University of Limerick Provost and Deputy President Professor Shane Kilcommins writes about the innovative developments and changes happening in university curricula
Universities have travelled a long way from the earliest days in Padua and Bologna, seminal moments including, the establishment of Oxford and Cambridge, the publication of Cardinal Newman’s magnus opus, The Idea of a University, and the introduction of the Bryce Constitution for Owens College in Manchester in 1880, creating the organisational structure of a court, a council, a senate, faculty boards and departments, which has since been replicated – in one form or other - in all public universities. They all operate according to principles of good teaching, research and public service, fostering a community of teachers and students (universitas magistrorum et scholarium) in a specialist enclave. Since the mid to late nineteenth century, we have seen a proliferation in these enclaves where learning in higher education should take place.
Though generalisation is not without its challenges, most of the institutions that emerged share a number of common traits. There has been a tendency to ‘partition’ knowledge, academic barons (and baronesses) rooting discourse and dissemination through the conduit of the relevant discipline. Knowledge and learning therefore was compartmentalised, a phenomenon facilitated by fidelity to tradition, the autonomy of disciplines, teaching terms, and organisational and programme logistics. The institutions themselves existed, for the most part, in monopolistic isolation, with the professor reified as the ‘exemplary master’ of the subject discipline, and students often seen as objective and ‘docile’ subjects. Learning in many instances equated with knowledge certification, with summative assessment as the final (often exclusive) arbiter. Once a student passed through this portal, they were ‘inoculated for life’.
More recently, many of these assumptions and commitments have come under increased scrutiny. Do universities have a monopoly on learning? Does learning need to take place in the ‘specialist enclave’ or can more ‘zones of openness’ be created? Is it enough that the lecturer is a ‘subject expert’? Do problems in industry, communities and society present in silo format? Should students be passive learners? Is there an ‘essential’ category of student, to whom all lecturing should be directed? Is disciplinary knowledge enough? Should we nurture learning rather than certify knowledge? When should we stop learning? Do we need the boundaries/restrictions of programmes of study?
All of these questions are generating new ways of doing teaching and learning. It is evident in new modes of delivery (hybrid, blended), the creation of new domains of expertise (particularly practitioner expertise), an increased emphasis on the student at the centre of the learning experience, and new pedagogies focusing, for example on Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Academic scholars are increasingly required to evidence their expertise in pedagogy and in teaching students for understanding – in addition to demonstrating scholarly acumen in their discipline areas.
Curriculum development and innovation is also evolving. There is a far greater emphasis and engagement with industrial/public/community ecosystems. Integrative learning and intersectoral mobility are, inter alia, moving us in the direction of new assessment types - capstones, experiential engagements, portfolios, reflective journaling and so on.
Higher education is becoming more of a fluid, lifelong experience, one which encompasses skills, competencies and values in addition to substantive knowledge. Universities can no longer perceive themselves as monopolistic, isolated providers of learning. They increasingly must also act as collaborators and facilitators, co-creating and co-teaching, developing inter-institutional engagements and multiple pathways through the learning life course. This momentum is, to some extent, reflected in the National Strategy for Higher Education to 2030 where it was noted:
“Higher education institutions should have open engagement with their community and wider society and this should infuse every aspect of their mission. Outward-facing systems and structures should be embedded into institutional activity, so that there are inward and outward flows of knowledge, staff, students and ideas between each institution and its external community.”
Many of these developments can be hung on a ‘connection’ throughline –where engagement with students, communities, industry, society, disciplines and institutions, together with the changing nature of the individual life course, offers potential for universities to create opportunities for learning that are both responsive and relevant. Aside from such connections, new curriculum design and development also reminds us as academics that we do not need to carve our working lives in to teaching, research and leadership silos. These siloes are often set against each other, creating tensions and existential disturbances about identity and purpose. Rather than setting up the rules of the game in this way, we should perhaps view inspiring teaching and curriculum design as one way of helping to nurture scholarship, facilitating, as Boyer extols, ‘discovery, integration, application, and representation’.
We see many examples of pioneering work of this kind at the University of Limerick. The outstanding new Immersive Software Engineering Programme is a computer science degree where students ‘learn by doing’. It is an integrated Bachelors/Masters qualification, where students learn on campus in a research-driven environment, in studios, working on projects, in teams, undergoing continuous assessment instead of end of term exams. This is scaffolded by learning through residencies, where students solve challenging problems in leading companies.
UL@Work is another brilliant new initiative offering a range of digital led programmes, which are co-designed with industry, and which enable upskilling and reskilling through combining education and work in areas such as data analytics, ICT, human resource management, natural language processing, cybersecurity, robotics, climate action, transversal skills, digital leadership, law and technology and future studies. Central to this initiative is the formalisation of partnerships between Education, Industry and Technology to support the future of work, generating new design frameworks and pathways including the use of microcredentials, co-located programmes and apprenticeships, professional diplomas, top-up degrees, and professional masters. All of this is helping to advance lifelong learning and professional growth in a digital age. This close partnership with industry is also reflected in UL’s leadership in the development of new Consortium Led Apprenticeships. Seven programmes have been developed and more than 200 apprentices registered at UL to date, including 152 on Masters level programmes and 12 on a Level 10 Principal Engineer apprenticeship.
At a more bespoke level, the School of Law offers a microcredential module on Policing and Human Rights. It is a co-created with An Garda Síochána. It is co-taught, involving a university teaching team, and a Garda teaching team (including judges, psychiatrists and other stakeholders). To date, 2,000 or so members of An Garda Síochána are or have taken the module, commencing with its most senior members. It provides an excellent example of how professional communities of scholarship and practice can interact in a learning space. It is fully online, facilitating aspects in every corner of the country, and includes a bespoke induction and mass online registration system.
Aside from their innovative and pioneering qualities, these examples also speak to the democratisation of knowledge, and the integration of that knowledge with Sustainable Development Goals, values and graduate attributes. They help, in part, to realise Newman’s interpretation of what he understood by the term ‘education’ at third level, as something broad and eclectic, not formulaic or a ‘treadmill’, and certainly not confined to ‘formal moments’ in an institutional setting.