This article proposes a model for the design of a hybrid VET curriculum across the school-work boundary.
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Industrial Design Engineering [Open] Innovation (IDE) is a 3-year, English taught, VWO entry-level, undergraduate programme at The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS). The IDE curriculum focuses on the fuzzy front end of (open) innovation, sustainable development, and impact in the implementation phase of product-service design. The work field of Industrial Design Engineering and Open Innovation, like many other domains, is growing increasingly more complex (Bogers, Zobel, Afuah, Almirall, Brunswicker, Dahlander, Frederiksen, Gawer, & Gruber, 2017). Not only have the roles of designers changed considerably in the last decades, they continue to do so at increasing speed. Therefore, industrial design engineering students need different and perhaps more competencies as young professionals in order to deal with this new complexity. Moreover, in our transitional society, lifelong learning takes a central position (Reekers, 2017). Students need to give their learning path direction autonomously, in accordance with their talents and interests. IDE’s Quality & Curriculum Committee (QCC) realized in 2015 there is too much new knowledge to address in a 3-year programme. Instead, IDE students need to learn how to become temporary experts in an array of topics, depending on the characteristics of each new project they do (see Textbox 1). The QCC also concluded that more than just incremental changes to the current curriculum were needed; thus, the idea for a flexible, choice-based semester approach in the curriculum was born: ‘Curriculum M’ (Modular). A co-creational approach was applied, in which teaching staff, students, alumni, prospective students, industry (including the (international) social profit sector), and educational advisors collaborated to develop a curriculum that would allow students to become not just T-shaped (wide basis, one expertise) professionals, but U- or W-shaped professionals, with strong links to other disciplines.
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The European Union is implementing policies to achieve its priorities of the European Green Deal; A Europe fit for the digital age; An economy that works for people; and A stronger Europe in the world. To achieve these goals, there is a need for a paradigm shift in the way public and private sector organisations, as well as civic society organisations (CSOs) ‘do their business’. In particular, current employees, from chief executive to operative, volunteers, and new entrants to these organisations need to be educated and equipped with the knowledge and mindset of being Corporate Social Entrepreneurs (CSE).EMBRACE (European Corporate Social Entrepreneurship (CSE)) is a three-year initiative funded within the framework of ERASMUS+, Knowledge Alliances programme. The project aims to promote CSE in HEI educational programmes and improve students’ competences, employability and attitudes contributing to the creation of new business opportunities dealing with social change inside companies as well as promoting collaboration among companies.This paper and presentation articulate the theory and methodology for establishing and Implementing the European CSE curriculum. Developing Corporate Social Entrepreneurship, entails identifying and developing a profile of Corporate Social Entrepreneurs, a competences framework and an European curriculum for CSE with the related competencies, skills and knowledge and a transversal learning pathway for HEIs.This curriculum is a vital catalyst resulting from a process of engaging a vast range of stakeholders and as a reflection of a society’s aspirations and vision for its future, involving a diversity of institutions and actors, and clearly focusing on the what, why and how of education. It is therefore crucial to ensure a wider policy dialogue around curriculum design and development, with the active inclusive involvement of an expanded range of actors beyond the traditional ones.The relatively new and undefined scope of CSE in HEI’s, industry and literature meant that there were few if any examples to help define what the contours of such curricula would look like. The fact that this curriculum is to serve the European HEI and enterprise arenas, meant that the European Frameworks and UNESCO materials were used as relevant sources of policy and knowledge to develop the EMBRACE CSE curriculum. There are numerous models and guidelines for curriculum development, each with its own merits. For the CSE methodology framework, two models and a set of guidelines were chosen because they are complementary and support the EMBRACE objectives: The Curriculum 4.0 guidelines and The Hanze UAS model for curriculum development. The combination of the two models led to the development and design of the EMBRACE model. As follows, the presentation/paper addresses the choices as to the design approach which are particularly relevant to all CSE curricula, as well as the definition of CSE competences and four CSE tracks (Novice, Intermediate, Professional and Expert).
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Engineering students have to learn to create robust solutions in professional contexts where new technologies emerge constantly and sometimes disrupt entire industries. The question rises if universities design curricula that enable engineering students to acquire these cognitive skills. The Cynefin Framework (Kurtz & Snowden, 2003; Snowden & Boone, 2007) can be used to typify four complexity contexts a system or organisation can be found in: chaos, complex, complicated and obvious.The Cynefin framework made it possible to create the research question for a case-study: To what extend does the Business Engineering curriculum enable bachelors to find business solutions in the complexity contexts of the Cynefin framework? The results show that 80% of the methods are suitable for complicated contexts and no distinction is made between contexts. This means students are taught to approach most contexts in the same way and are not made aware of differences between the contexts. Making sense of the methods in the curriculum with the Cynefin framework was insightful and suggestions for improvement and further research could be substantiated
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Due to fast and unpredictable developments, professional education is challenged with being responsive, which demands a rethinking of conventional curriculum development approaches. Yet, literature on curriculum development falls short in terms of recognising how to react rapidly and adequately to these new developments. This study focuses on curriculum development initiatives at the school level in a Dutch university of applied sciences. Open interviews were held with 29 curriculum developers to explore how they define and give substance to developing curricula for new, changing or unpredictable professions. These 29 participants were involved in seven curriculum development trajectories. Four themes were detected: (1) curriculum developers are in favour of open, flexible and authentic curricula; (2) the context in which the curriculum development takes place and the different roles and responsibilities of curriculum developers are challenging; (3) curriculum developers feel insufficiently equipped to carry out their tasks; and (4) involving stakeholders is necessary but results in a “viscous” social–political process. Responsive curriculum development requires a great deal of flexibility and adaptability from curriculum developers. Yet, in our study, “institutional concrete” is found to severely hinder responsive curriculum development processes. To be responsive, such processes need to be supported and institutional barriers need to be removed.
