14th Global Conference on Business & Economics ISBN : 9780974211428
DESIGNING A CREATIVE CURRICULUM: A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH
Andrea Benn, Business School, University of Brighton,
Andrea Benn is a senior lecturer with the Business School and is the course leader for BSc (Hons) Business Management. Recent research interests include developing e-learning pedagogies that influence student engagement and in 2014 achieved Senior Fellow status with the Higher Education Academy.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Widening Participation Outreach Group, University of Brighton. Sponsors of the project, the subject of this paper.
ABSTRACT
Purpose: This project will explore the potential of online tasters for traditional undergraduate degree courses to influence student engagement, widen participation and improve understanding about the expectations and requirements for higher education study.
Design: The project will be in two stages. Phase one will include the design, develop and trial a prototype, incorporating the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) concept. MOOCs provide open access to learning materials, creating a flexible study environment for people around the globe. Participants are able to access course notes, watch lectures online and discuss issues with fellow e-learners for free, giving a unique insight into a subject and an institution’s approach.
In phase two, empirical evidence gathered from our initial investigation will inform and support the development of an online course aimed at potential applicants for The Business School undergraduate courses. If successful the model will be customised and offered for roll out throughout the University.
Limitations: Phase one has been designed and is ready for release in September 2015 but the results are limited to the development team’s evaluation.
Practical implications: The learning curve for the project team is the development of fully online materials, to visualise what they would look like, how to communicate their purpose and message, understand our Institution’s expectations and develop IT skills by usingan open course platformand identifying any limitations. Finally, to gain idea of how long we would need in terms of development hours and how this would impact on our already busy work schedules.
KEYWORDS: Student engagement; widening participation; expectations, curriculum design, prototypes, learning environments.
INTRODUCTION
Laurillard (2012) reminds us that teaching is recognised as being an art “because it demands creativity and imagination” while cautioning that learners need to “develop their personal knowledge and capabilities”.
Such was the challenge for my colleagues and I when I invited them to join me in a project that originally,and may be ultimately, was looking to develop a MOOC. Inspired by a paper presented by colleagues from Northampton University who had designed a MOOC for release prior to enrolment but validated as part of a post graduate course, I approached my own colleagues with a similar idea but with our undergraduate applicants in mind and a rationale for influencing student engagement.
As a Course Leader I have a responsibility to prepare an Academic Health report that responds to External Examinersand National Student Surveys (NSS). The last report (2013/14) identified a growing perception of students not engaging sufficiently with their studies and feedback from the NSS during 2013 and 2014 indicated that students were themselves raising concerns over the commitment and engagement from some of their peers.
My proposal was to design a learning environment that would offer a positive and effective experience in order to influence the epistemological beliefs of prospective students before we have had a chance to meet them. The outcome therefore may be that their beliefs are reinforced, or maybe changed and possibly in some cases a realisation that they are not ready or willing to change.
The aim of the development therefore was to provide opportunities for prospective students to experience the level of commitment they will be required to undertake before they apply and enrol for 3 or more years. Likely objectives would be to:
· Demonstrate expectations of student engagement through completion of individual and group activities;
· Gauge the students’ transition prior to their arrival at University;
· Improve student retention by illustrating the expectations of HE and providing opportunities for making a few friends before they join.
Initial investigations found that this proposal was the first within this Institution, but that there was already a policy stating that no MOOC development would be considered without the consent from the Centre for Learning & Teaching (CLT). I also discovered that our Learning Technology Advisers (LTAs) had purchased a MOOC platform but had not received permission to explore its benefits.
Having approached my immediate colleagues and found that all received my proposal with excitement and a willingness to contribute, two colleagues offered some wise words of caution, namely that a MOOC would take a lot of careful planning, collaboration and development time, so before agreeing to anything, what would I be able to offer in terms of time and space for that development. It was a good reflective point and led to the formation of a prototype, the subject of this paper.
METHODOLOGY
It is intended that the project will be in two phases, the first to design and trial a prototype in order to understand the longer-term implications for the organisation. The prototype is to be designed as a controlled environment, offered only to a small cohort of students who have agreed to trial the activities.
The benefits of this approach include the “means to communicate the idea to others” (Yang & Epstein, 2005) in this case, offering reassurance to colleagues that full consideration is given to ensuring that standards are upheld in respect of branding and marketing at the design stage of the project. Students will also be requested to complete a qualitative evaluation before any response from us is received regarding their submission, asking what they liked/disliked, whether they had any expectations beforehand, what they were and if/how they have been met and how each of the learning outcomes has been met for them as an individual.
For the project team also it provides a learning process and an opportunity for creating knowledge. Gerber and Carroll (2011) explain how people construct new knowledge through observations which lead to insights that can support frameworks and inspire ideas that lead to innovative solutions. In this context it is about understanding the practical implications from the outset of the design, its implementation and the monitoring of activities to be delivered beyond the normal boundaries of the University.
Specifically it is intended to offer a comfortable environment for colleagues to experimentand to remove the feelings of uncertainty in order to encourage ideas, discuss new pedagogical concepts, trial new technologies and collaborate with colleagues from other departments. All colleagues will be required to complete an evaluation identifying their own learning points and comments for further development.
The project team is representative of subject academics from the Business School, a Learning Technology Adviser and an academic from the Centre for Learning and Teaching. All bring varying degrees of knowledge and experience of developing online materials and all will be monitoring their own skills development and embedding all improvements into their own teaching practices.Classified by Ullman (2003) as a “proof-of-production” prototype, this should provide some empirical evidenceto support the proposal for the second phase. The initial design was influenced by a review of the literature around the areas of student engagement, transition and MOOCs. The analytical tools embedded within the software will allow the team to gather quantitative data to identify how the activities have been used by the students, the frequency and completion rates.
