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Developing the curriculum within an institution using a Change Academy approach
- 1. Developing the curriculum within an institution using a Change Academy approach Nancy Turner*, Mick Healey**, Ryan Banow*, Susan Bens* and Giselle Patrick* *University of Saskatchewan, Canada **Healey HE Consultants, UK
- 2. Rationale • Approaches to curriculum development often focused on particular strategic objectives or a particular outcome • In US some universities run week-long course design institutes (e.g. Palmer et al., 2016) • Less attention has been paid to the process of developing the curriculum. • Here we explore an adapted Change Academy approach, shifting from teams from different institutions to supporting teams from different disciplines within the same institution through the process of curriculum development
- 3. By E Pluribus Anthony, transferred to Wikimedia Commons by Kaveh (log), optimized by Andrew pmk. - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=844714
- 5. • Developed by Higher Education Academy in UK • Year-long process to support teams from different HEIs develop and design learning and teaching initiatives with core 4-day residential event • Teams involved a ‘diagonal slice’ including senior and junior staff and a student • Events facilitated by change consultants. (Bradford, 2009) Change Academy
- 6. • Institutional (Flint & Oxley, 2009) • National discipline-based (Healey et al., 2012) • National topic-based (e.g. recognition and reward for teaching; students as partners) (HE Academy, various) • National Leading Transformation in Learning and Teaching, individuals enacting initiatives (Outram & Parkin, 11th run). • International Change Institute, Students as Partners (Healey & Marquis, 3rd run next week) Change Academy adaptations
- 7. • 9 month process, 4 teams (faculty, staff and students) • Developed their Theory of Change (Handout) with advisor • Two-day event (Handout) involved a mixture of: – Team activities – Approaches to program curriculum design; thinking creatively; project planning tools; sustainability and action planning – Team sharing ideas and experiences – Liquid cafe – Developing the design of their program curriculum project with support of advisor • Follow-up evaluation and continued support from advisor Change Academy at U of S - structure
- 8. • Enable teams to collaboratively progress program curriculum work • Enable teams to learn from others doing similar work • Shift/make explicit conceptions of curriculum underpinning the work (as system of learning) and associated rationale for approach • Support teams in engaging students as partners in curricular development • Strengthen opportunities for teams to access support throughout the development process (human and financial resource) Change Academy at U of S - goals
- 9. Evaluative approach • Program logic model approach (Julian, 1997) to setting and evaluating our intended outcomes • Data collection: – Questionnaire after 2 day event – Focus groups with team leads seven months after 2 day event – Reflections of educational developers on process
- 10. Main Findings:Team Collaboration • The two day event helped most teams with this “having the time to explore ideas and thoughts in a supportive environment was very beneficial to the team. It was also nice to hear how other colleges were addressing their own problems. The process of hearing others problems/concerns kind of helped my own team bond. Personally, my confidence in participating in the discussion improved as the academy progressed.” – Latterly, team work did continue, process of co-creation was enabled
- 11. Main Findings: Conceptions of Curriculum • The two day event helped with this “My previous understanding of curriculum development was theoretical, the workshop provided a place where I was able to interact with people from other programs that were also revising their curriculum, I guess it exposed me to other processes.” “The handouts we received on the 10 methods of curriculum development were very helpful and helped us to define which style we had embarked upon.”
