Our Assessment Innovation Fund pilots: WILD Learning Sciences 2.0
Shaping the future of learning and assessment
We’re on a mission to break boundaries in assessment with an investment fund to support and pilot new ideas on the future of assessment.
WILD Learning Sciences 2.0
The core purpose of WILD Learning Sciences is to empower the world to learn and thrive for a healthy, sustainable future.
We enable business, education, and community to achieve their purpose by providing a fresh approach to learning and upskilling. We embed future skills into the everyday flow of work, study, and collaborative projects to drive a culture of continuous improvement. We provide a digital capability for scale, powered by unique learning analytics at multiple levels. We build the internal capability necessary for sustainable change.
We empower people to develop a sense of purpose, take control of their learning, their actions, and consequences, by creating the conditions where diverse abilities, skills, attitudes, and values can flourish for improved wellbeing and performance.
At WILD we will empower and inspire you to prepare your workforce, students, or community to be fit for the Future of Work. We offer a fresh approach to the development of in demand ‘future skills’ of Self Leadership, Learning Relationships and Complex Problem Solving through deliberately designed, personalised, supported, and scaffolded learning experiences on the job. We build capacity internally for sustainability and cost efficiency and enjoy co-designing learning solutions that are one of a kind and fit for purpose. Our playbook of learning design principles combined with thought leadership, a team with diverse expertise and a digital capability helps us to adapt and integrate our ideas into any context or culture for maximum impact and powerful learning experiences.
About the pilot
The WILD Learning Sciences team aim to build upon the success of their initial project (2022 WILD for Meta Skills 1.0) to develop a digital self-evaluation tool to enable students to purposefully achieve employability outcomes through formative feedback which develops their self-leadership, learning relationships and complex problem-solving skills in authentic, work-based contexts.
WILD worked collaboratively with Nottingham College using focus groups of students across multi disciplines and age groups to test a ‘meta-skills’ online self-evaluation tool to develop employability skills.
WILD Learning Sciences were awarded funds to develop its pilot over a 4-month period, involving over 100 learners. Student focus groups were held, and students exceeded expectations in terms of being able to understand x3 Meta Competencies and what they mean, then use clear, developed language during their research. This pilot was carried out in 3 phases:
Phase one: Development of an Employability Skills Self-Evaluation Rubric
Phase two: Pro-typing use of employability skills rubric with tutors and students in the context of a Business School Project
Phase three: Integrating the rubric and evidence of student experience to produce wireframe proposition
Findings and conclusions
These meta-skills are readily understood by FE students, who can engage with them and apprehend what they mean in practice on projects and outside of college life. The rubric and questions enabled conversations to be focused on broader aspects of student's life that were important to them and bring those experiences into the classroom. Our view is that the regular curriculum provision discounts these student attributes – particularly those who have ‘not succeeded’ in traditional performance terms.
The survey approach with questions which invite students to reflect on their actions and behaviour on project-based learning as part of a learning journey, is a promising approach which merits further development.
Positive changes in student experience are dependent upon tutors and leaders' ability to learn for themselves and create the conditions where these types of conversations – which empower and value student experience and wider attributes – can be a regular feature of college life.
Context is important in the design of pedagogies for meta-skills. Project based learning provides a more authentic curriculum experience for students to engage with in this way and this is a powerful context for developing employability skills and the meta skills that develop them. Once students are authentically engaged the purpose of what they are doing or learning, they are most likely to own the process and take pride in their achievements. Learning analytics and assessment of this nature, therefore, need to be designed for real-world contexts – feedback needs to be immediate and meaningful.
Where there is a consistent and shared language for learning, relationships form and deepen, and this is a powerful fuel for growth. The language of learning power and thinking skills proved to be inclusive – particularly when accompanied by metaphor, image and story. It creates a non-judgemental, psychological safe space for authentic relationships and conversations.
Any digital solution targeting futures skills is necessary but not sufficient. It provides scaffolding for scaling and supporting different ways of thinking but cannot replace the human activity which it is there to enhance. This a commercial challenge because there is no silver bullet.
Next steps for WILD Learning Sciences
The next step for WILD is to secure funding to progress the build out of the Self Evaluation Tool with Nottingham College and to test its impact on tutors and students and its efficacy as a digital learning analytic.
As part of WILD’s ongoing relationship with Nottingham College, WILD is supporting tutors in embedding the Learning Journey App as part of project-based learning. Although we will not be proceeding with the build out of the Meta Skills Self Evaluation tool at this point, work we have done on assessment, particularly the rubric, is informing WILD’s professional learning programmes with tutors. The types of projects Nottingham College intend to link this is their ‘Social Action’ projects which they see as having the potential to engage with all learners on an individual level and have a significant impact on both personal development and key future skills. The feedback from tutors is that they can see the potential of using this type of framework, resources, and coaching style conversation to support the learners' journey within and beyond Nottingham College.
Find out more about upcoming application phases and how to apply
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