Today’s learners Tomorrow’s graduates Yesterday’s universities Improving student learning for the 21 st century learner London 7 th September 2009 A/Prof Simon Barrie

Graduate Attributes

Achieving graduate attributes Meaningful solutions have proved elusive and there remains a 'national gap' between the rhetoric of graduate attributes and the reality of the student learning experience. Why?

A way of thinking about the institutional strategies 1.Conceptualisation 2.Stakeholders 3.Implementation 4.Curriculum 5.Assessment 6.Staff Development 7.Quality Assurance 8.Student Centred

Three insights about the complexity of 1.Outcomes 2.Engaging Staff 3.Engaging Learners

Complex Outcomes Graduate attributes are multilayered & multifaceted outcomes that require a combination of different teaching and learning strategies to achieve and require teachers and learners to engage with them in an intellectual way.

Multilayered… Implicit dispositions attitudes & values, they grow from, but transcend the discipline Explicit ways of doing and thinking, using and applying discipline knowledge… they are the discipline Generic skills – off-the shelf, non-specialised foundation skills for university learning and work Talk about GA as heterogeneous outcomes in an integrated way

Varied development strategies Multilayered teaching & learning strategies Foundation skills - co curriculum Discipline learning - curriculum A learning community - extra curriculum Curriculum Renewal: Alignment and charting a pathway though formal and informal learning

Meaningful engagement How might we engage the broader university community in thinking and talking about these complex outcomes and complex development processes…. in a more complex way. Why is meaningful engagement so hard to achieve?

2: Systems 10 How do our university systems help us to meaningfully engage in fostering graduate attributes?

Curriculum Curriculum structure & organisation limits what can be achieved Linear sequence of content blocks – add in some other ‘blocks’ (PD theme, skills courses, WIL, internships) Change the existing learning experiences Broaden the range of learning experiences

Assessment Assessment defines the curriculum – for all stakeholders The complexity of GA assessment is ignored in favour of ‘tick and flick’ Articulation of GA in standards and criteria not matched by students’ lived experience Need a whole degree approach to assessment Need to broaden how we assess & who is engaged in assessment

Quality Assurance How teaching / curriculum is ‘assessed’ determines what we do – teachers are no different to students. Intellectual engagement in L&T not rewarded in QA QA is often simplistic and reflects low level conceptions of GA – (i.e. generic skills) Does not measure all the bits of the learner experience puzzle or the integrated effect Assurance does not support engaged enhancement

Staff development Support and encouragement to engage in curriculum renewal & development of new learning experiences A different (broader) cohort with different needs to usual ADU constituency SD needs to address conceptions and engage staff intellectually - not just offer teaching ‘tools’ Long term undertaking - not short term fix Motivation to engage is vital

15 21 st century learners

What some staff were expecting Students don’t know about graduate attributes Students don’t care about developing these things - they only want to get a qualification Students won’t put the effort into learning these things

What students said about graduate attributes…. ‘I don’t have the faintest idea…’ ‘These are lists of things on the front of assessments and study guides but they aren’t assessed or taught…’ ‘These are extra things we need to develop by doing a course at the careers unit…’ ‘These are things we are told employers want…’ Where do these ideas come from?

What students said about university “Going to university changed the person I am…….I think differently and I interact with other people’s ideas differently. I see the world differently……I don’t deal with work or life in the same way because of what I’ve learnt about economics…. I know I’m different to my friends who didn’t go to uni…but I don’t know how to put that difference into words” Why don’t more students see this transformational learning as being about graduate attributes?

19 Messages from the students on the panels

What students said on the panels… I don’t want uni to just be a degree factory… most of us can get the degree easily… it should be so much more. We need to learn about ethics and sustainability – even if we are accountants…. actually especially if we are accountants. We need to learn to think as well as you can – this is the only chance we get to be around people like you. We want to have our ideas listened to and challenged.

What students said on the panels… It took me most of my degree to realise that what I could get out of university wasn’t what I’d thought it was ……and wasn’t what my teachers were teaching me……most of them didn’t have the time and didn’t seem interested. We should help students realise what university is all about much sooner. We want you to talk to us and teach us about these things.

Achieving student engagement for graduate attributes Involve students as partners in the conversations about the learning potential of university early on. Provide engaging teaching learning and assessment experiences that make these conversations real and help students come to understand what university learning can be. They want the same thing we want

23 Three messages to improve learning for 21 st century learners 1.Graduate attributes are complex – we should treat them that way 2.Our systems might preclude meaningful staff engagement 3.Our students care about this too, but we haven’t engaged them

24 Thank you!