1. Curriculum Design

I began my continuing position at UOW in late 2015, in the middle of a curriculum refresh in the (now former) School of Earth & Environmental Sciences (SEES). As part of this process, I was asked to lead the development of a new core first-year subject. This timing gave me the unique opportunity to design an entire subject from scratch, taking into account not only the subject itself but its place within the broader degrees delivered by the school. I have since been involved in ensuring skills introduced in the first-year subject are built on throughout our courses. This process – and the flow-on effects – are highlighted here. Aspects aligned to the UOW Standards and Quality Framework for Learning and Teaching are identified with “SQFLT”.

Identifying gaps in our curriculum

Shortly after I joined SEES, a small group known as the “first-year team” formed, composed of the Head of School, Deputy Head of School, an educational designer from LTC, and the three academics (including me) teaching first-year core subjects. Our goal was to re-design the curriculum from the ground up by determining what skills we expected of our graduates and using that information to inform our first-year core (which would include new and revitalised subjects). Introducing (and assessing) our most important skills in the first-year core, ensures that the “first year undergraduate curriculum and assessment is designed around foundation academic skills” (Support 2.1, SQFLT).

As my new subject (EESC102) was the only true “blank slate”, I wanted to design it to fill in gaps in our existing core. For this I led a skills mapping exercise, working with the first-year team to identify the skills that our students should develop throughout their first-year experience and determine which of those skills were covered in existing subjects. One outcome from this exercise is that the skills mapping was subsequently adapted for use across all SEES subjects to ensure scaffolded skill development across all SEES courses, and a variant is now being used for the faculty-level science curriculum restructure (Figure 1).

Filling in the gaps

Through the skills mapping exercise, I identified four key skills that were not covered in the existing SEES core curriculum: (1) scientific computing, (2) model development and interpretation, (3) communicating scientific content to a non-specialist audience, and (4) peer review. These skills were identified as critical both by consultation with other UOW/SEES academics and by review of employer needs (Figure 2), ensuring that the subject (and by extension, follow-on subjects and associated courses) “incorporate advice provided by employers…” (Design 2.1, SQFLT) and “are up-to-date with developments within the discipline and profession/ industry” (Design 2.2, SQFLT).

The four identified missing skills now form the basis of the EESC102 Subject Learning Outcomes and contribute to the Major Learning Outcomes for all related BSc majors (Table 1; Design 6.2, SQFLT). I have designed a set of class activities and assessments (Table 1; Design 7.4, SQFLT) to ensure students develop these skills. For example, I have developed new curriculum and assessments to teach computing and modelling skills as described in Section 5 and a scaffolded Wiki Project to teach communication skills and peer review as described in Section 4.

Scaffolding across the degree

I have shared my curriculum materials with colleagues (Delivery 6.1, SQFLT) to ensure they can build on them in the new second and third year subjects developed as part of the ongoing curriculum refresh. For example, computing skills have now been integrated in the second-year subject EESC209 by Dr Nicolas Flament and in the third-year subject EESC331 by A/Prof Helen McGregor. I have also designed a new assessment for EESC331 (delivered for the first time in 2018) that builds on the model interpretation skills first taught to students in EESC102 (Design 7.3, SQFLT).

In a Peer Review of Educational Practice, former Head of School Prof Zenobia Jacobs and Deputy Head of School A/Prof Laurie Chisholm stated:

References

Mosher, S. (2015). Critical skills necessary for the development of undergraduate geoscience students. American Geosciences Institute Geoscience Currents, 106.