Matthew Riddle

Curriculum mapping to embed graduate capabilities

Graduate capabilities are an essential aspect of undergraduate development in higher education. Accordingly, La Trobe Universitys Design for learning has identified particular university-wide graduate capabilities and required all faculties to explicitly embed these in their curricula. The Faculty of Law and Management developed an approach to map the teaching and assessment of eight graduate capabilities across the first year of the facultys degree programmes, allowing staff to evaluate the embedding of graduate capabilities and identifying where they might further develop their curricula. This article describes a process designed to collect, analyse and present data on current teaching and assessment of graduate capabilities. The discursive approach supports reflective practice in curriculum design while the resulting heat maps provide diagrammatic accounts of current practices and indicators of where redesign of curriculum should centre.

Physical and virtual learning spaces in higher education: concepts for the modern learning environment

Higher education is facing a renaissance in terms of its approaches to teaching and learning and the use of physical and virtual spaces. This book will address the question of how higher education institutions and administrators need to re-conceptualize, re-design, and rethink the use of space for students entering university in the 21st Century. Higher education institutions are no longer defined by the physical boundaries of their traditional campus but the entire student experience, whether that be negotiating the physical corridors of the campus or connecting to virtual environments. The design of spaces to support the generation of knowledge by students themselves is an important and neglected field. With lectures and tutorials still predominant in higher education, the organisation of space and time configures students as receivers of knowledge until the point of graduation, at which time they are expected to produce knowledge of their own. Rather than lecture halls with rowed seats being the predominant physical learning space for learning and teaching in higher education, learning spaces need to include: physical/virtual, formal/informal, blended, mobile, personal, and professional learning spaces that need to consider flexibility, adaptability, and time. They need to mirror contemporary learning and teaching strategies that emphasize independent and peer-based learning in both physical and virtual learning spaces, and need to account for how students perceive and utilize space in higher education settings. In meeting these priorities, it is essential for universities to support synchronous and asynchronous, multi-disciplinary, multi-campus, and inter-institutional collaboration amongst students, between students and teaching staff, and amongst teaching staff.

Aiming for Full Coverage — Integrating Sustainability Education into All Undergraduate Courses at La Trobe University, Australia: Achievements, Lessons Learnt and Barriers Addressed

In 2012, La Trobe University committed to ensuring that every undergraduate student, across all disciplines, will have significant and assessed experience of three ‘Essentials’ of learning: Sustainability Thinking; Global Citizenship; and Innovation and Entrepreneurship. These broadly align with the principles promoted through the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). This initiative by La Trobe constitutes one of the first examples of whole-of-institution embedding of sustainability education into all undergraduate courses. La Trobe Essentials are more than content; they are designed to develop students’ capacity to address our most pressing global challenges. To achieve this, action was needed so that there was alignment of policy, strategy, resourcing and regulation at all levels. Each Essential is tailored within each discipline, in partnerships between University-wide curriculum officers, Faculty education teams, and course and subject coordinators. This in turn has led to agreed approaches to the development of curriculum assessment and reporting for Sustainability Thinking and the other Essentials. Auditing methods have been developed to map the occurrence of subjects likely to contain the Essentials, and as a starting point for exploring which subjects can be developed as Essentials subjects, or be re-designed for this purpose. These approaches to curriculum development and auditing may be of assistance to other higher education institutions. Examples of how Sustainability Thinking has already been incorporated include a core Sustainability Thinking unit across all Business Management courses, a cross-disciplinary elective subject on Climate, Sustainability and Society, and a large, high enrolment Humanities-based elective entitled Food for Thought. The Essentials are widely supported by academic staff. Their enthusiasm, along with senior management endorsement and curriculum expertise centrally and in Faculties, have helped to overcome many of the significant barriers encountered in implementing Sustainability Thinking across all courses.