Embedding Graduate Attributes in ACU Programs

1. Embedding Graduate Attributes in ACU Programs Associate Professor Mark Freeman

2. Session outcomes • Explain the importance of planning, implementing and assuring graduate attributes in ACU programs • Identify the steps to embed graduate attributes • Outline ALTC resources that can be used to assist in the embedding process • Reflect on next steps

3. Session outcomes • Explain the importance of planning, implementing and assuring graduate attributes in ACU programs • Identify the steps to embed graduate attributes • Outline ALTC resources that can be used to assist in the embedding process • Reflect on next steps

4. Taking the pulse Consider your flagship UG degree. In 2 minutes • How well is it hitting the mark? • What’s your evidence? • Convince your neighbour (1 minute each)

5. Do our programs develop the right attributes in our graduates so they can get the right jobs?

6. Handout – do activity • Individually do both MCQ in 1 minute • As a table debate and agree using ‘scratchoffs’ until correct (indicated by ‘*’) • As a table choose best option - 2 minutes

7. ACU – graduate attributes (i) Intellectual • Critical and analytical abilities. • Enthusiasm to search for further knowledge and understanding. • Open-mindedness and receptiveness to new ideas. • Expertise in chosen academic field. (ii) Professional • Knowledge and skills to meet relevant professional requirements. • Understanding of and commitment to professional ethical standards. • Information literacy, communication and interpersonal skills. (iii) Values • Commitment to values consistent with the University’s Mission. • A spirit of service to the community. • Commitment to good citizenship, including respect for individuals, empathy with persons of differing cultural and religious backgrounds, community responsibility and concern for the environment. • A high regard for equity and human rights in the context of a broad understanding of globalization.

8. Session outcomes • Explain the importance of planning, implementing and assuring graduate attributes in ACU programs • Identify the steps to embed graduate attributes • Outline ALTC resources that can be used to assist in the embedding process • Reflect on next steps

9. On your table, decide the steps needed to plan, deliver and assure graduate attributes are embedded in your ACU programs/courses

10. Action research Plan Reflect Act Observe

11. Planning and assuring our programs hit the mark • Define program learning goals and outcomesWhat are the most important things our students should learn in our program? What are our expectations? • Align curriculum with program goalsHow or where will they learn these things? • Identify instruments and measuresHow will we know they have learned them? • Collect, analyse and disseminate dataHow well have they learned them? • Use assurance data for continuous improvementWhat will we do if they have not learned them?

12. Key guidelines Do case study. Then identify on the grid where your flagship PG coursework program lies. • Define learning goals and objectives • Check goals aligned to mission and program is distinctive • Minimum 1 program goal for each of 11 graduate attributes • Only 1 program learning outcome per goal • Involve peers and/or industry • Align curriculum with goals • Use template for curriculum alignment across a program • Identify where goal is ‘introduced’, ‘developed’, ‘graduating and assured’ • Consider incorporating a capstone unit • Identify instruments and measures • Use template: align Unit learning outcomes, activities, assessment, criteria • Measure program outcomes in embedded assessments in capstone • Involve peers and/or industry in setting assessment criteria and intervention trigger/benchmark

13. Key guidelines • Collect, analyse and disseminate data • Consider software to support data collection • Involve peers and/or industry • Use assurance data for continuous improvement • Involve peers and/or industry to ‘close the loop’ • Identify improvement actions (eg. curriculum, pedagogy, measure)

14. Post experience General Management & Leadership Discipline focused Pre-experience career

15. Raise awareness eg. Effectively work in multicultural team Develop understanding Facilitate autonomy Curriculum alignment eg. Masters Sem 1 Sem 2 Sem 3 Unit Program

16. Program-wide planning matters Where there is a greater sense of the holistic programme students are likely to achieve higher standards than on more fragmented programmes (Havnes, p. 2007) Slowly learnt academic literacies require rehearsal and practice throughout a programme (Knight and Yorke 2004)

17. Raise awareness eg. Effectively work in multicultural team Develop understanding Facilitate autonomy Curriculum alignment eg. Masters Sem 1 Sem 3 Sem 2 Unit Program Note • Development is iterative not additive (hence arrows overlap) • Assurance is typically undertaken at graduating level when program learning goal is achieved or mastered.

