The project Future-focussed curriculum literacy for educational wellbeing aims to build students’ confidence and agency in navigating their own learning journeys through enhancing their knowledge of curriculum design. This project recognises that students who are curriculum-literate are empowered to learn because they understand exactly what they are learning and why, and in what order the learning should occur. They are advantaged in making course decisions that meet their learning and career needs because they know what will be taught and how. They are also able to feed back to their lecturers effectively about how to improve courses and programs because they are familiar with foundational principles, practices and terminology of curriculum design and can speak in those terms (Bovill & Bulley, 2011).
Students who are future-focussed curriculum-literate are also aware of the learning approaches and activities that are beneficial to both their short-term and future success as graduates, and are well-positioned to make intentional choices (Watts, 2006). The confidence and agency that these students bring to their learning experience enhances their educational wellbeing as they navigate their careers now and into the future.
The project team will work in partnership with students and educators to characterise students’ learning needs with respect to future-focussed curriculum literacy, and to co-design a developmental program that will enhance it. The project will also collaborate with foundation course convenors to pilot ways of embedding contextualized elements of the program early in the student experience of their degree programs.
Professor Ruth Bridgstock, Michelle Grant-Iramu; Louise Maddock, Katharina Gutjahr-Holland (undergraduate student)