Transcript National GAP Symposium

Graduate Attributes:
Today’s learners
Tomorrow’s graduates
Yesterday’s universities
A/Prof Simon Barrie
Institute for Teaching and Learning
The University of Sydney
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 graduate attributes
and about institutional strategies
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Conceptualisation
Stakeholders
Implementation
Curriculum
Assessment
Staff Development
Quality Assurance
Student Centred
http://www.itl.usyd.edu.au/projects/nationalgap/introduction.htm
Three insights about the complexity of
1. Outcomes
2. Engaging Staff
3. Engaging Learners
http://www.itl.usyd.edu.au/projects/nationalgap/introduction.htm
Complex Outcomes
Graduate attributes are an orientating
statement of education outcomes used to
inform curriculum design and learning
experiences at a university.
They 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
We need to 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?
How do our university systems help us
to meaningfully
engage in fostering
2: Systems
graduate attributes?
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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
21st century learners
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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?
Messages from the students on the panels
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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
Three messages to improve learning for 21st 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
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http://www.itl.usyd.edu.au/projects/nationalgap/introduction.htm
Thank you!
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