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Design, develop and implement a curriculum with different course modules Basic MRI safety (EQF level 6) Advanced MRSO education and training (EQF level 7) Course content into an e-learning environment and deliver the course modules using blended learning
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In the midst of continuous health professions curriculum reforms, critical questions arise about the extent to which conceptual ideas are actually put into practice. Curricula are often not implemented as intended. An under-explored aspect that might play a role is governance. In light of major curriculum changes, we explored educators' perspectives of the role of governance in the process of translating curriculum goals and concepts into institutionalized curriculum change at micro-level (teacher-student). In three Dutch medical schools, 19 educators with a dual role (teacher and coordinator) were interviewed between March and May 2018, using the rich pictures method. We employed qualitative content analysis with inductive coding. Data collection occurred concurrently with data analysis. Different governance processes were mentioned, each with its own effects on the curriculum and organizational responses. In Institute 1, participants described an unclear governance structure, resulting in implementation chaos in which an abstract educational concept could not be fully realized. In Institute 2, participants described a top-down and strict governance structure contributing to relatively successful implementation of the educational concept. However it also led to demotivation of educators, who started rebelling to recover their perceived loss of freedom. In Institute 3, participants described a relatively fragmentized process granting a lot of freedom, which contributed to contentment and motivation but did not fully produce the intended changes. Our paper empirically illustrates the importance of governance in curriculum change. To advance curriculum change processes and improve their desired outcomes it seems important to define and explicate both hard and soft governance processes.
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In programmatic assessment (PA), an arrangement of different assessment methods is deliberately designed across the entire curriculum, combined and planned to support both robust decision-making and student learning. In health sciences education, evidence about the merits and pitfalls of PA is emerging. Although there is consensus about the theoretical principles of PA, programs make diverse design choices based on these principles to implement PA in practice, fitting their own contexts. We therefore need a better understanding of how the PA principles are implemented across contexts—within and beyond health sciences education. In this study, interviews were conducted with teachers/curriculum designers representing nine different programs in diverse professional domains. Research questions focused on: (1) design choices made, (2) whether these design choices adhere to PA principles, (3) student and teacher experiences in practice, and (4) context-specific differences between the programs. A wide range of design choices were reported, largely adhering to PA principles but differing across cases due to contextual alignment. Design choices reported by almost all programs include a backbone of learning outcomes, data-points connected to this backbone in a longitudinal design allowing uptake of feedback, intermediate reflective meetings, and decision-making based on a multitude of data-points made by a committee and involving multi-stage procedures. Contextual design choices were made aligning the design to the professional domain and practical feasibility. Further research is needed in particular with regard to intermediate-stakes decisions.
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The support for connections between research and education is widespread. This connection yields the promise of educating students for the knowledge society. With the curriculum as the most important carrier of planned higher education, the lack of systematic insight in how research can be integrated into the curriculum is an important omission. This systematic review considers how empirical studies provide input for the integration of research in the higher education curriculum. Moreover, it provides a structured insight into the current body of knowledge on research in the curriculum. Based on a first set of 5815 journal articles, 121 articles were selected for further analysis. The model of Curriculum Aspects by Van den Akker (2003) was used to categorise the articles, which shows a body of knowledge on research in the curriculum with the largest focus on learning aims and learning activities. Furthermore, this review shows how few studies consider the effects of curriculum design on student learning, which calls for more empirical studies to benefit student learning.
MULTIFILE
This short paper describes the first prototyping of a self-evaluation process of Curriculum Agility at a Faculty of Technology in Sweden. The process comprises guided, semi-structured, individual interviews at different organisational levels within the faculty, a joint narrative based on those interviews, prioritizing development strategies per level, and jointly mapping them on importance and implementation time. The self-evaluation is part of and based on the research on the principles of Curriculum Agility. The results show the interplay in timely curriculum change for futureproof engineering education between the teaching staff, the systems and the people who control the systems. The self-evaluation brings together the different perspectives and perceptions within the faculty and gives insight in how those affect he willingness towards and occurrence of curriculum development. This work in progress indicates how doing such a qualitative self-evaluation paves the road for transparent strategic dialogues on a holistic level about what to give attention and organize differently.
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