The document discusses the competing pressures faced when designing higher education curriculums, using Birmingham City University's English curriculum redesign as a case study. At the institutional level, BCU's academic plan focused on excellence, practice-led learning, employability, and internationalization. Externally, the higher education sector prioritizes competition, regulatory frameworks, employability, and metrics. Within the subject of English, considerations included disciplinary identity, integrating skills development, and relevance given external priorities. The redesign translated these contexts by involving stakeholders, integrating quality benchmarks, revising assessments, improving transitions, and embedding employability opportunities. Lessons learned included improved retention but an ongoing need for evaluation and responsiveness.

1. THE COMPETING PRESSURES OF CURRICULUM DESIGN IN HE:
INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS, DISCIPLINARY CONTEXTS,
AND THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE
Dr Robert Lawson
Dr Sarah Wood
School of English
Birmingham City University
Friday 16th November 2018
SEDA 23rd Annual Conference

2. BACKGROUND CONTEXT
➤ 2015 University-wide curriculum refresh
➤ Introduction of BCU Academic Plan.
➤ Emerges out of BCU Strategic Plan.
➤ Mission: ‘To transform the prospects of individual, organisations,
and society through excellence in practice-based education,
research and knowledge-exchange.’
➤ Four pillars of the strategic plan: Transforming Students,
Transforming Birmingham and the Region, Transforming Practice
and Transforming the University

3. OUTLINE
➤ Setting: Overview of three levels of contexts:
➤ Institution
➤ HE sector
➤ Subject sector
➤ Objective: To translate these contexts at local level into an English
curriculum that was meaningful to us and our students.
➤ Post-implementation: Lessons learned.
➤ Group discussion (10 minutes)
➤ Feedback and open discussion (10 minutes).

4. ➤ BCU’s curriculum design
didn’t occur in isolation, but
was rather embedded within
the broader context of HE
and subject-specific
concerns.
➤ More specifically, these
contexts comprise:
➤ Institutional guidance;
➤ Changes in the wider HE
landscape;
➤ Subject-specific knowledge
and skills.
CURRICULUM REDESIGN AT BCU

5. ➤ Academic Plan Philosophy: ‘Birmingham City University will pursue
excellence by providing practice-led, knowledge-applied education
that is interdisciplinary, employability-driven and internationalised.’
➤ Key pillars: pursuing excellence, practice-led, knowledge-applied,
interdisciplinarity, employability-driven, internationalisation.
➤ Graduate Attributes: ‘A BCU graduate is: professional and work-
ready, a creative problem solver, enterprising, and has a global
outlook.’
➤ Direct response to BCU Strategic Plan: portfolio, progression and
retention, student support, employment, student satisfaction,
student engagement.
➤ KPIs: overall student satisfaction, continuer rates, completion and
attainment, percentage of students in full-time employment after 6
months.
LEVEL 1: INSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

6. LEVEL 2: HE AND EXTERNAL FRAMEWORK
➤ Competition.
➤ Regulatory Environment: HEFCE (OfS), Competitions and
Marketing Authority.
➤ ‘Value for Money’.
➤ Employer rhetoric.
➤ Metrics – NSS, DHLE/LEO (Graduate Outcomes), TEF.

7. LEVEL 3: SUBJECT ISSUES
➤ Subject identity and culture is
‘contextually realized’.
➤ QAA benchmarks are explicitly
positioned as ‘reference points in
the design, delivery and review of
academic programmes.’
➤ How students learn (previous
ex p e r i e n c e / A L e v e l s ) a n d
integrating different approaches to
teaching.
➤ Relevance of non-vocational
subject given ‘value for money’
narrative.
➤ Curriculum review must address
subject specific developments and
wider HE contexts.

8. TRANSLATING PRESSURES
➤ In the second part of the presentation, we discuss how we
translated the contexts set out in section 1 into a curriculum that
was meaningful to us and our students.
➤ In this section, we focus on:
➤ Learning from the outgoing programme;
➤ Stakeholder involvement;
➤ Integration of QAA benchmarks;
➤ Assessment, scaffolded learning;
➤ Transitions - entries, jumps, and exits;
➤ Embedded employability, work placements, and interdisciplinary
collaborative opportunities.

