Key outcome area #2 Innovation in Teaching & LearningFaculty Academic CommitteesAugust 2009

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Key outcome areas 4. Meeting the needs of communities

3. Enhancing the student experience

2. Innovation in teaching & learning

1. Being an excellent business

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Development timeline• August: feedback from

Faculty Academic Committees

• 15 September: approval by Academic Board

• 1 December: revised policy on Program Approval to Academic Board for approval

• 5 May: level 2 managers, including heads of departments

• 5 June: level 3 staff, including program directors

• 25 June: updated Powerpoint sent to all attendees for wider use

• 4 August: Academic Board endorsement in principle

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Academic Strategy – June 2008, May 2009

Unitec will have • An institutional culture in

which innovation and enterprise are expected and rewarded.

 We are committed to • Being student-centred in all

our services and activities• Ensuring that the principles of

Te Noho Kotahitanga inform all our activities

• Understanding and responding effectively to the needs of Pacific peoples

• Access and equity.

Our provision will • Educate people for work, in

work and through work. • Be delivered through flexible

study pathways • Include excellent academic

and pastoral support.  With our stakeholders we will • Have active and responsive

interaction with industry, professional and community groups to shape content, curricula and delivery modes.

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Our curricula will • Demonstrate a commitment

to open inquiry • Adopt a multiplicity of

approaches and ways of being

• Be based on ‘practice-focused’ educational experiences that are▫ contextualised and

situated in practice, ▫ interdisciplinary, ▫ founded on and advancing

current practice, ▫ theoretically grounded as

well as guided, and ▫ both creative and critical

• Promote collaborative learning

• Value equitable, socially just and ethical practice

• Have integrated approaches to ▫ academic literacies as a

foundation for learning,▫ innovative assessment, ▫ e-learning content and

support.

Our teaching will • Be research-informed and

inquiry-led • Acknowledge the reciprocity

of teaching and research.

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Our graduates will • Acquire a balance between

specific, current content and lifelong learning capabilities.

• Achieve career-enhancing educational outcomes which are critically conceptualised and practiced.

• Have the knowledge, skills and attributes to face the challenges of the future and to live in a multi-cultural world

• Have a capacity to contribute positively to society, manage their own careers and function competently in changing environments.

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Auckland 2060 (Oram, 2009) – underpinning themes

• Change and uncertainty• creativity and innovation • sustainability• cultural and social

diversity and change• technological change

including information technologies automating aspects of decision making

• integrated thinking, planning and action

• expanded human communication

• collaboration, collaborative leadership, and collective knowledge

• knowledge versus adding value to knowledge

• convergence and interdependency, complexity and inter-disciplinarity

• flexibility and adaptability, and resilience

• fairness.

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Our task• Reconceptualise programs as living curricula rather than

as collections of courses• reframe learning as conversation• deliver programs that are integrated with the world and

are genuinely dynamic• nurture resourcefulness and resilience, and• enhance, therefore, graduate outcomes.

We define the curriculum not as the information content (or syllabus)

of the program, but rather as the program learning experience.

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* Living curricula involve conversationsConversations • with (and among) teachers • among students – face-to-face and on-line – with class

peers and with others • with practitioners• with partners – Te Noho Kotahitanga, employers• with texts – what is the text saying? what do we have to

say about the text? • with self – critical self-reflection.

Research plays an important role in these conversations because findings add new voices, and the teacher’s

engagement in the research process brings energy to classroom curiosity and inquiry.

 

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A simplification tool

S.H.E•Shrink•Hide•Embody

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* Living curricula – draft definition

• involve complicated conversations

• are curiosity/inquiry led, and stimulating

• are practice-focussed – educating students ‘for work, in work, through work’

• are socially constructed – self-sufficiency and collaboration are equally valued, and together they help nurture resourcefulness and resilience

• blend face-to-face and web-based learning

• are research-informed• have a discipline base, and

are also interdisciplinary • develop literacies for life-

long learning • include embedded

assessment.

Note: Living curricula still deliver to the graduate profile and course aims

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* Conversations about:• Prior knowledge and

experiences• Goals and expectations• Helping each other• Resources and

resourcefulness• Inquiry• Disciplinary knowledge• Adding value to

knowledge• Workplace practice• Technologies• Change and uncertainty

• Ethical conduct• Research findings• Cultural and social

diversity• Maori perspectives• Sustainability• Opportunities – including

those at the intersections between disciplines

• The meaning of assessment outcomes

• What comes next

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Core relationship

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Barnett & Coate (2005)

• The student has to be given ‘curriculum space’ instead of being ‘boxed in’

(p.125)

• ‘[a] curriculum has to become like so many ultra-modern buildings, full of light and open spaces, different textures, shapes and relationships and arrangements for serendipitous encounters’

(p.129)

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Curricula are ‘living’ because• they are not designed then enacted.• Experiences and pursuits are driven by curiosity and

questions (why does ...? what if ...?) that arise within the learning process and lead to inquiry.

• Students thus participate in curriculum design within the program.

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The way forwardCurriculum redesign (& program redevelopment)

Practice/ culture development

• Renew curricula to give life to the requirements of this shift – a 3 year transition

Many programs already have a ‘living curriculum’. These

will provide models that help show the way.

• Instituting story-telling• Establishing communities

of practice• Encouraging & rewarding

creativity and risk-taking• Making professional

development accountable

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Evaluation• Award for engaging/innovative programs (cf Heart

Foundation tick)

• Snapshot tests – eg: ▫ What is expected of you in this course?▫ What are you doing, and why?▫ What do you do when you don’t understand what’s going on? ▫ How does this course fit into your overall program?▫ What do your achievements mean?

• Survey of ‘student engagement’ – AUSSE• Survey of employer satisfaction

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First cab off the rank• Graduate Diploma

in Higher Education ▫ to be rebuilt from scratch ▫ user-centred design

methodology – facilitated by Dept of Design & Visual Arts staff

▫ studio approach – public, collaborative, critique

▫ will embody and support Unitec’s strategic direction

• Stage 1: Design brief• Stage 2: Design Team

prototyping• Stage 3: Testing –

meetings with user (teachers) and end-user (student) groups

• Stage 4: Further design – user endorsement required before starting work on the program document

• Stage 5: first new courses ready for February 2010

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LIVING CURRICULA

Conversation

L'e'arning Literacies, Research

Embedded assessment

Disciplines/Multi-disciplinary collaboration, Practice

Progressive Learning Diversity Co-created education Immersion Real Inventive

Highly productive talent

^^^ Reframing learning

Meeting community needs ^^^

Enhancing student learning experience

^^^ Teaching & Learning

innovation

Academic Strategy:

Graduateness

Auckland 2060:

Resourcefulness and resilience

Institutional curriculum development Curriculum studio User-centred design

Organisational / Capability Development Project Action Research

o Ako Aotearoa funding

Learning Commons

Practice/culture shifts

Accountable professional development

eg: New Graduate Diploma/Cert

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