Viewpoints printable cards now available for download

Viewpoints has now released printable PDF versions of its cards, for use in workshops on curriculum design.

Staff both in Ulster and in other HE or FE institutions may now download the cards for their own use.

These resources will eventually form part of a freely available Handbook which we are currently preparing, which will show users how to run their own curriculum design workshop, using our downloadable resources.

Printable Assessment and Feedback cards - view/download

Printable Information Skills cards - view/download

Printable Learner Engagement cards - view/download

All these cards are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial - ShareAlike license, which lets users remix, tweak, and build upon our work non-commercially, as long as they credit us and license their new creation under the identical terms.


INSTRUCTIONS FOR DOWNLOAD AND PRINTING

1. Go to the link for your chosen set of cards (see above) and click on the Download button above the presentation. Your PDF download will begin. Save this PDF to your computer.
2. Choose File > Print.
3. When your printing options come up on screen, print two to a page and (if this option is available to you) choose double-sided printing (front and back).
4. If your printer doesn't support double-sided printing, you can glue/staple pages together to get the front and back of each cards put together - match up the colours and titles of cards to get the front and back of each card.
5. Cut out the cards to size and glue/staple together if you haven't printed double-sided.

Once you've printed your cards, you can use them in workshops or to aid discussions when considering curriculum design.

Encouraging creative and innovative ‘Viewpoints’ in Curriculum Design

Viewpoints is hosting a seminar as part of the Higher Education Academy's Northern Ireland Seminar Series on 30 March 2011.

To book your place email: saj.copeland@ulster.ac.uk.
Further Information available on The Higher Education Academy website.

Information about the event:

This seminar will demonstrate how course teams can be assisted to incorporate pedagogic best practice research into their teaching and learning plans, and be encouraged to be more creative and innovative in their designs.

It will share research findings to date and experiences from past workshops (e.g., photos, videos, evaluative commentaries and case studies) and will demonstrate how these can stimulate constructive dialogue and foster collaboration, helping course teams build ideas towards a student-centred curriculum design model.

Attendees will be invited to participate in group activities using either the ‘assessment and feedback’ or ‘learner engagement’ strands of the Viewpoints tools.

These activities will help participants consider how course teams address an agreed challenge e.g., designing an assessment and feedback or learner engagement strategy which:

o Supports students’ transition to higher education;
o Provides a supportive learning environment for students from different backgrounds;
o Improves feedback methods/opportunities for students to respond to feedback;
o Enables flexible learning opportunities;
o Increases the employability of graduates during their final year.

JISC Joint Programme Meeting: Curriculum Design and Curriculum Delivery

Catherine O’Donnell and Jill Harrison both attended the JISC Joint Programme Meeting: Curriculum Design and Curriculum Delivery on 12^th and 13^th October 2010 at the National College for School Leadership, Nottingham.

The theme of the workshop was “Delivering the Benefits: from Project to Institutional Enhancement”. Guest Speakers were Peter Findlay - Assistant Director of the QAA and Professor Betty Collis - Learning Technology Consultant.

The meeting provided an opportunity to view the work completed by the Curriculum Delivery projects and gain an overview of lessons learnt by these projects.

Tweets from the programme meeting are available at: http://twitter.com/#search?q=jisccdd.

JISC Curriculum Design Programme Meeting

Brass Tacks: Key Challenges in Delivering a Flexible Curriculum, Maple House, Birmingham

Sharon Copeland (Project Manager) gave an update on Viewpoints at the Programme Meeting, bringing everyone up-to-date with the advances the team have achieved.

She told the group about how the team were embedding the tools into the validation process and the work done with the Centre for Higher Educational Practice for the Creativity and Innovation strand of the project.

Sarah Knight (JISC Programme Manager) praised the team for their work to date. Some of the participating projects (such as the University of Bolton) expressed their interest in seeing the digital tools when they are ready for release, as they see a close link with their own curriculum developments.

The meeting was a good opportunity to catch up with the work of the other groups in the Curriculum Design programme and recognise the links across different groups.

Viewpoints project diagram

The diagram below shows an overview of the Viewpoints project.



This illustration shows how the Viewpoints reflective tools attempt to bring best practice research into curriculum processes at Ulster.

The tools provide the structure for users to engage with best practice research (via the cards) and a learner timeline and relate this to their teaching practice.

JISC Programme Meeting

Alan Masson and Fiona Doherty attended the joint two-day meeting for the Curriculum Design and Delivery Programmes at the Midland Hotel in Manchester.

The meeting provided the opportunity for the Curriculum Design and Delivery projects to network and gain an overview of each other’s work (by poster and video presentations) and to identify synergies between projects.

Further information about all the projects is available at:
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/curriculum/projects
http://www.netvibes.com/circlejisc
Video presentations are available at: http://www.youtube.com/jisccdd

Projects were introduced to the Design Studio, a wiki based toolkit that draws together a range of existing and developing resources around the curriculum design and delivery and the role technology plays in supporting these processes.


The Viewpoints project fits best in the Initiate or review and Develop or redevelop nodes of the curriculum lifecycle.

Tweets from the programme meeting are available at: http://twitter.com/#search?q=jisccdd

JISC Curriculum Design programme meeting

Viewpoints staff Alan Masson, Fiona Doherty and Karen Virapen attended this one-day JISC Curriculum Design meeting at the Aston Lakeside Centre, Birmingham. 50 delegates from the 12 different Curriculum Design projects were invited.

The theme of the day's workshop was 'Transformation: managing and measuring change'. We looked at change strategies, ways to measure change, and stakeholder engagement.

This event was a good opportunity for the two Instructional Technologists, Fiona Doherty and Karen Virapen, to meet key members of the JISC programme team, including Sarah Knight and Marianne Sheppard.

We also had a chance to talk to delegates from the other JISC-sponsored projects. The final discussion session with our Critical Friend Peter Bullen and members of our JISC cluster group allowed us to follow up ideas from the CAMEL meeting which took place in April. Catherine Owen, Project Manager of the Strathclyde PiP project let us know that the cluster has had a paper accepted for the ALT-C Conference in September of this year.