The second phase willstill bedeveloped as a controlled learning environment rather than an ‘open online course’ and only offered to anybody who wishes to become an applicant for an undergraduate degree in the Business School. This is where the concept of a MOOC will help with the design, at this point we will not expect to know who has applied, or how many and therefore the group activities will need to reflect this and it will need to be able to accommodate new students joining the course as the application process progresses.
If phase two is successful then it is envisaged that the framework will be offered to other Schools and adapted for their own specialist subjects. This stage is scheduled to coincide with the start of the 2015/16 academic year.
Phase One Project Objectives
To develop a prototype online taster for a traditional undergraduate degree course to:
· give unique insight to potential applicants about requirements and expectations
· create a positive and effective learning experience to influence the epistemological beliefs of prospective students
· enable potential students to make well-informed decisions about their readiness and willingness to engage in higher education
and to understand the following longer-term implications relating to:
· branding and marketing
· skills development when designing online resources
· collaboration opportunities within the University, in particular with technology support
· design practicalities, implementation and monitoring
THE MOOC CONCEPT
MOOCs have been highlighted as “transformational disruption”(Billsberry, 2013) with high-ranking universities being cited as leaders in their development, leaving others to wonder whether this is just another fad or something to be taken more seriously.
In the UK the Open University (OU) is the outstanding leader as a provider of online courses, and with the barrier to entry set to an exemplary high level, it is no wonder other HEIs have not been tempted to compete.
The aim of this prototype is not to sell or market our courses but to highlight and communicate our expectations for all undergraduate students, which is that they will assume greater responsibility for their own learning. We will have no prior knowledge of them, who they are, what experiences they will bring with them, nor an opportunity to find out about them, but we will want them to develop “characteristics of autonomous, proactive and constructive engagement” (McCabe and O’Connor, 2014). In order to achieve this, our design will need to ensure a level of contribution that encourages motivation and active participation. As with our ‘regular’ teaching, a variety of pedagogies will be appropriate and will include timely individual input to group working, peer teaching and feedback and initially at least an element of blended learning which in this context I mean it to be interaction with a tutor via some form of technology.
MOOCs, seem to be ignoring the traditional educational principles of teacher-student interaction and feedback, (Baggaley, 2013) instead placing the responsibility for learning firmly back with the students, so by way of reconciling two potentially diverse strategies, it seemed appropriate to look for a constructivist approach for this prototype.
Hussain (2012) describes constructivism as the theory which places emphasis on providing opportunities for students to make their own judgements and interpretations based on their prior knowledge and teachers should actively involve students to participate in the teaching and learning process. From a slightly different angle, Tangney (2014) discusses ‘student-centred learning’ from a humanist perspective with the underlying emphasis being on self-belief. This supports Kahu’s(2011) research particularly as Tangney continues with an acknowledgement that people (students) can develop this way if they feel that their environment is genuine and empathetic.
Gale and Parker (2014) emphasize four points that complement Hussain, Kahu and Tangney namely the importance of
· “Creating collaborative and inclusive spaces where students can be encouraged to share their beliefs, knowledge and experiences;
· Develop student-centred strategies including activities that can enable students to ground their learning in something relevant to them
· Connect with students’ lives through topics that are relevant to their immediate lives or their imagined roles or professional lives
· Being culturally aware by including stories or relevant examples to aid learning”
The challenge therefore is to create a non-threatening environment, allowing students to explore a new experience and to learn about accepting the risk of getting it wrong and to share emotions of anxiety, shyness and success.
Gale and Parker (2014) refer to the first year experience for any HE student as being “the most critical time” likely to inform their success or failure, and like any other HEI we offer an induction programme to help settle new students into our organisation with activities to prepare them for the programme of study to come. The proposal for the development of an online taster, as with Fitzgerald et al (2014) is to consider whether this transition period can begin prior to joining the University.
MOOCs are generally considered to be free online courses that anyone can sign up for. Billsberry (2013) suggests that their arrival is due to improvements in the Internet and more people having access to learning and so are the latest instalment in the development of distance learning. Baggaley (2013) states that there is very little about the MOOC which is actually new and refers to the research of Bagley (1911) for recommending guidelines for efficient instruction and Chu and Schramm (1967) on how to design educational television. Both works were later reviewed to produce the ‘universal instructional design’ (Scott et al, 2003) citing the need for straightforward and consistent instruction, and above all the importance of teacher-student interaction. Baggaley also notes that it is only the 1911 work that mentions the need to communicate high expectations to students.
MOOCs currently, seem to vary in content and professional standards according to the investment made by the presiding university, many are not credit bearing and completion rates do not seem to be overly high, but Billsberry (2013) suggests that if the investment is made and production is to a high standard, it is possible that the university will be able to re-use them as often as they wish, continuing that MOOCs may create a ‘try-before-you-buy’ environment.
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT AND TRANSITION
Kahu (2011) suggests that student engagement is a complex and multi-faceted matter and proposes a framework that encompasses the perceptions, expectations and experience of being a student. While not generalising or stereotyping, Kahu advises that an enthusiasm for the topic and a sense of belonging to a learning community will positively influence student engagement continuing that staff-student relationships are at the core, also acknowledging Nystrand and Gamoran (1991) in their belief ‘that engagement depends on what teachers and students do together… neither can do it alone’.