Curriculum for Excellence and Higher Education in Scotland: Drivers and Directions

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Dr Jim Moir

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Outline

Part A. Drivers: CfE and the Process Curriculum

Part B. Directions: CfE and Scottish HE

Conclusion

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Part A. Drivers: CfE and the Process Curriculum

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CfE and The Process Curriculum

• Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is considered as “one of the most ambitious programmes of educational change ever undertaken in Scotland”

(Scottish Government, 2008:8)

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• It is explicitly driven by what are perceived to be anticipated future needs based upon economic, technological and social changes within Scotland and the wider global economy.

“Recent developments in education and the economy, both locally and globally, provide powerful drivers for change in the way we organise young people’s learning.” (Scottish Government, 2008:8)

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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• CfE explicitly moves away from a centrally prescribed curriculum.

• This is allied to a modified process curricular model based upon a flexible and open-ended engagement with learning rather than a pre-determined content driven model (Stenhouse, 1975).

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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• Not like a curriculum package which is designed to be delivered almost anywhere.

• Not a set of behavioural outcomes.

• Not a view of learners as objects to be acted upon.

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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• A process curriculum is therefore founded upon:– democratic values (Dewey, 1916)– placing meaning-making and thinking at its core and treats

learners as subjects rather than objects, – learning activities that enable students to develop a sense

of involvement in the learning process.

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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• This focus on the development of the individual and the benefits of exposure to a process curriculum is enshrined in CfE in terms of the “Four Capacities”

For more detail on the capacities see: http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/thecurriculum/whatiscurriculumforexcellence/thepurposeofthecurriculum/index.asp

• successful learners • confident individuals • responsible citizens• effective contributors

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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• Alongside these capacities is a more amorphous, but nonetheless desirable set of outcomes which can be aligned to the sociology of a changing society:

individual enhancement, inclusion, andparticipation.

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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• Bernstein (1971) characterised this kind of curricular reform as a move from a: – ‘collection code’ in which subject boundaries

are relatively fixed– towards an ‘integrated code’ where subject

boundaries are permeable and less strong and where there is a focus on interdisciplinary study

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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• This can be considered as a shift towards transformative education, where there is less specialisation and more integration of learners and knowledge.– towards organic social integration where social roles arise

through differences between people and their own engagement with education (Durkheim, 1893).

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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• CfE must also function as a means of producing qualifications.

• Standard Grades and Intermediates have been replaced by new National 4 and 5 qualifications.

• Higher and Advanced Higher have been revised.

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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• Skills and knowledge from more than one subject will be applied to topic-based work:

“The curriculum should include space for learning beyond subject boundaries, so that children and young people can make connexions between different areas of learning. Interdisciplinary studies, based upon groupings of experiences and outcomes from within and across curriculum areas, can provide relevant, challenging and enjoyable learning experiences……” (Scottish Government, 2008: 21)

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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• But there will still be subjects: “Subjects are an essential feature of the curriculum, particularly in secondary school. They provide an important and familiar structure for knowledge, offering a context for specialists to inspire, stretch and motivate. Throughout a young person’s learning there will be increasing specialisation and greater depth, which will lead to subjects increasingly being the principal means of structuring learning and delivering outcomes.”

(ibid: 20)

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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• The Four Capacities are developed throughout the Senior Phase and the curricula associated with these subjects and examinations.

• Priestley and Sinnema (2014) point out there is ambiguity in the curricular documentation concerning the foregrounding of skills and capacities versus that of subject knowledge.

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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• CfE therefore contains some divergent themes:

– Espousing a process model but still rooted in outcomes– Stressing interdisciplinarity but also subjects– Aiming for breadth as well as increasing specialisation– Stressing teacher agency but also central guidance and

accountability

(see Humes, 2013; Priestley et al., 2013)

CfE and The Process Curriculum

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Part B. Directions: CfE and Scottish HE

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CfE and Scottish HE

The Global context

GUNI 2014 considers: – the role of HEIs as active players in

contributing to social change.

– one of the most significant trends over the past 10–15 years: the growth of the theory and practice of engagement as a key feature in the evolution of HE.

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The National Context The Enhancement Themes parallel these global trends.

CfE and Scottish HE

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• The two most recent themes – Graduates for the 21st Century (2008-2011) and Developing and Supporting the Curriculum (2011-2014) – have taken this approach forward in a more integrated manner.

