Presentation to new teaching staff at UWS

PGCert Teaching and Learning in Higher Education programme

Learning in Partnership:Students as partners in curriculum design

Embrace uncertainty, encourage creativity, empower the learner

Rachel Brownlie, Kety Faina, Gordon Heggie, Jade McCarroll, Neil McPherson

Learning in partnership

Heggie & McPherson, 2014

Reconfiguring the curriculum in the 21st century learning environment

“What kind of world is it that curricula in higher education are preparing students for?

What kinds of capability, therefore, in general terms might curricula

be fostering?”

Barnett & Coate 2005, p. 53

Questions

Web 1.0

Web 2.0

Web 3.0

structureddependentpassive engagement

self directedindependentactive participation self determined

interdependentactive ownership

Reconfiguring the curriculum in the 21st century learning environment

From instruction to discovery

Reconfiguring the curriculum in the 21st century learning environment

Learning outcomesQuality assurance

Structure learning

Provide measure of performance

HoweverPrescriptive

Restrictive

Dampen creativity

Outcomes to outputs

Learning outputsOpen to creativity

Support originality

Builds on the work of others

Encourages critique

Open ended

See Neary, 2010

Reconfiguring the curriculum in the 21st century learning environment

Healy & Jenkins, 2009, p. 56

“The principles of the teaching-research nexus should inform curriculum

development and delivery from the first year as a way of promoting a sense of

belonging to a community of scholars with a focus on discovery and creation of

knowledge” (Kerri-Lee Krause, 2006, pp.6-8)

•to design and deliver engaging student learning experiences;

•to make higher education more accessible and inclusive;

•to develop a sense of community and belonging;

•as a response to the current multi-faceted challenges facing HE;

•to offer a constructive alternative to consumerist models of higher

education

(see Healey, Flint and Harrington, 2014: 19)

;

.

Why students as partners?

“We have spent enough time condemning consumerism in education,

and now we need to articulate the alternative. Student engagement is

a great concept but it needs to be deployed to radical ends. Students

as partners is not just a nice-to-have, I believe it has the potential to

help bring about social and educational transformation”

Wenstone, VP (HE) Higher Education, NUS. 2012

Why students as partners?

“Such involvement would perhaps go some way to preventing students

from feeling like changes in curriculum are being 'done to them' and

would instead foster a sense that changes were being 'done with them'.

This would allow the student full insight into the pedagogic principles

that drive curriculum changes and the perceived benefits that such

changes are expected to have for students' education. In turn this

would arguably lead to a greater sense of ownership of the

development of HE”

(Taylor and Wilding, 2009: 3)

Why students as partners in curriculum design?

Let students become ‘change agents’

“The concept of ‘listening to the student voice’ – implicitly if not deliberately

– supports the perspective of student as ‘consumer’, whereas ‘students as

change agents’ explicitly supports a view of the student as ‘active

collaborator’ and ‘co-producer’, with the potential for transformation.”

Dunne & Zandstra, 2011, p.4

“It is to our own academic tradition and custom that we should look to for progressive change”

Neary, 2009, p.23

our experience

For this exercise, use the questions below to guide your group discussion. You should also map your answers against Bovill and Bulley’s ladder.

1. To what extent, and how, should students be involved in curriculum design?

2. To what extent, and how, should students and staff be involved as partners in the delivery and assessment of learning?

3. To what extent, and how, should students and staff be involved as partners in the evaluation of learning and teaching practices?