Curriculum Symposium 2022: Personalising the curriculum: Quality assurance in a world where one size doesn't fit all

This symposium will provide staff with a useful forum to encourage the exchange and dissemination of new approaches to curriculum design and development. It will aim to offer reflections, insights and solutions to issues of curriculum design as well as exploring how colleagues across the sector are reshaping their curricula using new and innovative methods.

The dictionary definition of curricula, is simply: ‘the subjects that are included in a course of study or taught in a school, college, etc.’ In higher education, however, curricula typically extend beyond what gets taught, to the pedagogic practices deployed to support engagement with the discipline- not just what, but how we teach, what and how we assess and how we provide feedback. These choices are informed by national guidance and frameworks, shaped by institutional culture and strategies, and enhanced through engagement with stakeholders.

The ‘smorgasbord’ approach offered in some models of higher education can disrupt progamme coherence and holistic approaches to learning, assessment, and methods of feedback and feedforward. Curriculum frameworks explicitly linking the ‘what and how’ students are taught to institutional strategies for learning and teaching can encompass the core attributes or competencies expected of all graduates. Typically, curriculum frameworks include transdisciplinary concepts that establish and communicate the desired USP of an institution, such as employability, entrepreneurship, sustainability, citizenship, digital competencies and inclusivity. A well-constructed curriculum framework can provide programme designers with a flexible model on which to design and structure their programme outcomes, whilst providing student choice.