Abstract:

Making sure that university graduates have the right skills necessary to enter the workforce and remain highly sought after by the industry is one of the numerous challenges faced by higher learning institutions (HLIs). In Malaysia, HLIs are looking at the increase of industry involvement in the classroom so as to better develop talents that will thrive in the workplace. Various strategies have been employed in order to bridge the gap between academia and the industry, most notably industry collaborations where the university forms a collaborative partnership with key industry players to bring about knowledge sharing engagements. In 2015, the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia launched an industry linkage programme which saw top local and international Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) appointed as “Adjunct Professors” in public universities and had to commit 30 hours a year towards the mentorship of both university students and lecturers. Whilst the programme saw success in strengthening the linkage between academia and industry in terms of knowledge transfer, internship programmes and other projects, long term sustainability remains highly dependent on both sides finding a synergistic alignment that is mutually beneficial. So while it may not always be feasible to have CEOs in every classroom, what then can educators do in their existing classes to help equip students with the right skills to prepare them for the workplace? This paper focuses on exploring the use of “authentic real-world projects” which are projects that are comparable to the type of work students will do when they graduate and enter the workforce. This authentic learning approach supported by authentic learning elements (Herrington, Oliver & Reeves, 2010) is explored as an approach to help students pick up transferable skills that would give them the confidence to apply their knowledge in a real-world setting. A cohort of HLI students in a creative multimedia programme were followed from the proposal and planning stages to the final execution of their group projects. Feedback was then gathered through survey questionnaires and focus group interviews. Results indicate that while students initially struggled to overcome the many challenges of their projects, successful completion of the projects accorded them with better team working skills and a greater confidence to handle similar projects in the future.

Keywords:

Project-Based Learning, Authentic Learning.