Curriculum Transformation Phase 1 Part 2

Course A:

Stakeholder engagement has allowed us to reflect on feedback from students, staff, alumni and industry, in order to highlight some of the top priorities for the department moving forward. Our goals are:

to reduce the summative assessment burden both exams and laboratory (e.g. in 2018/19 we will run ca. 70 exams). Formative assessment will be designed into the course to enhance learning and skills components. We will champion assessment-for-learning throughout the course and involve students more in the learning process.
to fundamentally embed research skills of real-world relevance within our teaching across all years. For first/second year we will gradually increase the focus on research skills in our laboratory teaching mobilising students to solve problems, once practical competence has been developed. As an extension of this, we will also increase student exposure to (for example) the patent literature and what is involved in commercialisation.
to adopt a completely holistic approach to the course. This will be achieved by breaking down the silos of “delivery then assessment” with more cross-sectional teaching to appropriately reflect the interdisciplinary nature of [Subject].
to develop all courses in a manner that embeds workplace-relevant graduate skills, thereby preparing students for both employment within [Subject] and for careers in non-[Subject] sectors. As well as creativity approaches to problem solving skills may include coding and entrepreneurship.
to work with students to ensure their perspectives are considered.

Course B:

Following stakeholder engagement, the top priority for our whole department will be to work with students and members of CLT to determine how to make our feedback provision for students more effective across all of our courses, including utilising self- and peer-assessment, as well as online tools, which will also help to alleviate staff workload. All assessments will be designed in line with [Professional Body] accreditation requirements, but these requirements will encourage us to take a course-wide approach to developing our transformed curricula, helping us to prevent redundancy in assessment or overlapping summative deadlines. One consideration is exploring the diversification of our assessments in an attempt to reflect the real world application of [Subject] skills, and remain inclusive in our assessment approach. An area we are keen to expand on is the development of the department’s use of peer assessment and peer-assisted learning, which will further increase the importance of students as co-creators of our curricula. Strategies to make aspects of research engaged teaching beyond projects will also be investigated, as will the provision of effective personal tutoring.

Course C:

...Due to significant changes within the [sector] and the global landscape after the global financial crisis, there is an increased need for the programme to address the ethical aspects of [practice] through both subject knowledge and graduate attributes. Therefore, whilst we are currently successful in delivering comprehensive theoretical [subject] knowledge, the new programme will be designed to incorporate content [examples included] which promotes graduate attributes linked to global citizenship and sustainability.

Course D:

Reflecting on the stakeholder engagement and feedback, the new programme will have a simplified structure for core content. [Subject] units will be consolidated across the semesters while core [subject] units will be consolidated within semesters...

...The transformed structure will also allow us to achieve a reduction in summative assessment while offering greater opportunities for formative assessment. Furthermore, the needs of both students and employers could be addressed through a greater variety in types of assessment (e.g. group work, presentation). Accordingly, it will enable us to deliver a programme which focuses on the student journey and will also be more closely aligned with key graduate attributes. This will also enable the embedding development of the key transferable soft skills, which have been highlighted by the relevant stakeholders.

Learning and Teaching Hub @Bath

Curriculum Transformation Phase 1 Part 2

Part 2: Reflection and Evaluation of Information Gathered

Exemplar text for 2B Course Vision: linking vision to stakeholder engagement/data

Principles Heat Map Exercise