The role of higher education institutions is not only to ensure that student midwives meet the requirements of the European Union (EU) Directive 2005/36/EC and Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) standards (NMC, 2009); but also to prepare students for the recruitment process, and ensure that they understand the legal, ethical and professional frameworks of their profession as they apply to join the register. This article will discuss an e-module for third year midwifery students, entitled ‘Becoming a midwife’, that adopted an innovative approach in supporting students to critically reflect on their professional journey, prepare for qualification and work towards employment as a safe and competent practitioner.
The University of Northampton's pedagogical style is ‘active blended learning’ (ABL), a student-centred approach designed to support the development of subject knowledge and understanding, independent learning and digital fluency. In this module, collaboration and clear links to the interactive e-learning package ensure that learning is multidimensional, and encourage students to develop autonomy, confidence and adaptability (University of Northampton, 2018a). A previous article in this series discussed the development, delivery and evaluation of teaching clinical skills using active blended learning (Power and Cole, 2017). This article will make the same observations for a theoretical module to see how pedagogical innovations can enhance students' learning and employability.
Employability: Changemaker
The aims of the module are twofold: to prepare students for employment (including CVs, personal statements, and interviews) and for safe and effective practice in line with legal, ethical and professional requirements. As the first university in the UK to be awarded the ‘Changemaker Campus’ designation by Ashoka U in 2013, the University is internationally recognised for its commitment to developing student employability through social innovation, which distinguishes the University within the higher education sector (Alden Rivers and Maxwell, 2015). Social innovation is a contested concept (Ayob et al, 2016); however the EU's Theoretical, Empirical and Policy foundations for building Social Innovation in Europe (TEPSIE) project defined social innovations as:
‘…new approaches to addressing social needs. They are social in their means and in their ends. They engage and mobilise the beneficiaries and help to transform social relations by improving beneficiaries' access to power and resources’
For students at Northampton, Changemaker is simply about spotting a social problem and doing something about it. In 2014, aiming to be the UK's number one university for social enterprise, the University committed to teaching social innovation as a core skill that would enhance the student experience and contribute to improved student outcomes (University of Northampton, 2010). Alden Rivers et al (2015) identified a Changemaker employability framework that mapped social innovation competencies to 21st century skills development and detailed how employability and curriculum could be aligned to Changemaking (Irwin and Maxwell, 2015). The adoption of this framework embedded Changemaker into the curriculum and allowed for subject specificity to be articulated.
Central to the approach was providing students with the opportunity to explore social problems in the context of their chosen subject. Students could apply social innovation techniques to real-world situations, developing their ideas and entrepreneurial mindsets within their chosen career or places of work. Ashoka U's Changemaker Director, Michele Leaman, praised the University's approach, commenting that:
‘Social innovation and entrepreneurship is on every corner at Northampton, offering a unique example of a Changemaker Campus.’
Involvement with Changemaker would allow students to be socially innovative, explore social issues they are passionate about and make a real difference to society.
One ‘e-tivity’ required students to develop a midwifery-focused Changemaker project, designed to have a social impact on themselves, their peers and the community. One student, Laney Holland, with an interest in tackling female genital mutilation (FGM) (Power and Holland, 2018) wanted to develop training for community midwives to enable them to run a midwife-led, community-based FGM de-infibulation clinic. After developing her project through the module, she submitted her idea to the Changemaker Hub and has been invited to present at an upcoming ‘Give it a Go’ panel to pitch for funding from the University. When asked for her feedback, Laney said that:
‘This online learning module not only raised my awareness of the Changemaker programme, but enabled me to explore the Give it a Go programme. Three months later and my idea has been invited to present at the next panel meeting!’
In addition to addressing a social problem, Changemaker enables students to relate this experience to their employment plans and skills development, which can be demonstrated through assessment practice and an award, Employability Plus. The award encourages students to undertake activities such as social change activities, community engagement and social entrepreneurship, which further enhances their employability and provides them with real-world examples for graduate jobs.
The university's careers and employability team forms part of Changemaker and has been voted as one of the best in the UK by the student crowd website (Bates, 2017). As a career development coach, Tasneem Dakri supports students to develop their employability and prepare for the graduate labour market. During the module, Tasneem worked with pre-registration midwifery students to prepare them for employment through activities such as building an online CV, developing a personal statement and taking part in mock interview sessions. This process included a thorough analysis of employability skills through the skills self-assessment resource, based on Schwarzer General Self-Efficacy Scale (Schwarzer and Jerusalem, 1995), and feedback on their CVs and personal statements. This helped students to better understand themselves and become more self-aware in relation to their strengths and areas for development (Box 1).
Legal, ethical and professional frameworks for midwives
This element of the module is taught through synchronous online learning in a ‘virtual classroom’ hosted by the University's virtual learning environment. Its focus is on revisiting and consolidating students' understanding of how midwifery practice is regulated in the UK, and how legal, ethical and professional requirements ensure that the care women receive is of the highest standard. An important aspect of the module is to challenge students' perceptions of themselves as learners and future midwives, and the workplace and political landscape they will join on qualification. With this in mind, in small groups students researched and developed a range of resources which they then presented (and, at times, defended) to their peers. Topics included revalidation; professional midwifery advocates; continuing professional development; politics in normal midwifery practice; the reflective and autonomous practitioner; and peer support and mentoring.
Conclusion
The University of Northampton is committed to providing students with a high-quality learning experience as they prepare for employment and beyond. Our commitment to pre-registration midwifery education is to ensure that, on qualification, our students are confident and competent practitioners, equipped to deal with the ever-more complex demands of their chosen profession. Students' individuality and preferences are acknowledged and celebrated, and active blended learning offers a range of teaching approaches, both face to face and online, to meet the diverse needs of students, supporting them to develop their autonomy, confidence and adaptability. By embedding Changemaker in the curriculum, our students will be knowledgeable, socially responsible and digitally proficient graduates, with the potential make a positive impact on the communities they serve as registered midwives.