HEA Seminar: Encouraging creative and innovative “Viewpoints” in Curriculum Design

Yesterday the Viewpoints team delivered a seminar as part of the Higher Education Academy’s Northern Ireland Seminar Series. The programme from the day can be found on slideshare. The aim of the seminar was to introduce the Viewpoints Project and 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.

The morning session began by Eddie Gulc from the Higher Education Academy welcoming everyone to the event, followed by Alan Masson introducing the Viewpoints Project. The participants then had an opportunity to try a taster workshop lead by Catherine O'Donnell. Research findings and experiences to date were shared with the participants.

Alan introduced the afternoon session and set the Viewpoints workshop in context. Catherine O'Donnell introduced the Viewpoints handbook and and offered guidelines, tips and lessons learnt. There was an opportunity for the participants to discuss how they could embed the Viewpoints approach into their own institutions. The day finished with a question and answer session.

Host institutions are required to produce a briefing paper within two months of delivering their seminar to stimulate discussion, share practice and support the sector’s access to relevant research/evaluation evidence. The briefing paper will summarise the key issues presented at the seminar, including the implications of research/evaluation evidence for practice.

The presentations from the day to can be found on slideshare. The scenarios used can also be found on slideshare.

Some photographs from the day can be found on flickr:

Outputs from the day can be found on flickr:

Viewpoints resources available for download

Viewpoints now have a Resources section available on the website.

Here, you can browse and download our curriculum design resources, which can help academics plan and enhance their curriculum design.

Our resources include a series of reflective tools (timelines and printable prompt cards) to inspire ideas on creating effective curriculum designs.

The resources section also includes the Viewpoints Handbook (a guide to delivering a curriculum design workshop), supporting resources for each of the four themes, facilitator guides and presentation templates.

You can browse and download resources individually or download the entire resource pack as one compressed ZIP file (26 MB in total).

Speech and Language Therapy

Catherine and Vilinda delivered a Viewpoints course level workshop with the Speech and Language Therapy team at Jordanstown who are preparing for revalidation. The team chose to focus on planning their Assessment and Feedback strategies across three years of the course. Photographs and outputs are available via Flickr.

Seda Conference

Today Alan Masson, Catherine O'Donnell and Jill Harrison presented a workshop entitled an ‘Encouraging creativity and reflection in the curriculum’ during Parallel Session 1 at the SEDA Spring Teaching Learning and Assessment Conference 2011 at the Holyrood Hotel in Edinburgh.

Delegates were given the opportunity to consider a given scenario and:

o Explore innovation in curriculum design within institutional processes.
o Engage in one aspect of the Viewpoints toolkit.
o Understand how sharing curriculum plans across a student learning timeline at course, module and activity level can help academics prepare for effective practice.
o Discuss, share and evaluate how the Viewpoints approach may be applicable to their own Institution and/or teaching practice.

Further information about the session is available at: http://www.seda.ac.uk/resources/files/2_OdonnellMassonharrison.pdf.

Slides from the session are available via the Viewpoints Slideshare website.
Scenarios from the session are also available via the Viewpoints Slideshare website.

Viewpoints draft Handbook - Executive Summary now available

Viewpoints are currently working on a Handbook to help academic staff with their curriculum design, at module or whole-course level.

The Handbook will give course teams all the information they need to run their own curriculum design workshops, using reflective resources developed by the Viewpoints Project - a learner timeline worksheet and best-practice pedagogical principles based around four themes - Assessment and Feedback, Information Skills, Learner Engagement and Creativity in the Curriculum.

The Executive Summary and flow diagram of the Viewpoints process are now available via Slideshare. We will post a full (draft) version of the Handbook once our April Interim Report to JISC is published, to allow interested academics to feed back and comment on the document.

A full copy of the draft Handbook is available on request to academics interested in reviewing the full Guide. Contact k.virapen@ulster.ac.uk if you would like to receive a copy.

Viewpoints draft handbook - executive summary

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TFL Development Programme - Student Engagement

Catherine O'Donnell and Vilinda Ross today facilitated a Viewpoints session during the TFL Development Programme for Ulster staff at the Rosspark Hotel.

The theme of the TFL Programme was 'Student Engagement' and the project teams were working on various proposals around this theme.

There were twelve workshop participants, and 3 project teams from the University of Ulster.

The project teams used this Viewpoints taster session of 1 hour to explore how the process could be used to help them scope out their project plans on the theme of Student Engagement. The Viewpoints themes used for this taster session were Assessment and Feedback, Learner Engagement and Creativity in the Curriculum. The introductory session primarily focused on module level.

There was a good response to this taster session, with 60% indicating that they found the session very useful.

Slides from the session are available via the Viewpoints Slideshare website:

TFL Development Programme - 18th April 2011

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Photos are also available for view on the Viewpoints Flickr photostream:

Encouraging creative and innovative 'Viewpoints' in Curriculum Design

Viewpoints has rescheduled its seminar as part of the Higher Education Academy's Northern Ireland Seminar Series. It will now be held on the 2nd June 2011, 10am - 3pm.

To book your place email: saj.copeland@ulster.ac.uk.

Further Information is available on The Higher Education Academy website or via the poster which can be downloaded from Slideshare.

Information about the event:

This seminar will demonstrate how course teams can be helped 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:

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

The afternoon session will give participants an opportunity to:

• Explore other Viewpoints themes, such as 'information skills' and 'creativity in the curriculum';
• Review a 'Train the trainer' handbook currently in development;
• Discuss how the Viewpoints process and tools may be useful within other institutions.

50 places are available on this all-day seminar, which will take place on the Belfast campus.

HEA Seminar - Encouraging creative and innovative 'Viewpoints' in Curriculum Design, 2 June 2011

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