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.

Learner Engagement Workshop – Students' Union

Jill Harrison, Catherine O'Donnell, and Alan Masson facilitated a Learner Engagement workshop for the Students Union on Friday 21 January 2011.

The students' union is currently developing a 10-point credit module for student representation. The objective was to minimise additional workload for participants, support participants to become effective course representatives and create a community for representatives to share good practice.

The group used the Learner Engagement cards and the module worksheets during the 2-hour group work activity-based session.

In the evaluation exercise afterwards (implemented by Vilinda Ross), participants noted the usefulness of the visual approach and prompts implemented at the Viewpoints session. One participant remarked that the approach provided a "good visual display of our work and plan for a semester" while another stated that the Viewpoints outputs and resources had managed to "spark creativity as well as providing sound building blocks for the module". Participants felt that the workshop had helped them reflect on the learner perspective, helping the team "recognise the needs of the learner and how we can make the student experience better for them, and therefore make them better class reps".

Slides from the session are available online at slideshare:

Viewpoints: Student Representation

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All the resources used in the workshop (worksheet and Learner Engagement cards) are available for view or download from the Viewpoints Flickr photostream.

Photos from the day are also available on Flickr:

Revalidation event, Belfast Campus

Catherine O'Donnell, Jill Harrison and Karen Virapen today delivered a Viewpoints workshop session as part of a Revalidation event at Belfast Campus, arranged by Roisin Curran in Staff Development.

Staff from different Art and Design courses who are preparing for revalidation next year attended this workshop. There were about 50 staff attending, in ten groups arranged around the different courses.

Staff were encouraged to consider their courses with the help of Viewpoints prompts - using Assessment and Feedback, Information Skills, and Creativity and Innovation course level cards, and working around course-level laminates. (The Learner Engagement strand was also presented to staff as an option - Learner Engagement cards are currently under development.)

Staff discussed their courses in their teams, noted ideas and action points on the course laminates, and presented their ideas to the group at the end of the session.

Slides from the Viewpoints session are available online:

Viewpoints: School of Art & Design Revalidation Workshop

View more presentations from Viewpoints, University of Ulster.

A Viewpoints revalidation diagram explains the process in more detail and has some useful embedded links for staff. It can be downloaded from Slideshare.

Course revalidation

View more documents from Viewpoints, University of Ulster.

All the resources used in the workshop (worksheets, course level cards, Assessment and Feedback, Creativity and Information Skills module level cards) are available for view or download from the Viewpoints Flickr photostream.

Photos from the day are also available on Flickr.

CAMEL meeting, Open University

The fourth CAMEL meeting for JISC Curriculum Design Cluster C took place over two days, on the 2nd and 3rd December at the Open University, Milton Keynes.

Peter Bullen, our Critical Friend, chaired the sessions, attended by project representatives from the University of Ulster, the Open University, and University of Strathclyde (virtually via FlashMeeting). The theme of the meeting was 'cluster output'.

Day 1 began by talking about project overlaps and it was agreed that what we are all doing could be described as:

Changing culture - individual, team, and institutional processes to improve learning design and therefore the experiences of students.

The project teams are changing culture by the following means:

• Promoting a Curriculum Design language


• Providing frameworks for Curriculum Design (i.e. decision-making frameworks)


• Encouraging and supporting collaboration, reflection and dialogue


• Prompting ideas for Curriculum Design


• Identifying, developing and using catalysts for change (i.e. approval processes)

We then had a brainstorming activity to come up with ideas of possible outputs/artefacts.
We agreed that the cluster should explore the idea of running/leading an online conference based around a theme, which asks the question: 'What needs to change in curriculum design?'

Day 2 began by recapping on ideas discussed from day 1 and then the teams explored a second possible cluster output – podcasts, which could also be used for the online conference.
We finished the day by planning our next steps.

Assessment and Feedback workshop for Ulster PgCHEP course

Dr Alan Masson (Magee Campus) and Catherine O'Donnell (Jordanstown Campus) delivered 'Week 6: Assessment and Feedback' on the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education course (PgCHEP) today.

This lesson included an introduction to Viewpoints curriculum design materials and an Assessment and Feedback workshop for PgCHEP students.

Students worked in small groups while considering a scenario of their own choice. The sessions were well received and the Viewpoints team have been asked to do a similar session on the course in 2011.

Photos from the sessions are available on the Viewpoints Flickr photostream.



The slides from this session are available via Slideshare.

Assessment and Feedback PgCHEP workshop, Oct 27th 2010

View more presentations from Viewpoints, University of Ulster

Viewpoints steering group meeting

Viewpoints had their third ever steering group meeting today in Jordanstown campus.

Attendees included Viewpoints Director Alan Masson and his team, chair Professor Mark Stubbs from Manchester Metropolitan University, our Critical Friend, Peter Bullen, Director of Access and Distributed Learning, Sylvia Alexander, Shiela MacNeill from JISC CETIS, and key Ulster stakeholders from across the University.

Firstly, the minutes from the previous meeting in April were read and approved by the group. Director Alan Masson reported on the activities of Viewpoints from April until October of this year, aided by comments and feedback from steering group members, who had received the report a week in advance, in order to give them time to comment. The group members asked for clarifications during Alan's presentation, and made suggestions as to specific content.

All comments and suggestions from the steering group will be incorporated into the draft report, which will then be finalised by the Viewpoints team and sent to JISC as our definitive Interim Report for this reporting period.

The steering group stakeholders were extremely enthusiastic and positive about the work done by Viewpoints during this reporting period, and made a number of constructive suggestions and additions to content. These suggestions and advice should help the Viewpoints team work towards final tool development and dissemination, as we enter the final year of the project.

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.