- 12. Main Findings: Conceptions of Curriculum • Latterly concepts of curriculum shifted significantly • Away from content to be presented towards how to support students to achieve intended outcomes • Idea of adaptive curriculum, to meet students where they are at emerged “Our idea of curriculum was turned on its head”
- 13. Main Findings: Students as Partners • Having students there was transformative for one team, not as much for others • One group made a firm commitment as part of the change academy to involve students going forward. An advisory board was set up and all proposals have been taken to this student group first before faculty are told. Their processes have thus been transformed. • Others felt students would come back in later, had not lost importance of their input but felt they may contribute more substantially later on in the process
- 14. Main Findings: Access to Resources • Benefit was less clear here – all teams had strong connections to the teaching and learning centre already – these remained – Individuals sought out additional resources on their own, where needed
- 15. Discussion • 2 days concentrated time together, with other teams, was valuable – Provided time and space for collaborative work – Opened participants to new ideas – Built sense of team work and progress to goals – broke down silos • Students as partners has great potential – need to consider how to better position teams to capitalize on this • Reinforced the meso-level focus as valuable in progressing complex change – value in connecting outside this as well
- 16. Implications • For us: – We will work with leaders more in lead up to 2 day event – We will work to discuss students as partners more explicitly – More integration of theory with action – We will work to have touch points for teams after the intensive event • For others: – Idea of an internal change academy has benefits in progressing complex meso-level change processes
- 17. Conclusions • Intra-institutional Change Academy focused on process of curriculum development was successful • We were flexible in our structure and approach in response to what we saw the teams needed as things progressed • We were able to support them in progressing their projects – all in different ways
Editor's Notes
- Most institutional approaches to developing the curriculum focus on the implementation of the institution’s learning and teaching strategy or a particular outcome (such as constructive alignment, research-based education, or embedding e-learning and blended learning). There are also course design institutes in US at level of individual course rather than the program Less attention has been paid to the process of developing the curriculum. In this paper we explore the adaption of a Change Academy approach, originally developed for teams from different institutions to develop learning and teaching initiatives, to supporting teams from different disciplines within the same institution (University of Saskatchewan) develop their curricula.
- Located in Canadian Plains – ‘Mid West’ of Canada
- One of U15 medical, doctoral, research-intensive universities in Canada c25,000 students
- Approach developed by HE Academy in UK as a year-long process to support teams from different HEIs develop and design learning and teaching initiatives, the core of which was a 4-day residential event. Teams involved a ‘diagonal slice’ including senior and junior staff and a student. Events facilitated by change consultants. Time was split between teams working independently on their project with the help of a consultant where needed, undertaking facilitated group activities, sharing experiences and issues with other teams, and some social networking activities. (Bradford, 2009)
- HE Academy model has been adopted and modified in a variety of ways, e.g. An institutional Change Academy (Flint & Oxley, 2009) A national discipline-based Change Academy in Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences 48 hour residential (Healey et al., 2012) A national topic-based Change Academy (e.g. recognition and reward for teaching; students as partners) (HE Academy, various) A national Leading Transformation in Learning and Teaching (LTLT) course over a year with three one or two day meetings over the year for individuals enacting their own initiatives (HE Academy and Leadership Foundation, led by Outram & Parkin, in 11th run). An international 3.5 day Change Institute focussed on Students as Partners, at least 2 faculty/staff and 2 students per team (led by Healey & Marquis, 3rd run next week)
- Replaced a less structured and less collaborative curriculum development support process provided to individual departments/programs Nine-month process involving a pilot of 4 teams of faculty, staff and students from different disciplines Teams met with consultant from Gwenna-Moss Centre for T&L prior to two day CA event to develop their Theory of Change (Handout) Two-day event (Handout) involved a mixture of: Team activities – Approaches to curriculum design; thinking creatively; project planning tools; sustainability and action planning Team sharing ideas and experiences – Liquid cafe Developing the design of their curriculum project with support of advisor Follow-up evaluation and continued support from advisor
- Based on meso-level social practice theory conceptions. Each department/workgroup has a particular set of practice, elements of which are often tacit. Bringing together folks to learn and work together can assist in shifting change rather than one or two people making change and then presenting it back where cultures may collide and not mesh, particularly when real change is sought. Also idea of involving students who have a very different and valuable perspective was key. Idea of collaboration across departments was to open up practice to see alternatives, stimulate ideas and enable folks describing their own program and approach and the rationale for it. This can enable making the tacit more explicit and open ideas for growth and change. -Ground in comparison to our previous curriculum support activities and our intent to: Build a team of people progressing curriculum work Shift/make explicit conceptions of curriculum underpinning the work – particularly focused on curriculum as a system of learning Provide opportunity for evidence based curriculum development with teams considering what approach would best fit with their development endeavors Strengthen opportunities for teams to access support for curricular work across the development process (human and financial resource) Support teams in engaging students as partners in curricular work Note that each objective is founded on the importance of developing a shared and explicit account of ‘goals’, theories of teaching and learning, language to describe approaches and outcomes, assumptions, and rules of appropriateness. Change in practice to match curricular developments cannot happen without consideration and dialogue about these shared elements shaping practice. The importance of including considerations of meso-level ‘culture’ in curriculum development processes is central to the approach undertaken here.
