Research Literature

The quote by Aristotle, ‘the roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet’, can be said by many university graduates as they take the next step and start moving into the profession as a qualified teacher. To be a successful university graduate, you need to be equipped with a range of skills and sufficient knowledge to enter into the work place as an active participant. Professor Peter Freebody believes that the most important skill for a person to have is the understanding of their place in today’s globalised world (Rodley, 2008). 

Over the course of a university degree, graduates develop and acquire certain attributes and skills that relate to their chosen profession. The development of these attributes are important, as finishing a degree does not ensure that you will automatically receive a job. Employers look to see if new graduates have developed skills that will benefit the company or organisation. Employers look for skills such as; exploring and creating opportunities; decision-making; coping with uncertainty; focus on development; the transfer skills and self confidence (Knight & Yorke, 2005). In addition to these skills, employers also seek graduates that are willing to get involved within the company or organisation as well as having the willingness to continue learning and extending their knowledge.  

An attribute that is becoming necessary in today’s world is Lifelong learning. It is an aim as a learning manager to embed lifelong learning into each of their students and equips them with the skills and attitude to learn long after they have graduated (The University of Adelaide , 2005). Learning can happen within a variety of different contexts including, formal academia, informal academia and the community and family life, which can be called life wide learning. When becoming a Lifelong learner, you are equipping yourself with skills such as; planning your own learning, being an active learner, being able to learn from peers, teachers and mentors, and being able to use a range of different strategies for different situations. Due to the continual creation of new occupations and careers, and the transformation of current ones, it is important to become a Lifelong learner so that you do not get left behind in today’s quickly advancing society. Lifelong learning is also important for expanding educational needs of students; including those from culturally different backgrounds (The University of Adelaide , 2005). 

There are three different competencies that university graduates are equipped with that are relevant to their profession. These include; intellectual competencies, professional and academic competencies and practical competencies. When combined, these three competencies make up the university degree, however they have different roles. As cited by Junghagen, 2005, intellectual competencies underline the communication of complex issues while analysing and critiquing the issues systematically and independently, professional and academic competencies are expressed as the ability to evaluate independently the appropriateness of various methods of analysis and complex academic issues. Finally, practical competencies are defined as the ability, in addition to bachelor competencies, to make and justify decisions according to academic discipline. Even though these competencies where developed as a starting point for defining the qualifications for an economics and business administration program, they also align well with the Bachelor of Learning Management course. 

Learning managers graduating with a Bachelor of Learning Management from CQUniversity adopt a significantly different perspective, knowledge-base and skill-set than graduates of other teacher education programs (CQ University, 2012). CQUniversity fosters a set of skills that can be broken down into professional knowledge, networks and partnerships, futures domains and pedagogy. These skills align with the Ten Professional Standards from the Queensland College of Teachers. They describe the abilities, knowledge, understandings and professional values that teachers in Queensland schools demonstrate in the classroom, school and community (Queensland College of Teachers, 2012).