In 2019, working in partnership with schools and faculties, Curriculum services provided academic and scholarly leadership in relation to outcomes-based program and course design, assessment and feedback strategies, innovative technological practice and changing curriculum and quality assurance. Some of the activities to support this included:
The development of an Educational Innovations Framework
The term ‘educational innovation’ is frequently used but rarely defined, making it hard to identify exactly what educational innovation is. This, in turn, makes it difficult to compare or measure educational innovation. In addition, with no benchmarks in identifying innovative educational practices, teachers involved have no way to identify and compare their own successes. The innovations framework is designed to be used as a professional development tool for individual teachers, program and course authorities and peer reviewers to monitor improvements in educational practices as well as a method to review educational innovations across UNSW. The framework will be trialled across faculties in 2020.
Successful trial of cMapping tool
In partnership with Educational Delivery Services (EDS), a cMapping tool has been successfully trialled, drawing on existing data within the AIMS system. Following the implementation of the Program Design and Delivery Policy at the start of 2019, the tool aims to assist program authorities clearly to identify: the program structure and how elements of a program and its courses align; assessment and learning outcome alignment at both program and course levels; opportunities for integration and alignment within and across programs; distinctiveness of each program; any gaps, content duplication and redundancies within the program and the courses of the program.
In 2020, the cMapping tool will be made available to all UNSW faculties and program authorities.
Services and activities
Work has continued to support the implementation of the Program Design and Delivery Policy and Procedures, academic program reviews, the Integrated Curriculum Framework and various course design models. In 2019, 26 curriculum-based workshops and seminars were conducted across UNSW, as well as working with faculty in the development and review of 11 programs and 15 courses.