Teaching: our key to the future

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Teaching our key to the future
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Lets change brink of chaos to Everything is
wonderful.
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challenges for curriculum, teaching and learning
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• Iain Mac Labhrainn

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7 challenges

• Complexity
• Academic Practice
• Challenges of Teaching
• Scholarly Community
• Learner Engagement
• Distinctiveness local context
• Wider context external factors

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(1) complexity
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MI211 MP205 CH203 BI204 CS208 MA204 GE211 CH202 GE
211 BT206 SI216 EP211-EP212 Z0205 MA211 MA286 AN20
5 EOS201 MA284 MA206 MM245 CT232 MA237 CT252 MP212
PM203

• MP207

Law (LW343) Maths Combination
1EM1, 1OA1 2BA1, 2BL1 2CW1, 3BA6 3BL1, 3CW1
1OA1 2BA1 2BS1 2EL1 2IF1
2BA1
2BS1 (1 student)
1EM1, 1OA1 2BC1, 2BC2 2BC3, 2BC4 2BC5, 2BF1 2CL1
MP209 MG203 MA204 CT230 MA237
2CS1
2EL1
The Exam timetables of Arts, Commerce, Law
Science students are constrained by 1 student in
2BS1 taking a combination of MP207 MA204
2PT1
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• Courses, Modules, Exams

2002 2200 modules 2008 3517 modules
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Course offerings as competitive advantage

• What is the half-life of any new degree
  programme?
• How long before it is offered in UCD, GMIT, etc?
• How many years after inception do the numbers
  drop-off to half those of first year?
• What is cost to existing programmes?
• Is consolidation and raising reputation of core
  programmes necessarily a poorer strategy?

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Complexity

• Additionality?
• Little incentive for improving existing courses
  cf developing new
• Individual curricular creativity manifested
  through new programmes

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(2) academic practice
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Academic Practice

• Teaching, research, community, public, clinical,
  consultancy, advisory, scholarship...
• What does it mean for
• An individual academic
• Collectively for an institution?
• Teaching / Research synergies or
  incompatibilities? Contextual factors
• Reward/recognition

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(3) Challenges of teaching
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• Academic Staff Survey
• 278 respondents
• breakdown by Faculty, age, gender,
  research/teaching, experience, qualifications,
  class sizes, etc

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Approaches to Teaching
Intention
Strategy
Information Transfer (IT)
Teacher Focus (TF)
Conceptual Change (CC)
Student Focus (SF)
ITTF CCSF ITSF CCTF
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(4) Community of scholars?

• Individual or collective?

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Building community?

• Trust
• Support
• Shared goals
• Common endeavour
• Space/time for discussion/sharing
• Shared risk-taking, creativity

• Grouped Student Evaluation
• PLT
• Peer review
• Course teams

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(5) learner engagement
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(6) distinctiveness
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Distinctiveness local context

• An also ran in league tables, or?
• Identity?
• Institutional culture attractive to
• Students
• Staff
• Community

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Distinctive/Intrinsic strengths?

• Place presence
• University city, culture, communities
• Do we really optimise the totality of the student
  experience?
• Can we nurture greater intellectual engagement
  through idea of an academic space?
• Learning communities

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(7) Wider context ?

• Return of fees
• Merging of institutions
• 70 participation target
• (Graduate) unemployment
• Public service ?
• International
• Ethics vs individual gain?

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Conclusion?

• Take stock
• Look at actual capacity/resources
• Develop programmes/courses that meet our needs,
  our goals and of which we can be proud
• Survey/ purposes
• Development of ability to think critically

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Learning, Teaching Assessment Strategy

• Scaffolding
• Clarifies basic requirements
• demotes them to routine
• Gives students consistency on effort expected
• If careful, ultimately frees up time and scope
  for creativity, innovation and academic issues