Sports and Physical Activity curriculum workshop report – 28 March 2018

A workshop was held with 15 members of staff from the Sports and Physical Activity (SPA) Department earlier today.  The focus of the workshop was on curriculum design principles for the 3 new programmes to be taught in SPA in 19/20.

This was the agenda for the session:

After the introduction, the initial discussion was on the philosophy of the SPA Department.  The team identified the key importance of ‘producing’ rounded graduates and post-graduates who were fully supported during their studies and into work.  The need for evidence-based theory coupled with applied and experiential learning were also seen as key principles of SPA as was the desire to create strong cohort identity for students and a vibrant alumni community. In the coming months, as the programmes and units begin to take shape, the philosophy of SPA will act as guiding principles that inform unit creation to provide coherent and connected learning experiences for students.  This part of the workshop also touched on the skills needed by graduates and the means by which they acquire these hard and soft skills, either integrated into the units or presented as discrete units.

Two Padlet walls were used to capture specific and more general feedback.

In the next section, the many internal and external factors that affect curriculum design were outlined.  These included BU frameworks, different curriculum models, standards frameworks, assessment strategies, learning theories and employability.  There were very interesting discussions on the purpose of education and also the merits of external accreditation.

The Jisc Curriculum Development life cycle was the next item for discussion and this led on to a brief discussion on the iterative nature of curriculum development and suggestions for continual improvement of programmes and units.

A photo of the discussion on the department’s principles

Amanda, Carly and Andrew in conversation

The feedback on the session included these comments:

  • Created good discussion
  • Good amount of space for conversation and dialogue
  • Great to have space to discuss in a group
  • Good pacing.  Padlet useful.
  • Constructive debate
  • Useful philosophical discussion
  • Need more evidence on graduate skills rather than our opinion

After this initial workshop, the next stage in the process is another workshop where the focus will be on programme design principles.

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