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.

Revalidation workshop

Viewpoints resources were available for use at a revalidation workshop today. Roisin Curran, from Staff Development, delivered the workshop to course teams from the School of the Built Environment.

The resources were available during the course team discussion activity, were each team were asked to consider the ethos of their programme and to consider key topics, such as assessment and feedback, curriculum planning and creativity and innovation.

The Viewpoints resources available included course-level timeline worksheets, course-level best practice cards (assessment and feedback, information skills and creativity in teaching and learning), post-its and markers. Each group were shown the resources and given suggestions of how they could be used - then given the option to use them if they wanted.

Two of the three teams made use of the resources in different ways to aid their programme-planning requirement, as shown in the photos below.



This initial introductory use of the course-level resources showed the value of them to help with curriculum planning activities, such as the Ulster programme revalidation process. Further consideration needs to be given to the timing of the use of the resources in the revalidation process.

The session showed the demand for more scalable resources that practitioners can take away and use - such as a paper-based version of the worksheet timeline (in a flipchart paper format) and printable versions of the best practice cards (perhaps also available on post-its).

Meeting with CCEA

Fiona Doherty met with Dorit Reppert and Emma McAllister from the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) today.

The CCEA requested the meeting to find out more about the Viewpoints project and to gauge if the Viewpoints resources could be adapted for their educational purposes.

Fiona provided an overview of the Viewpoints project and demonstrated the Viewpoints assessment and feedback workshop format, giving them the opportunity to use the best practice cards and the timeline worksheet.

Some photos of the output from the demonstration are available here:

Viewpoints at the Ulster eLearning Conference 2010

Dr Alan Masson, Catherine O’Donnell and Fiona Doherty delivered workshops at the University of Ulster’s 8th annual e-learning conference at the Belfast campus today.

The workshop was titled ‘Reflecting Viewpoints: Encouraging creativity in curriculum design (assessment and feedback)’. The session consisted of an activity-based demonstration of the Viewpoints Assessment and Feedback workshop format and showed how this had been recently integrated into the CIES Reward and Recognition programme. The tasks used real-life scenarios from the Reward and Recognition programme projects. Each group compared their output to the programme outputs and shared these comparisons with all participants.

The slides from the workshop are available here:



Photos from the workshop are available here:



Karen Virapen looked after the Viewpoints stand at the conference - promoting the project activities. The Viewpoints poster was on display with project resources available to take away.

Viewpoints at the CIES Reward and Recognition Residential

The Viewpoints A0 worksheets were available for each group at the CIES Reward and Recognition Programme IV: E-facilitated Assessment and Feedback Residential event, at the Rosspark Hotel, Kells on 14th and 15th December 09.

This event gave each group the time to develop a reusable learning object as part of their assessment and feedback project. External facilitators Tom Boyle (RLO-CETL Director, London Metropolitan University) and Dawn Leeder (Reward and Development Manager, University of Cambridge) helped them with this task.

The Viewpoints worksheets, developed in the assessment and feedback sessions with each group (delivered from the 1st -11th December), proved to be a good starting point and valuable resource for each group whilst developing their projects at the Residential.



Each group commented on how useful the Viewpoints sessions and worksheets were in the final group presentations at the end of the event. The facilitators also commented that they felt each group was better prepared as a result of the Viewpoints sessions, compared to previous Residential programme groups.

Viewpoints Assessment and Feedback sessions (1-11th Dec 09)

Fiona Doherty and Catherine O’Donnell have been delivering Viewpoints assessment and feedback sessions to Ulster groups (consisting of several staff and a student) on the CETL Institutional E-learning Services (CIES) Reward and Recognition Programme IV: E-facilitated Assessment and Feedback.

The one-hour sessions let each group reflect on their chosen Reward and Recognition programme project. The session is based on six group tasks that encourage reflection, consider the student experience and provide some creative ideas on how to implement their project objective.

The hands-on session uses prompts, including a large laminated worksheet with a student timeline and nine assessment and feedback cards. The group work together using the worksheet, cards and markers to create an output tailored to address their chosen project objective.



The nine different coloured cards each depict an assessment and feedback principle (revised and adapted from the Re-engineering Assessment Practices (REAP) Project principles of good formative assessment and feedback). On the back of each card are several implementation ideas (revised and adapted from the QAA Enhancement Themes: The First Year Experience – Transforming assessment and feedback: enhancing interaction and empowerment in the first year
written by Professor David Nicol from the REAP Project).



Each participant gets an assessment and feedback pack at the end of the session. This pack contains several handouts that aim to bridge the gap between theory and practice at Ulster, e.g. the nine principles mapped to Ulster documentation (guidelines, strategies, etc.) and the principles mapped to e-learning technologies available at Ulster.

The completed worksheet outputs can then be used to help inform each group’s project development. The outputs are emailed to each group in a word document and as an image. The worksheets will be available for each group at the CIES Reward and Recognition Residential event on the 14th & 15th December at the Rosspark Hotel, Kells.

These initial sessions have been evaluated and will be analysed to inform future development of the Viewpoints workshops. Early feedback suggests that the sessions were very successful in helping the groups reflect on and plan their projects. One group member commented that the cards helped ‘to concentrate broad ideas’, while another said that the session ‘helped to clarify what is currently a problem for the group and provided some potential solutions’.

CAMEL meeting, Open University

The second CAMEL meeting for JISC Curriculum Design Cluster C took place over two days, on the 11th and the 12th November at the Open University, Milton Keynes. Peter Bullen, our Critical Friend, chaired the sessions, attended by project representatives from the University of Ulster, University of Strathclyde and the Open University. Helen Beetham and Alison Muirhead also attended.

On the first day, Helen Beetham introduced a session on the cluster's recently completed project baseline reports, talking about issues arising from the three reports and highlighting similarities and differences. Afterwards, Alison Muirhead led a discussion about evaluation challenges and solutions, getting small groups to talk about potential ways of approaching evaluation.

Day 2 of the CAMEL meeting was centred around the Open University's recent work on curriculum design and curriculum representation. It kicked off with a short activity to get academics familiar with using Cloudworks, the Open University's social bookmarking system.

Simon Cross then talked to us about the recent survey looking at staff perceptions around learning design in the OU, and talked about Open University design solutions.

Gráinne Conole's session on course representations introduced a number of different course views being worked on at the Open University. You can view her presentation here:

Curriculum Representations

View more presentations from grainne.

Finally, Paul Mundin introduced a short session on curriculum mapping in the Open University.