Workshop at ISSOTL 2018, Bergen, Norway

1. The unexamined curriculum is not worth teaching
(with apologies to Socrates)
Tansy Jessop and Claire Saunders
ISSOTL 2018, Bergen, Norway

2. 2
• Our context: who we are
• Your thoughts about curriculum (and a card game)
• Developing our framework: the process (more cards!)
• The theory behind the framework
• Bringing about culture change
• Tensions and how we might overcome them
The workshop

3. Who we are
• Mid-sized, applied,
modern university
• Maritime, Arts, Sports
• Teaching-focused
• 12,000 students
• 70% first generation
• Diverse, low income
• Upward trajectory

4. 4
Your main curriculum design challenges
Go to www.menti.com and use the code 80 59 03
Thinking about your context, write down three
words or phrases which sum up the curriculum
design challenges for you.

5. • You have 18 statements
about curriculum
• Agree 9 statements to
create your diamond 9
• Place your favourites
towards the top discard
your six least favourite
Curriculum: diamond 9

6. Curriculum (n) running, chariot, course

7. Balancing the WHAT, HOW and WHY
PRODUCT: structuring and managing content
(WHAT)
PROCESS: the lived experience (HOW)
PRAXIS: wider purpose of HE, social justice,
equality (WHY)

8. Curriculum is…
…complicated
conversation
…a verb
‘currere’
rather than a
noun
…an intellectual
rather than an
institutional or
bureaucratic pursuitWilliam Pinar

9. So why a curriculum framework?
• Make a difference to the student experience
• …in a consistent and systematic way
• …but not in a strait-jacket
• Articulate shared educational purpose
• Identify what makes us special and how we want
to grow and develop
• Develop a more thoughtful and theoretical
approach to curriculum design

10. A world awash with curriculum
frameworks…

11. Bombs away!
Top down, bottom up, student-centred
This is an exciting
creative change process
with students at the
centre
PVC Osama Khan
It must improve
the student
experience. I
am backing you
all the way!
DVC Julie Hall
New
Curriculum
framework

12. Stage 1: Generating the framework
• Solent ‘distinctives’
• Aspirations
• Lived experience
• Other models

13. Where did we begin?

14. Consultation
(not just another brick in the wall)
 900
comments
 Responses to
7 dimensions
 Mainly from
students

15. Consultation: 9 x curriculum cafes
(n= 143/182 academic)
• 62 Kiviat charts
• 65 individual
reflections
• 373 coloured cards
• 73 typed pages of
ethnographic field-
notes

16. 1 6
• What would you want to see in a curriculum
framework at your university?
• Write down three crucial things: one per card
• Thematically analyse responses
Card activity

17. 1 7
Thematic analysis: Part 1

18. 1 8
Thematic analysis: Part 2

19. 1 9
Thematic analysis: Part 3

20. S L T C C 2 0 1 8 2 0
So, I’ve been thinking about all this data we have so helpfully generated for
ourselves. I think we have the following:
• a few hundred Curriculum Wall quotes
• more pieces of coloured card than I’ve ever seen in my life
• a whole bunch of kiviat charts with pretty shapes on them
• half the professional services and a few academics’ thoughts about the
new curriculum framework
• less completed online questionnaires than we might have hoped for
• a set of random images of diamond nines (on various people’s portable
devices)
• pages…and pages…and pages…and pages…of ethnographic field notes
The analysis should be a piece of cake, eh (or, more accurately, will require the
consumption of large amounts of cake along the way).
A lot of data

21. Thematic analysis of n=373 cards

22. Thematic analysis: first cut

23. Theory behind the framework
• Balancing knowing, acting and being (Barnett
and Coate 2004)
• Significant learning (Fink 2003)
• Intellectual journeys (Perry 1998; Baxter-
Magolda 2001)
• Personal knowing (Polanyi 1954;1966; Palmer
1983)

24. What’s your university/discipline
emphasis?
• Knowing is about selecting
and understanding key
concepts in the discipline
• Acting is about becoming a
historian, actor, engineer, or
philosopher
• Being is about understanding
yourself, orienting yourself
and relating your knowledge
and action to the world
Knowing
Being
Acting

25. Entering society’s important conversations…
.

26. L.D. Fink (2003)
Creating significant
learning
experiences: an
integrated approach
to course design on
college courses
Significant Learning (Fink 2003)

27. Learning how to learn
Caring
Human dimension
Integration
Application
Foundational knowledge: Topics A, B, C, D, E, F, G,
H, I…
The learning-
centred
paradigm
pushes
teaching and
learning in
this
direction,
into multiple
dimensions
of learning
The content-centred paradigm pushes teaching and
learning in this direction, along one dimension of
learning
Content vs learning-oriented (Fink 2003)

28. Intellectual development in a nutshell
Model Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4
Perry Dualism Multiplicity Relativism Commitment
Baxter
Magolda
Absolute
Knowledge
Transitional Independent
Contextual
self-
authorship

29. 2 9
Personal knowing

30. 3 0
Solent’s real world curriculum

31. 3 1
How would you map your curriculum?

32. 3 2
Chatting time
Talk to a partner:
Which one of the dimensions:
a. excites you?
b. puzzles you?
c. what might this look like in your discipline?

33. P R E S E N T A T I O N T I T L E – G O T O I N S E R T > H E A D E R & F O O T E R T O E D I T T H I S T E X T 3 3
Work with quality
Flow chart!
The Curriculum Flowchart

34. P R E S E N T A T I O N T I T L E – G O T O I N S E R T > H E A D E R & F O O T E R T O E D I T T H I S T E X T 3 4
Making it happen: reviewing all courses

35. P R E S E N T A T I O N T I T L E – G O T O I N S E R T > H E A D E R & F O O T E R T O E D I T T H I S T E X T 3 5
Curriculum Framework
Workshop 2:
Vision, ideas,
philosophy

36. P R E S E N T A T I O N T I T L E – G O T O I N S E R T > H E A D E R & F O O T E R T O E D I T T H I S T E X T 3 6
CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK
WORKSHOP 3

37. Listen and write
Talk to a partner about your unit, as if they are a student. Tell
them:
• What is novel and exciting and significant about the unit
• What they will learn and become through the unit
• How they will learn and be assessed
• What knowledge and capability they will take away from it
• How it links to industry and to other units on the degree
PARTNER: Please jot down key words while they talk.

38. The old unit descriptor

39. The new unit descriptor

40. Are we there yet?

41. Tensions
• Quality assurance and enhancement
• Consistency or creativity?
• Compliance culture or culture change?
• Cynicism or hope?
• Initiative fatigue or excitement?
• Slow professor thinking or routine thinking?
• Generic dogma or disciplinary expertise?
• New wine in old wine skins…?

42. Can the caged bird fly out?

43. References
Barnett, R. and Coate, K. 2004. Engaging the curriculum in higher education.
Maidenhead: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University
Press.
Baxter-Magolda, M. 2001. Making their own way: Narratives for
transforming Higher Education to promote self-development.
Davies, Mark 2017. Developing 'A Personal Knowing': A Grounded Theory
Study. PhD. University of South Wales.
Fink, L. Dee 2013. Creating significant learning experiences: an integrated
approach to course design on college courses.
Palmer, P. 1983. To know as we are known: Education as a Spiritual Journey.
HarperOne.
Perry, W. 1998. Forms of Ethical Intellectual Development in the College
Years: A Scheme.
Polanyi, M. 1966. The Tacit Dimension. Chicago. University of Chicago Press.
Polanyi, M. 1958. Personal Knowledge: towards a post-critical philosophy.