Overview of the Input 3 requirements for the Edinburgh Award. Purpose This stage brings together students’ overall learning, development, and impact while on the Award, the focus on students’ development from Input 1 and their articulation of this development. This must be an interactive group session and can be done in-person or online. Eligibility To be able to continue onto this stage students must have: submitted their self-assessment against the full skills list identified in Input 1 submitted a reflection on each of their three development priorities and the impact they have had on others completed the appropriate amount of the underlying activity. What Overview of the requirements at Input 3 Overview of Input 3 requirements Image Why Rationale for Input 3 requirements Element 3.1 - Students self-rate against the full list of skills and abilities identified in Input 1 Like at the first two inputs students must self-assess against the full list of skills and abilities created previously. At this stage students should have a good sense of their overall development. Element 3.2 - Students bring with them, or have time within the session to pre-draft, their final reflections. These should be swapped or discussed with a peer and feedback should be provided This task, completed within the Input 3 session should mean that the task of writing up the final submissions is relatively straightforward. This task also acts as a good introduction to the more formal articulation of development, along with experiencing giving and receiving peer feedback, that students take part in later on in the session. Element 3.3 - Students undertake a ‘selling’ exercise requiring them to articulate their development The articulation of their development is an essential element to Input 3 because, while students need to be able to write about their development, articulating this verbally should give the students an increased level of ownership over their experiences. It is also essential that there is an element of peer feedback within this exercise. This is useful for the students both in terms of giving and receiving feedback. Receiving feedback is useful because it can often be difficult to recognise where you’re underestimating your development or where this understanding isn’t coming across to others. The act of giving feedback is also useful for students, by focussing on another person’s articulations students should be better able to reflect on the positive aspects of their own reflection as well as potential areas for improvement. The Careers Service have produced resources you can use to facilitate this part of the session. They are available on this webpage - https://www.ed.ac.uk/edinburgh-award/staff-space/resources-for-staff. The Careers Service also offer a face-to-face training session for Award Leaders, generally in February of each year. Element 3.4 - Discussion or task around looking ahead and next steps The final element required at Input 3 is around looking to the future. This can be a simple discussion with the group or a task getting the students to look ahead. They should consider their overall experience and how that might shape their future plans. By doing this students should be able to see that the process of personal and professional development doesn’t end after Input 3 but that the benefits should continue throughout their lives and the process of recognising the skills one needs to develop, taking active steps to try to make progress andreflecting on progress, is one that can be replicated in different scenarios. How Input 3 - Requirements and examples of how to approach them Examples of practice Element Example 1 Example 2 Online example Students get feedback on a draft of their reflections (1) Ask students to draft their reflections before the session and get them to swap with one or two other students Give students 10 minutes in the session to draft initial thoughts for their reflections and ask them to discuss these with other students Use breakout rooms for students to share their draft with at least one other student Selling exercise (2) Get students into groups of three and get them to conduct mock peer interviews – the Careers Service has created useful resources available here Students present to the whole group or in small groups; staff or students not involved with the Award can be invited as a way to increase awareness Use breakout rooms for small group exercises or have each student present to the whole group, sharing their screen if they have slides they want to use What next? Students consider where they see themselves going from this point – are there other skills they feel they need to develop, other activities they might take part in, or ways in which they can make use of these skills in their future (e.g. employment). (3) Award Leader initiates a group discussion prompting students to consider and share thoughts/plans with the rest of the group Students are asked to reflect individually and write a postcard to themselves in 6 months/1 year/5 years time about what they’ve learned and what they want to take away from the experience Either of the previous examples can be replicated online. Whiteboard function could be used for students to capture their thoughts Students self-rate against the full list of skills (4) Students discuss their progress in terms of their overall development and then submit the form after the session Students complete this document in their own time Students submit a final reflection based on the feedback they have received from their peers. This is limited to 200 words per reflection (800 words in total or equivalent) because conciseness is an important skill for students to develop and 200 words reflects the number of words often required on job applications. (5) Students can be invited to submit this in any format they choose e.g. audio file, blog post etc Students might be asked to submit this as a written document which then gets reviewed by the Award leader If Peer Mark is being used then students submit this as a written document to Learn (more information in Using Peer Assessment section) Submissions (Output 3) to Award Leader to be eligible for the Edinburgh Award Final self-assessment against full list of skills and abilities identified in Input 1. Final reflection on the purposeful steps taken over the course of the Award to improve the three development priorities and increase impact. Once the above have been submitted the Award leader needs to confirm with the central Edinburgh Award team the names and UUNs of all students who have completed the Award. Award leaders need to pass over the three self-ratings and reflections from Inputs 2 and 3 in order to confirm students’ successful completion. Input 3 Resources Reflection template – under ‘Student Submissions’. Tips for reflection for students Reflection Toolkit – a resource containing lots of information and support for staff and students interested in reflection or facilitating reflection. Peer Assessment – peer assessment is used by a number of versions of the Award and can be a useful tool for reviewing reflections at Inputs 2 and 3. This article was published on 2024-05-06
