General Electives Group

1

• General Electives Group
• John Dunnion - School of Computer Science and
  Informatics
• Hilda Loughran - School of Applied Social
  Science
• PJ Purcell - School of Architecture, Landscape
  and Civil Engineering

2
Project Goals

• Study and analysis of elective choice in UCD
• Presentation of findings to SMT Plenary
• Analysis and Review of the five new General
  Elective modules in 2009-2010
• Participation in call and selection of new
  General Elective modules for 2010-2011
• Gather feedback from Heads of School and Deans on
  electives
• Papers on comparison of General Elective
  provision in UCD with other institutions

3
Method

• Perform a statistical analysis of elective choice
  (Follow-up of Bairbre Redmond's paper of May
  2009)
• Give presentation to and receive feedback from
  the SMT Plenary Meeting, (late) Summer 2010
• Analysis and review of five General Electives
• Attendance at lectures
• Discussion with module co-ordinator/lecturer
• Report on Electives and proposals for 2010-2011

4
Method

• Give input to call for General Electives for
  2010-2011 and participate in selection process
• Interviews with Heads of School and Deans
• School/Head/Programme/Dean/Staff interest in
  General Electives and electives in general
• Academic/Educational/Promotion issues
• Resource/Financial issues (including RAM)
• Investigation of General Elective provision in
  other universities and third-level institutions,
  in Ireland and abroad

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Outputs

• Papers on Elective choice, with particular
  concentration on the new General Electives
• Presentation to SMT Plenary Meeting
• Report on five General Electives in 2009-2010
• Involvement in proposal and selection of further
  General Electives for 2010-2011
• Report on interviews with Heads of Schools and
  Deans
• Papers on General Elective provision elsewhere
  and comparison of UCD General Elective provision
  to that in other institutions

6
Attitudes to Electives

• Why give electives?
• To give students "breadth"
• To provide the opportunity for students of a
  subject to study the subject in greater depth
  ("depth")
• To give staff in the School the opportunity to
  design and give an introductory module
• Students from outside School/Programme may
  enhance/enrich a lecture experience (different
  perspective, etc)
• Financial reasons

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Attitudes to Electives

• And why not?
• Students from outside the module may require
  extra work and/or resources (remedial tuition,
  more time/work by module co-ordinator/lecturer
  and tutors/demonstrators)
• May slow class down?
• Staff not recognised/rewarded (eg promotions)
• Finances aren't important? (Or important enough?)
• Zero-sum game (or is it?)

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Attitudes to Electives

• Income
• Extra income "resources will follow the
  students"
• BUT...
• RAM (currently) doesn't drive the allocation of
  budgets to Schools, it "informs" the allocation
  of budgets

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Questionnaire

• Questionnaire to Heads of School and Deans of
  Programmes
• Heads may have to/want to/choose to poll their
  staff
• Deans won't be asked about staff or resources/RAM
• Follow-up interviews
• To take place in May-June (after Semester 2)

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Elective choice

• Analysis of elective choice in 2009-2010
• Follow-up paper to Bairbre Redmond's paper of May
  2009 on 2008-2009 data
• Preliminary analysis confirms findings of last
  year
• Two most popular modules have been top two since
  2006
• Number of elective modules went down in 2009-2010
• Number of places on key modules also went down

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Most popular Electives
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(No Transcript)
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Missed Elective Places
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(No Transcript)
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Elective choice

• Further analysis
• What students chose next
• How students chose their electives
• Comparison of students taking modules as
  electives with students taking modules as
  core/options
• Performance
• Drop-out rate
• Flow of students and (potential) resources
  between Colleges

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A Tale of Two SystemsUCD Fellows in Teaching and
Academic Development Group Project Electives
in UCD
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The Harvard Elective System

• It is less moment what a young man studies in
  college than how he studies, if he can be
  inducted to make a judicious selection of studies
  for himself, freedom of choice may of itself be
  beneficial
• Elliot Harvard University Annual Report NY Times
  1886

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There is room in UCD

• Vietnam-era upheavals led to the American
  academys transformation into a politically
  correct multicultural smorgasbord seasoned to
  please the modern student palate. When todays
  students demand to be entertained and scholars
  continue to narrowly train, is there still room
  on the plate for the best that has been said,
  thought, and written about the human experience?
  Nieli (2008) commenting on the American
  University

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UCD transition Then and Now

• UCD Strategic Plan 2005
• Implement a modularised and symmetrised
  curriculum, with a rolling implementation
  beginning September 2005 and complete September
  2007
• Drive curricular reform at programme and module
  level to focus on defining the core

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UCD Education Strategy

• The further exploitation of the modular framework
  to allow a wider range of coherent pathways
  within programmes and to allow individual
  students to adapt the curriculum to their prior
  learning, aptitudes, abilities and goals

• The enhancement of elective opportunities to
  provide a broader educational experience

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Key concepts in elective rationale

• Attracting the best
• Electives as marketing strategy Horizons
• Engaging
• Electives offering choice
• Retaining
• Electives as motivation
• Being the best
• Electives offering breath and depth

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Elective Provision

• All students will take 6 modules over a three
  year period 30 credits
• Need to research the best practice in terms of
  offering / not offering direction and structure
  in their selection process.
• The group have identified a continuum of options
  for elective provision

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• Those who favor the principle of the elective
  system, but doubt the capacity or disposition of
  the students to select studies wisely for
  themselves, very generally advocate a group or
  block method, in which studies are laid out
  into groups of cognate studies.
• Elliot NY Times 1886

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Continuum of Elective Provision
D E P T H
BREADTH
YALE
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Continuum of Elective Provision
D E P T H
3
2
BREADTH
1
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Outline

• Other elective models
• Electives in Computer Science and Civil
  Engineering
• 5 New General Electives

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Undergraduate education models

• Newman
• Learning for its own sake
• Broad education
• Von Humboldt
• Unity of research and teaching
• Specialisation

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Other elective models

• Major American Universities elective model
• Distribution (breadth)
• Concentration (depth)

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Yale

• Typically 36 modules over 4 years
• Breadth
• 2 modules in arts and humanities
• 2 modules in basic sciences
• 2 modules in social sciences
• 2 modules in quantitative reasoning
• 2 modules in writing skills
• gt1 module in foreign language
• Depth
• gt 12 modules in a single discipline

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Second Civil Engineering 2008 - 2009
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Second Computer Science2008 - 2009
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Summary Civil Engineering

• 1/3 of students opt for in-programme elective
• 2/3 of students opt for general electives
  taken
• from approx 60 modules across University
• Traffic from Engineering to other disciplines.
• Only 5 of students taking Civil Engineering
  
• modules are non-engineering students

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Summary Computer Science

• 1/2 of students from within programme
• 1/2 of students from outside programme

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New General Electives
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Methodology

• Analysis of registration data
• Attendance at lectures
• Discussion with module co-ordinator

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AH 10070
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PSY 10090
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MUS 10100
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IRFL 20080
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GEOL 10040
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Comments

• Motives of Schools
• Class sizes
• Modes of delivery
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