Workshop at the Annual Sheffield Learning & Teaching Conference 2019

1. Collaborative Vision Making for
Programme-Level Design and
Assessment
Gary C. Wood & Beverley Gibbs
Department of Mechanical Engineering
g.c.wood@sheffield.ac.uk | @GC_Wood
b.gibbs@sheffield.ac.uk | @bevgibbs

2. Aims for today
● Work through some practical tools to bring programme teams together
○ Fruitful conversations
○ Doing not just talking
○ Disruptive thinking
○ Decision-making
● Share a strategic way of thinking about assessment
● Show how a programme ethos can crystallise many of the difficult
conversations needed in curriculum change.

3. Background
● The idea of the ethos came from the approach taken by Chemistry (thanks!)
● Having seen its value, we endorse it:
○ Let us talk about who our programmes were for, what we valued, and what
was distinctive about our graduates, in a way we hadn’t been able to before
○ Allowed a dozen people to come together on these very subjective areas
○ Gave us a solid foundation for our PLA work, and guides our decision-
making process
● It was not easy!
○ But, having these debates earlier gave us clarity and consensus moving
forward – so making the later process easier.

4. A programme ethos
● A dynamic, outward-facing statement of the programmes’ purpose and
values and the learning environment we aspire to. Should communicate in
clear language:
○ the programmes’ purpose(s)
○ educational and discipline and professional values
○ nature of the learning environment for students
○ key approaches to teaching, learning and assessment
● Important note! Today, you’ll learn tools to develop an ethos
collaboratively; there won’t be time for you to write the full ethos in this
session.

5. Draw/describe who your programme is for
What do they know?
What can they do?
What do they value?
🖑

6. Draw/describe your ideal graduate
What do they know?
What can they do?
What do they value?
🖑

7. Disciplinary and Professional Values
● Take the list of cards
● Look at the values they present
● If your graduate were going to be known for 5 things, what would they be?
● You can add your own value(s), if you think something is missing
● Stick your selection in the box under your gingerbread graduate.

8. Experience through your Programme –
current
● Your students spend years with you, becoming a new person
● The go through a long process of development, learning, teaching and
assessment
● Look at the picture cards
● Put yourself in the mind of a student undertaking the course
● Select one image as a metaphor for the learning environment.

9. Experience through the Programme – desired
● What kind of learning environment might develop your ideal graduate, with
the values and capabilities of your discipline?
○ What’s the journey like?
○ What challenges and opportunities are in it?
○ What do you encounter along the way?
○ What is the nature of knowledge and skills development?
● Choose an image to represent the journey
● Stick it in the central box
● Add some notes below it, to remind yourself of your thinking.

10. Understanding your drivers for assessment
● On the assessment handout, list the assessments you have in your current
programme
● Include module details if you like
● Take one semester as a snapshot if this is very dense
● Tick the boxes as they apply
● What does this tell you is your driver?
● Is this right?
● How effectively is it underpinning your future graduate?

11. Using the ethos to guide assessment design
● Assessment design at the programme level:
○ Which drivers are having most influence?
○ How well does the assessment underpin development of the attributes and
values you desire?
○ Is assessment effort (from everyone) working as hard as it could?
● At the year level:
○ Can assessments be combined to be richer manifestations of the ethos?
○ Does the assessment profile evidence students’ making connections in
learning happening across modules consistent with desired attributes?
○ Does the sum of the (assessment) parts add up to a holistic view of a
developing student?

12. Toolkit
● Gray, D., Brown, S., & Macanufo, J. (2010) Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators,
Rulebreakers and Changemakers. O’Reilly Media
○ Meaningful Space
○ Hearts-head-hands
○ Forced ranking
○ Vision making
○ Mapping
● Kent-Waters, J., Seago, O,. & Smith, L. (2018) A Compendium of Assessment Techniques in
Higher Education from Students’ Perspectives. Edited by Samantha Pugh. Leeds: Leeds Institute
for Teaching Excellence (available at: http://teachingexcellence.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/
2018/10/PUGHcompendiumcomplete.pdf)
● O’Neill, Geraldine (2015). Curriculum Design in Higher Education: Theory to Practice, 1st Edition.
Chapter 3: Needs Analysis and Educational Philosophy. Dublin: UCD Learning & Teaching.
Available online at http://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/UCDTLP0068.pdf