three dimensional (3D) scenes and verbal and non-verbal interaction with fully embodied conversational agents (ECAs) that can be used to simulate numerous educational scenarios. We present evaluation results based on the use of the platform to create two educational scenarios for politics and law in higher education. We conclude with a discussion of directions for the further work.

Curriculum and beyond: Mathematics support for first year life science students

The move into higher education is a real challenge for students from all educational backgrounds, with the adaptation to a new curriculum and style of learning and teaching posing a daunting task. A series of exercises were planned to boost the impact of the mathematics support for level four students and was focussed around a core module for all students. The intention was to develop greater confidence in tackling mathematical problems in all levels of ability and to provide more structured transition period in the first semester of level 4. Over a two-year period the teaching team for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology provided a series of structured formative tutorials and “interactive” online problems. Video solutions to all formative problems were made available, in order that students were able to engage with the problems at any time and were not disadvantaged if they could not attend. The formative problems were specifically set to dovetail into a practical report in which the mathematical skills developed were specifically assessed. Students overwhelmingly agreed that the structured formative activities had broadened their understanding of the subject and that more such activities would help. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the package of changes undertaken resulted in a significant increase in the overall module mark over the two years of development.