A Curriculum Design Toolkit: developing and enhancing your practice

1. A Curriculum Design Toolkit: developing and enhancing your practice Angela Hammond a.hammond@herts.ac.uk Jackie Willis j.v.willis@herts.ac.uk Helen Barefoot, h.barefoot@herts.ac.uk @HelenBarefoot Mark Russell mark.russell@kcl.ac.uk

2. Context • The Blended Learning Unit formed in 2005. • Best use of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). • Embedded Institutional approach. • Good curriculum design pervades all that we do.

3. Rationale • Designed to… • Change / validate thinking; • Be driven by, and introduce, pedagogic principles. • From probing to solution… • Explores current practice; • Indicates that actions are not without consequence; • Highlight a possible need (actual vs preferred); • Ideas offered.

4. Curriculum Design Toolkit Internationalisation Inclusive Teaching Principles and questions Diagnostics Features and consequences Hints, tips and quick ideas Case studies Assessment for Learning Entrepreneurship Good Practice In Higher Education Sustainability Employability Research Informed Teaching

5. The Toolkit Approach http://tinyurl.com/7gmmmnu • Principles and questions • Research informed principle statement with subsidiary questions that a tutor can ask of their curricula • Diagnostics • Excel spreadsheet to allow completion of the questions driving the principles in a simple, easy to use format • Features and consequences • Descriptors of what the curricula might look like if there is limited / some / lots of the feature within the principle • Colour coded for quick use, but to be considered in context of all other teaching • Hints, tips and quick ideas For guidance on using the toolkit see Barefoot & Russell (2012) http://tinyurl.com/7u6yanh

6. Toolkit analysis • Assessment activity on the Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. Analysis considered: • The most common areas for development identified by users; • The strategies people developed to address areas of difficulty; • The toolkit resources they were able to call on to develop their practice.

7. Descriptive data • Assessment first included in 2008-09 (Participants chose to review practice according to two toolkit strands). • Not all toolkit strands complete until 2012. • Included data from Good Practice… • in Higher Education (75 responses); • Assessment for Learning (51 responses); • Research Informed Teaching (40 responses).

8. Good Practice in … Higher Education 75 Reponses - 134 principle instances

9. Evaluating the experience of using the ‘Higher Education’ strand In general, I try to facilitate collaborative learning and foster a learning community by incorporating all points mentioned in this section of the toolkit. However, my teaching needs to be more carefully planned and structured. It is really difficult for students to drop by my office as it is huge, shared and not accessible to students in passing. I rarely talk to students about their extra curricular life and life outside the university. Instead I should make sure students feel valued as individuals and motivate them. Upon reflection I feel that I could increase contact between staff and students in my area of teaching through problem based learning as opposed to the arrangements of social activities. Guidance on the structure of group work such as: giving out handouts to assist with group work; encouraging the students to praise their peers; remember specific learners suggestions to use later as a way of validating the learner(s) and explaining why small group work is good for the learner.

10. Good Practice in … Assessment for Learning 51 Reponses - 89 principle instances

11. Evaluating the experience of using the Assessment for Learning strand I never considered giving students a choice of topic and have not seen this used within the Pharmacy School. My assessment practices need further planning, development and focus on providing opportunities for students to develop their internalised conceptions of standards and monitor and supervise their own learning. Offering of personal choice in regards to learning is limited by the need to adhere to the NMC’s Essential Standards for pre-registration education (NMC, 2011) and the learning outcomes as specified by the University. In large groups it is hard to offer personalised learning. Asking students to help design the feedback they would like when they submit an assignment is something I haven’t tried before and should incorporate in my teaching. It is my intension to limit the overuse of unseen time-constrained exams and to embed into my practice the use of alternative means of assessment that support personalized learning.

12. Evaluating the experience of using the Research Informed Teaching strand 40 Reponses - 62 principle instances

13. Evaluating the experience of using the Research Informed Teaching strand Visiting scholarly institutions and encouraging students to apply for their own funding is very difficult to do because of the large numbers of students I rarely invite external speakers to come and speak about their research Nursing practitioners can be become isolated from the new knowledge that is constantly being generated Engaging students in research activities is somewhat more difficult due to cohort size and the need for specialised equipment and facilities. Allowing inexperienced undergraduate students collect data and analyse them could be an exciting and unpredictable challenge I would recommend to organise monthly or two monthly seminars where undergraduate, postgraduate students and staff are invited to attend to promote research In the future inclusion of video clips of equipment being used by myself or other staff members would provide a better understanding of procedures employed

14. Toolkit Resources • To set up a monthly lunchtime seminar series or to organise regular trips to the Royal Geographical Society’s evening seminars. • Peer assessment may be particularly applicable to poster presentation assessments

15. Conclusions • All identified tangible activities to improve their academic practice. • Certain challenges were specific to: • the inexperience of new staff; • the discipline (professional body constraints, pre-defined structures); • logistics (rooms/group size, placements, health and safety). • Some responders expressed surprise at their own diagnostic results. • Interesting observation – responders sometimes weren’t aware of innovations or different ways of doing things.

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