• This has involved policy initiatives that have seen the development of graduate attributes (see Barrie, 2004, 2006, 2007) become a key feature of the teaching and learning discourse in Scottish HE.

CfE and Scottish HE

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• These reforms dovetail with CfE in terms of the focus on the development of students’ capacities.

• CfE has four capacities and similarly higher education institutions are increasingly marketing their courses in terms of the attributes that students develop as the result of their studies.

CfE and Scottish HE

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• This focus on the identity of the learner and the process of transformative learning (Illeris, 2014) places much more of an emphasis on personal traits and the acquisition of social capital as an aspect of the educational process.

(see also McGonigal et al., 2007; Wilkins and Burke, 2013)

CfE and Scottish HE

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Senior Phase HE• There is an expectation that HE in Scotland will have

to meet the needs of these ‘new learners’ through adapting or altering their curricula and course provision.

• This process is already taking place through a number of school-college-university programmes that enable school pupils to undertake part of their studies in a FE/HE institution.

CfE and Scottish HE

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• Participation and engagement are considered as being crucial to this transition process - through forms active learning and personal development planning in line with a process curriculum model.

Senior Phase HE

CfE and Scottish HE

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Regional Workshops and CfE Conference

• These events proved useful in demonstrating the collaborative work going on between schools-colleges-universities.

• The divergent themes of CfE have also been, to some extent, carried over into the interface with HE.

See more at: http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/enhancement-themes/current-enhancement-theme/curriculum-for-excellence-and-its-impact-on-higher-education

CfE and Scottish HE

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• Collaborations are being used in different ways:

– widening participation– developing interdisciplinary programmes of study– discipline-focused programmes– advanced study and entry

• However, there perhaps needs to be more thought put into how CfE capacities and graduate attributes can be aligned with one another.

CfE and Scottish HE

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CfE and Scottish HEThe ‘ABC of CfE’ Toolkit

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Conclusion

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• The Senior Phase of CfE has yet to be fully operationalised - the desired, more seamless, and yet at the same time flexible path into HE is something of a work-in-progress.

• There are some questions to be worked through with respect to Level 7: – What is the ‘higher’ nature of higher education?– In what ways are graduate attributes similar/different from

capacities within CfE?

Conclusion

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Barrie, SC (2004) A research-based approach to generic graduate attributes policy, Higher Education Research and Development, 23 (3): 261-275.Barrie, SC (2006) Understanding what we mean by generic attributes of graduates, Higher Education, 51(2): 215-241.Barrie, SC (2007) A conceptual framework for the teaching and learning of generic graduate attributes, Studies In Higher Education, 32(4): 439-458.Bernstein, B. (1971) Class, Codes and Control Vol. 1. London: Routledge and Kegan PaulGlobal University Network for Innovation (2014) Higher Education in the World 5 - Knowledge engagement and higher education: contributing to social change. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Durkheim, Emile. (1893 The Division of Labor in Society. English translation by W.D. Halls 1984. New York: The Free PressHumes, Walter (2013) Curriculum for Excellence and Interdisciplinary Learning, Scottish Educational Review45 (1), 82-93McGonigal, J., Doherty, R., Allan, J., Mills, S., Catts, R., Redford, M., McDonald, A., Mott, J. and Buckley, C (2007) Social Capital, Social Inclusion and changing School contexts: A Scottish Perspective. British Journal of Education Studies. 55 (1), 77–94 Scottish Government (2008) Building the Curriculum 3: a framework for learning and teaching. Edinburgh: Scottish Government. Stenhouse, L. (1975) An introduction to curriculum research and development London: Heinemann.Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy in education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: MacmillanIlleris, K. (2014) Transformative Learning and Identity Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.Priestley , M., Minty, S. & Eager, M. (2013) School-based curriculum development in Scotland: curriculum policy and enactment. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, DOI: 10.1080/14681366.2013.812137Priestley, M. & Sinnema, C. (2014). Downgraded curriculum? An analysis of knowledge in new curricula in Scotland and New Zealand. The Curriculum Journal, Special Edition: Creating Curricula: Aims, Knowledge, and Control, 25(1), 50-75.Wilkins, A. and Burke, P. J. (2013) Widening participation in higher education: the role of professional and social class identities and commitments. British Journal of Sociology of Education DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2013.829742

References