Designing the History Curriculum at Coimbra

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Designing the History Curriculum at Coimbra
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Summary

• From principles to strategies how to get it
  started and making it work.
• Incorporating the Tuning approach strategies for
  designing a competence based curriculum.
• Quality Assurance new style local QA strategies
  in the Bologna era.
• Merging it all Competences, QA and ECTS.

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Background

• 2001 Autonomous global reform of curricula at
  Faculty of Humanities in Coimbra parallel to
  participation in Tuning I, History Area, CLIOHnet
  network.
• 2002 New History program, competence based,
  submitted to Ministry for approval.
• 2002 History at Coimbra is evaluated in ENQAs
  Transnational European Evaluation Project (TEEP).
  Results disseminated at University level .
• 2003 New programme starts. Previous reform
  1986.
• 2004 National level discussion produces Tuning
  inspired level descriptors, profiles and
  competences for History degrees, adopted as
  reference by Ministry.
• 2005 CLIOHnet2 begins
• 2006 New Ministry, new forced reform. Degree
  shortened to 3 years. Adjustments made. Starting
  2007.

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Profile and Competences

• Tuning proposes an approach based in profile,
  learning outcomes and competences, level and
  student workload.
• The profile relates to a need which has been
  identified and a potential which has been
  discovered.
• Degree profiles guide the choice of learning
  outcomes and competences used and developed in a
  particular programme.

Separate Profile and Program Learning Outcomes
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Profile of the History Graduate

• High level of critical understanding of the
  present, including the capacity to distinguish
  long term trends from episodical events.
• Understanding and respect for human diversity,
  both in its historical terms and in the present.
• High awareness of the specific character of the
  communities to which one belongs, and the
  importance of preserving material and immaterial
  heritage.
• Ability to research, compare and analyse
  critically information, including complex
  information.
• Organization, clarity and fluency in written and
  oral expression.

High level description of the graduate readable
by employers
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Program level competences

• Broad information about the human past in
  general, European and National history in
  particular.
• Specific technical skills paleography, specific
  computer tools, dating methods, etc.
• Ability to think theoretically the past (exposure
  to philosophies of history, concepts of social
  causality in time).
• Contact with historical sources and direct
  experience in the production of historical
  knowledge.
• Interdisciplinary horizons.
• Knowledge of the historical roots of the relevant
  questions of our time.
• Perception of the social value of historical
  knowledge.

High level description of outcomes understandable
by academics
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• The profile and program level competencies keep
  curricular reform focussed.
• Keeping it simple at this step was important to
  gain support and achieve consensus.
• A document clarified the meaning of the
  competences and their relative weight in terms of
  student workload.

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Mapping competences to courses

• Mapping is way to match course level learning
  outcomes to program level learning outcomes and
  competences.
• The mapping should
• Keep the relative weight of competences in terms
  of workload as defined at program level.
• Be easy to understand by staff and students.
• Allow for choice and academic freedom.
• This is the most difficult part, where local
  constrains play a role.

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How to map

• One to Many one competency, many courses each
  global competence is promoted in several courses
  but each course contributes mainly to a single
  global competence.
• The workload associated with a global competence
  is the sum of the ECTS of the associated
  courses.
• Easy to setup, negotiate and monitor.
• Many to many one course, many competences each
  course can contribute to more than one global
  competence
• Each course must specify the amount of workload
  for each competence.
• The workload associated with a global competence
  is the sum of the contributions from each course.
• Difficult to setup and to monitor.

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• Slots in the curriculum can be associated with
  elective or compulsory courses
• By associating a slot with electives one can
  provide freedom of offer and choice and keep the
  right balance.
• QA assures that course level learning outcomes
  are adequate to the corresponding competence

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The problem of generic competences

• Harder to define a manageable set.
• Not mapped to courses but related to teaching
  methodologies and learning environment.
• Not easy to quantify in terms of workload.
• Adoption of concept implies pedagogical
  introspection and has impact in everyday
  practice.
• Not related to scientific knowledge, but rather
  to less stable concepts of social effectiveness.
• QA harder without intrusiveness.

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Strategy

• Get teaching staff to explicitly identify the
  generic competences that they plan to promote in
  their courses.
• Define promoting as the existence of a
  specific approach in teaching methodology and
  assessment criteria targeted at that competence.
• Make the generic competences of each course part
  of the course description, making the staff
  commitment public, introducing responsibility and
  allowing monitoring (contract based approach).

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In practice

• Capacity for analysis and synthesis
• Capacity to deal with complex and contradictory
  information
• Quality in oral and written expression
• Knowledge of information handling techniques
• Planning and project management
• Initiative
• Group work

Fragment of a course description on the web.
Subject specific are pre-determined for a given
course but generic competences depend on the
professors decision / learning environment.
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Adapting and improving

• A new ministry level law in 2006 reduces 1st
  cycle to 3 years and installs new accreditation
  procedures.
• New curricula have to explicit identify
  competences,European level examples.
• Opportunity used to fix some problems with
  existing scheme.
• Hope for institutionalization of QA. Autonomous
  programme level QA requires stable leadership
  that does not exist.

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Chronology, breadth and depth

• Major changes introduced for 2007 avoid
  chronological progression in the programme,
  manage breadth and depth.
• Argument students mature during the programme
  but Antiquity is not easier than Contemporary
  History.
• Approach the programme goes from generic to
  specialized history.
• Year 1 General history (broad frameworks),
• Year 2 National and regional history.
• Year 3 Specialization opportunities, linking to
  master level studies.
• In Year 1 and 2 1st semester more theoretical
  (breadth), 2nd semester more tutorial oriented
  (depth)

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Program level competences

• Broad information about the human past in
  general, European and National history in
  particular.
• Specific technical skills paleography, specific
  computer tools, dating methods, etc.
• Ability to think theoretically the past (exposure
  to philosophies of history, concepts of social
  causality in time).
• Contact with historical sources and direct
  experience in the production of historical
  knowledge.
• Interdisciplinary horizons.
• Knowledge of the historical roots of the relevant
  questions of our time.
• Perception of the social value of historical
  knowledge.

High level description of outcomes understandable
by academics
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Weight of the competences
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Semester 1
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Semester 2
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Semester 3
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Semester 4
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Semester 5
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Semester 6
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QA information systems

• Database links Courses, Subject Specific and
  Generic Competences, ECTS Catalogue, creates Web
  Site.
• Infrastructure for monitoring useful data can be
  gathered when merged with assessment results and
  student feed back.
• Difficulty in finding institutional support for
  QA.
• Difficulties in sustaining practices in absence
  of compulsory rules.

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Lessons learned

• Designing new programmes requires careful
  attention to manageability, clarity and
  negotiation.
• Staff motivation is central and requires
  incremental adoption of simple and sustainable
  strategies.
• There is natural convergence in Tuning
  methodology, internal QA and ECTS label
  requirements.
• The introduction of subject specific and generic
  competences requires different approaches with
  the latter requiring deeper change.
• Information systems play crucial role in managing
  new approach.

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More info

• Tuninghttp//www.relint.deusto.es/TuningProject/i
  ndex.htmhttp//www.let.rug.nl/TuningProject/index
  .htm
• CLIONET/CLIOHnet2 http//www.clioh.net.
• ENQA http//www.enqa.net
• Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in
  the European Higher Education Area
• TEEP Self Evaluation Manual
• TEEP Reports on History, Physics and Veterinary
• Joaquim Carvalho, joaquim_at_dei.uc.pt