Professional Contexts

Module overview

Professional Contexts is an exciting series of industry speaker events and conversations that act as a facilitator to connect you directly to the game Industry. Speakers will provide multiple angles from the current Games industry and discuss how your working practice could connect to the industry.

This module focusses on employability related themes, and will allow you to research key industry practitioners and their ways of working, offering you the opportunity to analyse and define an area of games practice. The Professional Contexts module will develop and encourage you to engage with the requirements and skills around employability within your chosen specialisms in Games Design & Art. The first semester of the final year is a critical juncture for thinking and planning your future career as you are about to undertake your final project on the programme. This module will enhance your ability to position yourself with your chosen field of work and equip you with a strategy for employment.

Aims and Objectives

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

select appropriate methods for a professional standard of research.
analyse your current practice for discipline direction and orientation;

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

develop and manage your time effectively to set deadlines;
employ digital literacies to support your learning.
evaluate and apply a variety of academic approaches to contextualise your practice;

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

the current job market within games design and related creative industries.
the recruitment process, including specifics of the application process;

Learning and Teaching

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

lectures;
seminars.

Learning activities include:

discussion;
blog writing;
independent research and reflection;
industry 1-1 discussions;
Academic Skills Hub;
Careers Service.

Study time
Type	Hours
Completion of assessment task	24
Lecture	8
Follow-up work	45
Preparation for scheduled sessions	10
Wider reading or practice	45
Seminar	16
Total study time	148

Resources & Reading list

Internet Resources

Lynda.com (via Blackboard).

Panopto Recordings (via Blackboard).

Working Papers in Art and Design.

Academic Skills Hub.

Blackboard.

Textbooks

Cottrell, S. (2013). The Study Skills Handbook. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Cottrell, S. (2015). Skills for Success. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Schön, D.A. (2017). The Reflective Practitioner. Routledge.

McNiff, J. & Whitehead, J. (2009). Doing and Writing Action Research. SAGE.

Polanyi, M. & Sen, A. (2009). The Tacit Dimension. University of Chicago Press.

McNiff, J. (2016). You and Your Action Research Project. Routledge.

Gray, C. & Malins, J. (2016). Visualizing Research. Routledge.

Cohen, L., Manion, L. & Morrison, K. (2017). Research Methods in Education. Routledge.

Assessment

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Blog Post In-class activities

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Blog Post	100%

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Blog Post	100%

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Blog Post	100%

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External