{"id":765,"date":"2020-07-28T10:00:38","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T09:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/?p=765"},"modified":"2020-07-28T00:37:15","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T23:37:15","slug":"learning-from-the-success-of-chemical-engineering-the-advantages-of-a-course-wide-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/2020\/07\/28\/learning-from-the-success-of-chemical-engineering-the-advantages-of-a-course-wide-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning from the success of Chemical Engineering - the advantages of a course-wide approach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Chemical Engineering\u00a0who\u00a0have recently successfully delivered the first year of their vanguard undergraduate course developed through the Curriculum Transformation<\/a> initiative!<\/p>\n

The\u00a0department took\u00a0a\u00a0course-wide\u00a0approach<\/a>\u00a0to planning their transformed course, which started by clearly identifying the desired goals in terms of discipline knowledge, professional and transferable skills, and graduate attributes.\u00a0They then considered the entire student journey, from studying in a school or college environment, to\u00a0studying at\u00a0university, through to employment in a diverse range of roles.<\/p>\n

One of the benefits of a course-wide approach is the development between staff of a shared understanding\u00a0of\u00a0key\u00a0content and\u00a0themes across the course (such as\u00a0integrating theory and practice,\u00a0increased\u00a0use of open-ended problems and\u00a0development of transferable and professional skills)\u00a0and the contribution of each unit to those goals.<\/p>\n

I think unit parts are better integrated across the year. Having regular meetings with the Curriculum Transformation team was very useful because (a) we were informed about the content of each part of a unit, (b) avoided (unnecessary) repetition of content between units, (c) decided when each concept will be taught (to have a nice flow).\u00a0\u00a0First year unit convenor<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How was this achieved?<\/h2>\n

The department\u00a0established\u00a0a\u00a0first-year\u00a0teaching team and a new coordinator role\u00a0to oversee the implementation of their transformed curriculum. Core units in the first-year units are all team-taught.\u00a0The\u00a0first-year\u00a0teaching team\u00a0met regularly during 2018\/19\u00a0to plan the\u00a0details of\u00a0delivery and assessment, ensuring topics and skills\u00a0were\u00a0aligned within and across units.\u00a0This team approach ensured that everyone understood the content and purpose of each unit. Planning\u00a0meetings ran\u00a0alongside\u00a0department\u00a0communities of practice which focused on various aspects of teaching and delivery\u00a0(for example\u00a0transition,\u00a0labs, tutorials, assessment for learning<\/a>).\u00a0The DoS and DoT maintain oversight of the entire course, with\u00a0emphasis\u00a0on the vertical integration and development of knowledge and skills between years.<\/p>\n

This collaborative approach has led to greater\u00a0consistency<\/b>\u00a0about the overall approach to the subject across the department. The\u00a0teaching\u00a0team have been able to\u00a0identify shared priorities and\u00a0take\u00a0collective decisions, for example\u00a0about the types and timings of assessments.<\/p>\n

Shared ownership of the\u00a0first\u00a0year has\u00a0also\u00a0provided opportunities for increased mentoring<\/strong> between staff, who have been\u00a0openly\u00a0sharing experiences and solutions. There has also been\u00a0flexibility<\/strong> to adapt\u00a0so\u00a0that the student experience is not affected by staff absence\u00a0or unexpected shifts to online teaching!<\/p>\n

Now, reflecting on the first year of teaching, staff feel that the teaching experience has been enjoyable, even with the challenges of teaching and assessing new units.\u00a0The\u00a0first-year\u00a0experience has been improved\u00a0by introducing\u00a0more active learning (problem-based learning and team-based learning), increased formative assessment, and increased integration of theory and application, linked to initiatives within the professional body.\u00a0The first-year students have been more engaged,\u00a0with\u00a0consistently high\u00a0attendance\u00a0(more than 90% attendance for many sessions).<\/p>\n

The\u00a0first-year\u00a0team\u00a0have been\u00a0sharing these experiences with the\u00a0year two\u00a0Curriculum Transformation\u00a0teaching team\u00a0to ensure sustained improvements in future\u00a0years, further embedding their course-wide approach. As a result, the department are well-placed to plan for the Bath Blend<\/a> in 2020-21.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Planning a course-wide approach to the Bath Blend<\/h2>\n

The Curriculum Development team have prepared resources and guidance to help course teams gather course and unit information in preparation for 2020-21. Sharing this 'big picture' will enable all staff who teach or support teaching to assist in planning learning and teaching activities that form a clear and coherent course for students and staff alike.<\/p>\n

Visit our Bath Blend Essentials page<\/a> to see how you can take a course-wide approach to planning for blended delivery.<\/p>\n

For further support and advice on developing your course-wide approach please contact your Curriculum Development Officer<\/a>, or email curriculumdev@bath.ac.uk<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Chemical Engineering\u00a0who\u00a0have recently successfully delivered the first year of their vanguard undergraduate course developed through the Curriculum Transformation initiative! The\u00a0department took\u00a0a\u00a0course-wide\u00a0approach\u00a0to planning their transformed course, which started by clearly identifying the desired goals in terms of discipline knowledge,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1003,"featured_media":767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[72,8,57,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blended-learning","category-curriculum-development","category-curriculum-transformation","category-learning-and-teaching"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/135\/2020\/07\/Untitled-design-1.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd4Piw-cl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1003"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}