Presentation for a Curriculum Colloquium organised by the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning (CHERTL) at Rhodes University, South Africa. Explains the CDI curriculum development process and an evaluation of it.

5. CDIs: A team-based
curriculum development
approach
Dr Greg Benfield
Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development
Oxford Brookes University
Rhodes University, South
Africa, Curriculum Colloquium
17 Nov 2010

6. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Overview of this session
Part 1:
CDIs: where they come from, aims and intent,
what happens in them
Questions and discussion
Part 2:
Evaluation: method, findings (what seems to work)
Challenges: evolution of the approach,
‘transferability’
Questions and discussion

7. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Background
• Educational development and e-Learning
strategy development (Oxford Brookes
University)
• JISC Learner Experiences of e-Learning
Synthesis and Support Project
(http://mw.brookes.ac.uk/display/JISCle2/Home)
• Higher Education Academy Pathfinder Student
Experience of E-Learning at Oxford Brookes
Project
(http://mw.brookes.ac.uk/display/GR001/Evaluation)

8. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Course Redesign Intensives
• encourage multi-professional, curriculum design teams
• focus resources on high impact developments
• speed up development times
• cascade e-learning design expertise into academic
schools (Benfield 2008)

9. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development
CDI processes elsewhere
• Higher Education Academy Pathfinder Course
Design projects
• CHEETAH, University of Leicester
• Cable Transfer, University of Hertfordshire
• HEA Pathfinder CDIs for University of Brighton
Also,
• Gilly Salmon’s Carpe Diem (Salmon et al 2008)
• Higher Education Academy’s Change Academy

10. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development CDI Principles
1. Working in extended teams
(typically including learning technologist, educational
developer, subject librarian, etc)
2. Challenging assumptions about the curriculum
(confrontation, exposure to ‘better, alternative
conceptions’ (Ho 2000))
3. Building and iteratively improving designs using
peer review
(Teachers tend to validate new approaches by adopting
them (Eraut 1994)

11. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development The CDI process

12. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Online CDI resources
(via Brookes wiki)
Downloadable:
• Presentations
• Handouts
• Planners
• Checklists
• Frameworks

13. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development
Any questions or
discussion about the CDI
process?

14. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Evaluating the CDIs*
3 framing questions:
• what pre-requisites are required for individuals,
groups and/or institutions to gain benefit from
the CDIs?
• what activities and/or elements are most
effective in the CDI process?
• what are the main indicators of success of the
CDIs?
*See Dempter (2008)

15. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Data and analysis
5 years of CDI workshop data
• reports
• workshop feedback
• images captured in workshops
• representations of designs
and
• in-depth interviews (9 CDI participants across 6
programme teams)
Analysis:
• inductive, interpretative, themes, categories
• insights and ways to improve practice

16. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Scope of the CDIs
At the time of our evaluation:
• 200+ staff, 35 course teams, 3 institutions have
attended CDIs since Dec 2003
(Approximately 70 of these, representing around
15 course teams, were not Oxford Brookes)
• Typical examples include
• whole school of Health and Social Care to high level
engagement in e-Learning in 1 year
• Fully online MA School of Built Environment)
• Since then over 200 Brookes staff in CDIs for
assessment redesign, plus smaller numbers for
e-learning

17. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Factors influencing
participation
1. Management imperative
(e.g. new or renewed courses to address
financial pressure, modernisation, new
recruitment patterns, new markets, etc)
2. Personal and professional development
(learn new skills, look at different approaches,
address educational problems like workload)

18. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Effective activities in CDIs
1. Allocating resources to curriculum planning
(time to plan, expertise on hand, license to
innovate)
2. CDI design and facilitation
(new ideas, expertise, ‘time to play and try
things out’, concrete objectives)
3. Sharing ideas
(sharing practice and debating ideas, re-
examining core purposes and approaches,
critical friends)

19. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Designing…
… & building is integral

20. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development

21. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development

22. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development

23. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Critical friends
“I think the idea of us having to
explain our proposal to other
people and defend it, and deal with
their comments, that was useful.”

24. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Peer review (critical friends)
promoting
iterative design &
development
utilising peer and
student
feedback
(Sharpe et al 2006)
Sharpe, R., Benfield, G., Roberts, G. and Francis, R. (2006). "The undergraduate
experience of blended e-learning: a review of UK literature and practice undertaken for
the Higher Education Academy." [Online] Retrieved 3 October, from
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/ourwork/research/literature_reviews/blend
ed_elearning_full_review.pdf

25. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development

26. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Perceptions of success
1. Tangible deliverables
(validation documents, exemplar learning
activities, etc)
2. Confidence and ownership
(“probably the buy in from staff and that staff
have kind of been empowered”)
3. Conceptual change
(“I went in thinking I don’t want to this really, I
haven’t got the skills, coming away thinking this
will be good, this is going to be a good way for
students to learn”)

27. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Perceptions of success (2)
4. Building networks
(“The workshops allowed teams of staff to
attend from different schools across the
University and this was supportive and
stimulating … and to get a bigger picture of
what was happening.”)

28. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development Challenges
• Time
• to involve multi-professional teams
• involve e-Learning/educational experts
• Evaluate (especially the student experience)
• ‘Experts’ willing to share
• Iterative, evidence-informed redesign that
actively uses peer and learner feedback
• Management buy-in
• Working at programme level
• Licence to innovate
• Transferability?
• External environment

29. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development
https://mw.brookes.ac.uk/display/CDIs/

30. Oxford Centre for Staff and
Learning Development References
Benfield, G. (2008a). ‘e-Learning Course Design Intensives: disrupting the
norms of curriculum design’. Educational Developments (9.4), pp 20-22.
Dempster, J. (2008). 'External Evaluation for Oxford Brookes Course Design
Intensives (CDIs).' [Online] Retrieved 6 November 2008, from
https://mw.brookes.ac.uk/display/CDIs/CDI+Evaluation.
Eraut, M. (1994). Developing professional knowledge and competence.
London, Routledge.
Ho, A. S. P. (2000). ‘A conceptual change approach to staff development: A
model for programme design’. International Journal for Academic
Development 5(1).
Salmon, G., Jones, S. & Armellini, A. (2008). ‘Building Institutional Capability in
E-learning Design’, ALT-J 16 (2), pp. 95-109.