Effective Unit Design for Higher Education Courses

A Guide for Instructors

Sharon A. Cooper, Siva Krishnan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000051209
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

A clear and concise course design is integral to effective student learning in units of study; however, unit design can be a daunting task for academics. Effective Unit Design for Higher Education Courses is a practical resource based on theoretical foundations, designed to assist both professional course designers and academics with varied levels of curriculum design and development experience or background in higher education units and courses.

This book provides a variety of practical advice, skills and resources to assist academics in designing curriculum that focuses on enhancing student learning. Readers are given a range of evidence-based developmental tools that challenge some of the currently accepted conventions behind unit design. Appropriate for any skill level, this book is designed to provide an accessible and structured process to design or revitalise high-quality units of study. Chapters cover a range of topics including developing assessment methods, strategies for providing feedback and evaluating unit design. The book has been structured to follow a design process, but as unit design is non-linear, chapters can be read in any order depending on interest or need.

An essential guide for curriculum designers of all skill and experience levels, this book will appeal to all higher education academics tasked with an aspect of unit design.

1 Analysing the context for effective unit design

Introduction

Educational programmes also known as degree courses in higher education come in all shapes, sizes and formats. They range from certificate courses through to higher degrees by research. For the purpose of this book, we define a course as a coursework degree programme that leads to a qualification of some sort. A clear set of units of study, with varying levels of knowledge and skills complexity, and outcomes make up a course. Successful completion of these deliberately structured units of study provides a student with a credit point value. A student must accumulate all the prescribed credit points as well as meet the course rules or criteria in order complete their course. Units of study within these coursework degree courses can be designed for individual learners, or for a small or a large group of learners. A unit of study can be quite complex and multifaceted depending on its purpose and the context in which it is to be delivered.

With over 1.5 million students enrolled in higher education degree courses across Australia (Australian Government Department of Education and Training 2020), a challenge for university education these days is to educate the individual in the era of mass higher education. Universities are expected to deliver personalised learning and teaching experience, improve student participation, retention and success rates, and create an inclusive and supportive learning environment. Often, universities capture their vision for student learning in aspirational learning journeys that cater for the individual student’s needs. They aim to satisfy the various learning approaches that students may take during their course of study, and how learning can be wrapped around their family, social and work commitments.

However, the question of the value of university education is loaded on the academic team that is involved in the design and management of a degree course, and the challenge of tackling that question is passed to the academic or teaching team that is charged with leading the design or redesign of a unit of study. Unit designers including teaching academics, teaching and learning and curriculum design experts in central teaching and learning support areas, and professional content developers constantly grapple with paying mind to the “what are” and “what could be” approaches that deliver a personalised, engaging and a rewarding course learning experience.

These challenges call upon the increasing importance in the way academics intentionally design degree courses and units of study, define learning outcomes, develop and deliver learning and assessment activities, and plan education support that meets the overall aims and outcomes of the course. This approach to learning and learning experience design is often referred to as a “whole of course approach” or “coherent course design” (Lawson 2015). Coherent course design involves identifying the purpose of the unit in the broader context of the course, and then making choices about what, when, and how to teach within units.

Unit design involves deliberate and careful planning and development of curriculum, learning, teaching and assessment for delivery. It takes into consideration the characteristics of learners, the environment in which they learn, and the outcomes we want them to achieve as a result of successfully completing the unit. According to Toohey (2008, p. 44), designing a unit requires careful consideration of a fundamental question: “What is most important for these students to know and how might they best learn it?” Unit designers are frequently called upon to make decisions about how to engage students in the learning and assessment process, and how to provide them with meaningful and actionable feedback for learning and achieving the Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) defined at both unit and course level.

Historical perspectives on course and unit design

Not that long ago, courses were put together as a collection of individual units. Individual academic caretakers, often referred to as unit chairs, coordinators or chief examiners, were responsible for developing the details of content, teaching and assessment as they saw fit. Often, a new unit caretaker or a teaching team member was given the unit documented in the form of a syllabus that needed to be covered. The problem with this approach was that it did not provide an incoming academic staff member with adequate information about the broader context of the course, or internal and external factors that influenced curriculum design in the first place.

Dewey’s “Reflex Arc” paper (2008) first published in 1896, applied functionalism to education, in which he wrote that the question of education is the question of taking hold of (a pupil’s) activities, for giving them direction. He argued that learning needs to be framed as a cumulative, progressive process in which inquirers move from the dissatisfying phase of doubt toward another marked by the satisfying resolution of a problem amidst other ongoing activities in a larger environment.