18. Alignment with informal curriculum • Mentee in peer mentoring program • Participant in work/learning program Raise awareness eg. Effectively work in multicultural team • Reflect on work/abroad intercultural experience • Train & lead as culturally aware manager Develop understanding Facilitate autonomy Curriculum alignment: ‘effectively work in multi-cultural team’ Sem 1 Sem 3 Sem 2 Unit Program

19. A common myth ‘It is a common belief that tertiary students acquire intercultural communication competence through interacting with each other in multicultural classrooms. Much research undertaken in Australia, however, indicates that having culturally diverse classrooms will not, by itself, necessarily promote student development in this area’ (Briguglio, 2005)

20. Pay strong attention to assessment • “From our students’ point of view, assessment always defines the actual curriculum” (Ramsden, P.,1992) • “Assessment defines what students regard as important, how they spend their time and how they come to see themselves as students and then as graduates.........If you want to change student learning then change the methods of assessment” (Brown, G et al, 1997) • “Assessment patterns may be a much better predictor of student effort than teaching patterns. Students may skip classes and may not prepare well for classes but they make sure that they submit the necessary assignments”(Gibbs,THES, 28 Sept 2007, p.6)

21. “Conventional assessment procedures are unable to do justice to the most important outcomes of any educational process worth the name” (Raven 1991, p1) “Even when lecturers say that they want students to be creative and thoughtful, students often recognise that what is really necessary, or at least what is sufficient, is to memorise”(Gibbs, 1992, p. 10) Many research findings indicate a declining use of deep and contextual approaches to study as students’ progress through their degree programmes (Watkins & Hattie, 1985; Kember et al, 1997; Richardson, 2000; Zhang & Watkins, 2001) “The pressures of increased student numbers and the growing demands of QA procedures has changed the nature of assignments and tests, making them less open ended and less likely to foster a deep and thoughtful approach to studying” (Gibbs cited in Bryan and Clegg, 2006, p.21 “The types of assessment we currently use do not promote conceptual understanding and do not encourage a deep approach to learning………Our means of assessing them seems to do little to encourage them to adopt anything other than a strategic or mechanical approach to their studies.” (Newstead 2002, p3) ‘This quest for reliability tends to skew assessment towards the assessment of simple and unambiguous achievements, and considerations of cost add to the skew away from judgements of complex learning’ (Knight 2002b p278) “…students become more interested in the mark and less interested in the subject over the course of their studies.”(Newstead 2002, p2) Our current systems focused on marks and grades aren’t working (Rust 2007; Elander & Hardman, 2002; Laming, 1990; Yorke et al, 2002; Bridges et al, 2002; Newstead and Dennis, 1994)

22. Unit of Study – curriculum alignment (incl assessment criteria)

23. Assessing and assuring a relevant program learning goal: ‘effectively work in multi-cultural team’

24. ReView in practice at USyd • Graduate attributes at University of Sydney and reflected in ReView

26. acctg

27. Session outcomes • Explain the importance of planning, implementing and assuring graduate attributes in ACU programs • Identify the steps to embed graduate attributes • Outline ALTC resources that can be used to assist in the embedding process • Reflect on next steps

28. Elements of the ALTC Strategy Teaching Quality Indicators Promoting Excellence Competitive Grants Program Discipline Networks Special Initiatives Leadership Program ALTC Exchange Australian Learning & Teaching Council Learning Networks Grants Scheme Priority Projects Program International Links Fellowship Scheme Awards Scheme Awards (Teaching & Programs) National Teaching Fellows Teaching Fellows Citations

29. ALTC graduate attribute initiatives • Funded one national Fellow • Funding national event late 2009 (early 2010) • Funded 24 nationally collaborative projects • Projects cover wide range of disciplines • Community of practice developing (Oct 08 Symposium) • See handout

30. ALTC – Business • Appoint Discipline Scholar • Funded range of projects including • Completed (EDIC), nearly completed (EGA, AFF), started (GS,PR) • Develop ALTC Exchange resources • Summaries of projects and themes • Useful project resources (eg. developing intercultural competence) • Develop collaboratively with deans council (ie. ABDC) a Discipline Support Strategy • Collaboratively follow up national issues identified Dec08 Leading Change Symposium • 2009 Curriculum and engagement • 2010 Student leaning experience • 2011 Staff engagement

31. ALTC Accounting for the Future:Project goals • To identify the range ofnon-technical skills expected and required of accounting graduates, • To identify stakeholders’ views on the relative importance of the technical v non-technical skills required and on the respective responsibilities of employers and universities for their development. • To identify examples of best practice by which non-technical skills can be embedded in accounting programs and their learning is assured.

