Session Outline

Join this interactive, collaborative workshop to explore the students’ perspective and experience ‘Bartholomew’s Taxonomy: Futureproofing Students!’ This educational tool places the spotlight on students’ futures in relation to the futures’ need for students to become agile thinkers and apply creative ingenuity to solve the world’s problems. It follows on from the initial taxonomy; ‘Bartholomew’s Taxonomy of Self: the motivated undergraduate student’, presented at UKAT and AdvanceHE conferences in 2025. This tool offers a novel approach in facilitating student self-awareness for use in personal and academic tutorials, resulting in student-driven conversation leading to development planning with a focus on both personal growth (Dweck, 2017) and creating a vision for their futures.

This workshop brings to life the immediacy of ensuring today’s students consider ways to acquire the skills and competencies that graduates will need in order to be ready for the ‘future jobs market’. Technological advancements and the pace of artificial intelligence are already shaping the types of job roles available even today. Many employers have voiced their concerns that the sector isn’t doing enough to equip students to be able to think creatively, work dynamically and collaborate to solve problems (OECD, 2025). The tertiary education sector suggests it is committed to providing students with a transformational experience to ensure that students are future-ready, however, there is no clear steer to ensure this is a mandatory requirement to have this formally embedded within institutional policy and practice. In Peters and Matthias’ (2018: 63-64) ‘Pedagogy of Partnership’, it is determined that “an ongoing transformative and collaborative process of being and becoming”, to nurture self-awareness and inner confidence, is an essential component of a successful higher education experience. This is supported by the building and nurturing of an effective relationship between staff and students that, in turn, increases a sense of belonging. The recent survey undertaken by the Office for Students (2025) reports that students expect to “develop skills that help them secure good jobs” and want a tailored learning experience that will “meet their personal as well as their academic needs.” However, how this is to be delivered is down to interpretation and presumably resources.

The Taxonomy and the research-informed content underpinning this workshop stem directly from the findings of my Doctorate in Education (Bartholomew, 2022) which sought to uncover how well managers, lecturers and students understand ‘student engagement’ and factors impacting student motivation and autonomy. My research has led to the development of this educational tool that confirms my ongoing commitment to facilitate discussion and share findings that contribute to the enhancement of students’ personal and professional development in tutorials. This taxonomy provides students with the necessary time and space to reflect on the taxonomy’s content and consider their future plans. The tool is created to firstly acknowledge the participant’s existing set of skills and competencies. Then, with the advisory support of the personal tutor, conversations ensue that support the creation of a development plan to acquire the relevant skills and competencies that meet the individual's aspirations. The workshop therefore explores the “transformation of being” (Barnett, 2007: 38) by placing the act of self-analysis and self-reflection in response to the ever-changing situations (Johns, 2009) at its core. Both staff and students are welcome to attend.

Learning Outcomes

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