The works of Entwistle and Entwistle (1970), Perry (1970), Pask (1976), Marton and Säljö (1976) and Biggs (1987), which are concerned with improving student learning, have remained the cornerstone of much of the investigation into student development that followed. These works have influenced rethinking that resulted in many radical higher education curricular changes at both course and unit level. Research into the nature of student learning and the observation that good teaching promotes active learning has inspired many teaching strategies including problem-based, project-based, case-based and scenario-based learning.

Biggs and Tang (2011) emphasise that good teaching is about focusing on what the student does and not about focusing on what the student is or what the teacher does. The teacher, according to Biggs and Tang, merely organises the teaching and learning context, so that all students are more likely to use higher-order learning processes to complete the required learning. Organising the learning context requires constant and consistent reflection by the teacher about whether the student activities lead to appropriate learning and how the student could be supported in their learning process. The teacher is concerned with how learning can be measured and what feedback is timely and appropriate for improving learning. While Biggs and Tang have focused on constructive alignment of learning outcomes, assessment and teaching strategies to inspire good teaching, curriculum design often contains the blueprint for effective alignment, which promotes deep and meaningful student learning.

Factors influencing unit design

If you have worked in the Australian Higher Education sector or if you have been a keen observer, you may know that the Australian higher education system, which is made up of universities, technical and further education, and other private institutions, is at the tail end of a paradigm shift from teacher-centred to learner-centred education and training. This shift is not only observable in the way higher education providers define qualifications, but also in the way the quality and performance of teaching and learning is measured. While universities play a critical role in the development of students as professionals by giving them the skills they need for future success, they are in direct competition with other universities and many subsidiary educational and business models that drive flexible and open access to learning through Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for a fraction of the cost when compared with the costs of university education.

Toohey (2008) described many of the pressures for curriculum change and highlighted that integrating theory and practice has been a long-standing problem in course design in higher education. While emphasising the political and economic factors that have influenced a demand-driven skilled labour, she brought to the fore the significant pressure it exerted on university education system that could only survive by changing and providing an education that caters to the skills and jobs of the future. Consequently, curriculum in almost every university degree course has been redesigned to integrate practical and personal skill development to enable graduates to be immediately effective in the workplace. Some of the common philosophies that Toohey highlights are summarised in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Philosophical approaches to curriculum design

No.	Approach	Characteristics
1	Traditional or discipline based	Knowledge exists independently Transmission from teacher to student Goals as lists of key concepts within the discipline Assessment is for confirmation of level of achievement and ranking Learning resources are usually lectures and tutorials
2	Performance or systems based	Knowledge exists if it is shown Students follow a planned learning path leading to end point Content is determined by professional requirements Assessment provides feedback (diagnostic, formative, summative) Use of many resources, instructional videos, demonstrations, laboratories
3	Cognitive	Development of the mind and thinking skills; knowledge is personally constructed Limited content; in depth; questioning; critical thinking Thinking development is both goal and content Assessment involves demonstrations of complex understanding; problem solving Learning activities include group work, interaction and discussion
4	Personal relevance/experiential	Learning personally significant knowledge within the context of the discipline Teacher is an assistant (facilitator) to student to design and carryout learning plans Learning outcomes able to be applied to a variety of contexts Assessment allows learners to evaluate own learning (e.g., portfolio work) Teacher time, individual time, independent work
5	Socially critical	Knowledge is constructed by and within historical and cultural frameworks Learning is envisaged from a socially critical perspective to foster conceptual change Learning outcomes in terms of level of ability to critique, to defend etc. Assessment allows negotiation and collaboration between students and teachers Resource intensive small-group work, community-based projects and investigations

Another variation is Fink’s (2003) model for analysing the context when designing units. He recommends five key factors to analyse the situation carefully before beginning the actual curriculum design or redesign. Analysis would involve reviewing information already known about the teaching and learning situation, as well as gathering and reviewing additional information that may not be available to make important design decisions. These fac...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• 1. Analysing the context for effective unit design
• 2. Designing unit learning outcomes
• 3. Developing assessment methods
• 4. Designing rubrics for enhancing student learning
• 5. Devising an overall strategy for providing feedback
• 6. Planning effective teaching and learning experiences and activities
• 7. Evaluating the design of your unit
• Appendix
• Index