32. On your table, rank the following • Communication • Teamwork • Problem solving • Self-management • Planning and organising • Technology • Life-long learning • Initiative and enterprise • Ability to deal with diversity

33. ALTC Accounting for the Future:Importance of the non-technical skills Communication 1 Problem solving 2 Teamwork 3 Self-management 4 Life-long learning 5 Initiative and enterprise 6 Planning and organising 7 Ability to deal with diversity 8 Technology 9

34. ALTC Accounting for the Future:How well do you consider you are able to develop and assess these skills? NB 1=not at all; 5=excellent

35. ALTC Accounting for the Future: External stakeholder interviews • Common themes that have emerged across the country • Views on technical skills ability of graduates varied by size and location of employers. • Views on importance of non-technical skills varied by size and location of employers • Communication, team work and self management were deemed to be the most desirable. • Communication and problem solving being the most inadequate and posing the greatest limitations on graduates in both their skill sets and their career development.

36. ALTC Accounting for the Future:Good practice example of programs with embedded graduate attributes Macquarie university • language for professional communication in accounting • embedding skills in 10 of the 13 MPA units • evidence to support success in relation to improvement in communication skills.

37. ALTC Embedding the Development of Intercultural Competence in Business Education • See handout • See ATLC Exchange

38. ALTC Exchange http://www.altcexchange.edu.au/1-embedding-development-intercultural-competence-business-higher-education

39. 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 Knowledge Attitudes Skills Applies basic skills or directions to routine tasks and interactions to accommodate (a) specified cultural difference/s Identifies cultural foundations of own and others’ norms, values, experiences and interactions Acknowledges the practical significance of own and others’ cultural identity (beliefs, values, norms and biases) and their impact on behaviour and interactions Awareness Implements appropriate processes and behaviours for interactions with different cultural settings and audiences Analyses how diversity influences interaction (and how culture manifests itself in interaction) Adapts to differences between oneself and others in interactions in varying cultural contexts Understanding Selects or creates complex skill sets in interactions under conditions of uncertainty, risk and change in professional business situations Reflects and self-evaluates one’s own and others’ capabilities and limitations in interactions in varying cultural contexts Values intercultural interactions and experiences with those from other cultures to further one’s own understanding and interactions Autonomy Ridings, Simpson, Leask et al. 2008

40. Session outcomes • Explain the importance of planning, implementing and assuring graduate attributes in ACU programs • Identify the steps to embed graduate attributes • Outline ALTC resources that can be used to assist in the embedding process • Reflect on next steps

41. Next steps • Reflect quietly on today’s discussion. • Identify the top three actions you intend to take to get graduate attributes really embedded in the programs in your school • Share around the table briefly one priority

42. Challenges to embedding graduate attributes • Achieve wider buy-in • Leaders, program directors, academics • Employers/peers • Establish suitable policies and procedures to support it • Develop appropriate reward systems for academic buy-in • Appoint empowered program directors • Establish a QA sub ctee? • Develop a plan for defining goals, planning curriculum and assurance points • Agree rubrics for embedded assessments • Develop procedure to obtain and use data on actual student development for continuous improvement • Obtain suitable support resources and tools • Curriculum mapping templates and tools • Access emergent research eg. ALTC collaborative projects

43. Q & A

46. Need for Change (3):The nature of standards • An indispensable condition for improvement in student learning is that “the student comes to hold a concept of quality roughly similar to that held by the teacher” (Sadler, 1989) • Standards are often communicated to students using criteria. • Regulative and logical criteria “standards can be defined in terms of well-defined outcomes” (Sadler, 1987, p. 70) • Prescriptive and constitutive criteria refer to matters of degree and “It would be difficult or impossible to guess the educational level at which they are applicable… ” (Sadler, 1987, p. 70). Such types of criteria are often interdependent and can only be assessed using holistic/professional judgement (Sadler, 2008) • Such criteria are socially constructed requiring the sharing of tacit knowledge over time (O’Donovan et al, 2004; Rust et al, 2005)

47. Need for change (5):Coming to understand standards • The achievement of high-level learning requires integrated and coherent progression based on programme outcomes • The most significant factor in student academic success is student involvement fostered by student/staff interactions and student/student interactions (Astin, 1997) • The only common factor in a study of departments deemed excellent in both research and learning and teaching is high levels of student involvement (Gibbs, 2007) • Where there is a greater sense of the holistic programme students are likely to achieve higher standards than on more fragmented programmes (Havnes, p. 2007) • Slowly learnt academic literacies require rehearsal and practice throughout a programme (Knight and Yorke 2004) • Students need to engage as interactive partners in a learning community, relinquishing the passive role of ‘the instructed’ within processes controlled by academic experts (Gibbs et al, 2004)