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Tipping sacred cows: Constructive alignment, curriculum and first year transitions
Abstract   Peer reviewed

Tipping sacred cows: Constructive alignment, curriculum and first year transitions

Sharn Donnison
2012 Learning & Teaching Week Program, p.11
Learning & Teaching Week, 2012 (Sunshine Coast, Australia, 20-Aug-2012–24-Aug-2012)
2012
url
https://www.usc.edu.au/View
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Abstract

Curriculum and Pedagogy
Constructive alignment, as advocated by Biggs and Tang, (2009, 2011) is so widely accepted as THE curriculum planning model for Australian higher education that it has taken on the mantle of academic hegemony. Universities across Australia are industriously re designing their curriculum to ensure that courses and programs establish intended learning outcomes demonstrable through assessment tasks and enacted in learning and teaching activities. This curriculum design approach is part of a suite of institutional strategies to achieve "hard outcomes like [student] retention, completion and employment" (Zepke and Leach, 2010, p. 661) and to assist first year students' transition into higher education. In this paper I caution against the wholesale adoption of curriculum frameworks based on their popularity or pervasiveness and advocate for carefully considered curriculum frameworks based on their appropriateness for the particular cohort of students, the educational context and the particular educational goals that one wants to achieve. I argue that in the first year curricula that focuses on "hard outcomes" may not be propitious for the student's successful transition and that curricula should focus on "soft outcomes" (Zepke & Leach, 2010) where the student's academic success is measured by the distance travelled towards a goal rather than the completion and demonstration of an intended learning outcome.

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