- Program logic model approach simply means setting our intended outcomes and then working back to determine what activities will allow us to get there as well as what resources are needed to undertake those activities. This also means you can look at what evidence will help you know if you have achieved your intended outcomes.
- 81% said Yes, participating in 2 day event did develop collaborative practice within the team - One team was very small – already quite established team collaboration. Other one, distributed sites from across the province, 2 day event helped bring the group together to all see they were contributing. For some this was their first opportunity to come together Latterly - You don’t need to get everybody on the same page. You just need everyone to agree that the current state is not where we want to be and to agree to learn collaboratively and explore and you don’t know what the outcomes are going to be but you’re going to agree to find them together. This sits awkwardly in organizations / institutions that are used to outlining the end point and get people there. Our challenge is now we think this is what our attributes are and we need everyone to be ok about the end product not necessarily being what we expect. It is not process based, it is agreeing not being here and moving forward Curriculum work can be lonely – this helped shift to a more connected, collaborative process Some even commented that the event helped them see curriculum work is possible, despite it not being rewarded through our institutional reward structures. Collaboration needs patience and work – takes time to bring people on board Also – noted that connection with other teams was very helpful so collaboration extended beyond ones own team – CA model was therefore quite useful to open up new ideas and conceptions of what could/should be done
- 87% said Yes – 2 day event it did enhance understanding of curriculum development From focus group: Curriculum has to be co-owned! Seeing other program teams ideas was very helpful Yes, by seeing the different programs. We may have come in with preconceptions and have blinkers on and this is how it has to be then you see the different ways people do things. Oh shit moments of how I thought was the right way and realizing this is not the case. For example, how to build a durable curriculum (linear and tick off the Gantt charts and done) but this is not the case in an academic environment. Has to be a genuine collaboration of a type. Has led me to reading and what collaboration is and expectations around it and how to get it to work and anything other will allow for failure. lack of durability. Not necessarily welcome realizations but necessary. Generally healthy to have different perspectives from different fields. If you are looking to facilitate real change and be innovative, specific things are normed in your organization / discipline, so it was good to have those outside perspectives. Also comments latterly about how little progress was made in the 2 days compared to what was expected. It is very hard doing collaborative work in the academic realm – effective, collaborative work is genuinely hard to get done.
- Going away from the idea of content and referring to it as first year graduate attributes, finish line instead of content presentation. A shift in the individual as opposed to the presentation of content information. Turns Curriculum change on its head - we have a clear defined finish line but we do not control who they are when they come in. This means the curriculum has to be adaptive. The content perspective is too simplistic. The CA was incomplete, but it was one of our first opportunities as a group to bond. Our Associate Dean was able to bond with us on those days and sit down and hash out details. Attribute focused and adaptive – beyond content There was somewhere that SENS talked about having developed core competencies that they are now using as touchstones in the curriculum development
- Felt that requirement was useful – would not have done otherwise. Could see value in their involvement but would not have had them there had it not been a requirement (outsider helpful us in getting this in!). Term co-creators was used – language that came from the change academy team
- The structure allowed teams to work with those that shared ideas of practice while challenging some through collaboration/discussion with other teams All were also appreciative of the chance to get back together for the focus group – helped them reflect and see where the other teams had gotten to – get new ideas as well!
- We will change some of what we do Interest in mapping out potential directions of curriculum change done locally as examples for consideration – grounded in theory but more practically oriented (what can/should we do, who should we speak to, how long might it take)
- -one students as partners became core -one, an expanded team became important -one, a more complex and slower process emerged – more collaborative and broad Part of this was our local team learning from Mick as an expert in this area – this was also achieved though understandably not apparent to the teams we worked with!