9. LEARNING FROM THE PAST
➤ Main problems with previous incarnation of the BA.
➤ Transition from secondary to tertiary (skills, mindset, engagement);
➤ Progression from L4 > L5 (became less of a problem between L5 >
L6 and to graduation);
➤ Core first year structure and cohort identity.
➤ Solutions.
➤ Long transition period starting before enrolment (online
engagement opportunities, Facebook freshers page etc);
➤ Assessment - more frequent formative tasks, fewer assessment
points;
➤ Core subject modules for each discipline within English;
➤ Embedding skills/subject/employability-based modules at key
stages;
➤ Optionality in S2 at level 4(increasing engagement and
commitment).

10. STAKEHOLDER INVOLVEMENT
➤ Held meetings with a range of stakeholders, including employers,
local businesses, alumni, and current students.
➤ Students valued academic support, expert knowledge of academic
staff, module choice at level 5 and development of graduate
attributes, but wanted to see changes in programme structure,
more embedded employability and more choice at level 4.
➤ Employers valued ‘work-ready’ graduates, flexibility of skills,
curiosity and willingness to learn, and problem-solving abilities.
➤ Needed to align these requests to the academic framework and
curriculum content.

11. ➤ Reviewed and integrated QAA benchmarks from the Subject
Benchmark Statements for English, Linguistics, and Creative Writing,
which broadly fell into four categories:
1. Knowledge and understanding
2. Cognitive and intellectual skills
3. Practical and professional skills
4. Key transferable skills
➤ Stable reference point against which all modules learning
outcomes were written.
QAA AND SUBJECT BENCHMARKS

12. ASSESSMENT AND COLLABORATION
➤ Too many assessment points; too many similar assessments (e.g.
essay based); lack of cohesion across and within modules;
assessments failed to account for different learning styles and
approaches.
➤ Underpinning design principle - assessment rationale to be clearly
linked to learning outcomes and QAA benchmarks.
➤ Redesign of assessments at all levels and integrated a variety of
assessment strategies (essays, presentations, posters, practice- and
employability-based, portfolios, collaborative opportunities).
➤ Increased formative assessments and scaffolded learning
opportunities.
➤ Wanted to develop opportunities for students to become skilled in
particular areas (research, evaluation and analysis, verbal and written
communication, reflection, etc).

13. TRANSITION: MOVING INTO UNIVERSITY
➤ Previous transition arrangements (based on HEA What Works
programme) weren’t embedded into the curriculum.
➤ Reviewed transition strategy for L4 (extracurricular focus, skills
audits using potential.ly, Level Up tasks embedded in L4 modules,
Welcome Week sessions on skills, mindsets, study approaches etc,
scaffolded learning, formative assessments).
➤ Integrated curriculum and knowing what each module was doing
at key points in the year (content complementarity).

14. EMBEDDED OPPORTUNITIES
➤ The school has always had good DHLE outcomes but wanted to
improve graduate level outcomes (both part of DHLE/LEO).
➤ New curriculum allows students to choose either work experience
or collaborative practice module (L5) and Major Project module
(L6), simulating the ‘work environment’ and scaffolding
development.
➤ Embedded employabilty in all modules, giving students the means
to articulate this to prospective employers (e.g. reflective
commentaries, assessment method and rationale, assessment
outputs etc).
➤ Subject-level skills are professional skills.

15. LESSONS LEARNED
➤ Increase in retention and progression in L4 students in 17/18.
➤ Students report stronger sense of cohort identity, community
belonging, and student buy-in/ownership.
➤ Nevertheless, ongoing evaluation of programme is required.
➤ Already made curriculum changes through reviewing student
attainment and engagement in one module at L4 in 17/18, and
introduced ongoing assessment/inclusive assessment - an agile
curriculum is valuable.
➤ Some limitations and problems:
➤ Timeframe for implementation;
➤ Addressing student mental health and ‘value for money’;
➤ Forward thinking enough?

16. GROUP DISCUSSION (10 MINUTES)
➤ How should academics respond to the competing (and changing)
demands set out by different stakeholders?
➤ What balance should be sought between external, institutional and
subject-specific expectations?
➤ How can we embed skill development in the curriculum?
➤ How can academic staff involved in curriculum design be
supported at an institutional and disciplinary level?
➤ What are likely to be the future trends in curriculum development
and how can the sector best prepare itself?
➤ How (and when) do we evaluate programme effectiveness and
which measures do we focus on?

17. FEEDBACK AND REFLECTIONS (10 MINUTES)
➤ Feedback from each group.
➤ Key points;
➤ Reflections on curriculum design;
➤ Suggestions, questions, comments.