Designing the History Curriculum at Coimbra

1. Designing the History Curriculum at Coimbra

2. 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.

3. 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 ENQA’s 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.

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. Program Level competences

11. Program Level competences Curriculum

12. 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 Curriculum

13. 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.

14. 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”).

15. 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 professor’s decision / learning environment.

16. 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.

17. 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)

18. 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

19. Weight of the competences

20. Semester 1

21. Semester 2

22. Semester 3

23. Semester 4

24. Semester 5

25. Semester 6

26. 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.

27. 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.

28. More info • Tuninghttp://www.relint.deusto.es/TuningProject/index.htmhttp://www.let.rug.nl/TuningProject/index.htm • CLIONET/CLIOHnet2: http://www.clioh.net. • ENQAhttp://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@dei.uc.pt