THE ULTIMATE CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR THE ULTIMATE LEARNING EXPERIENCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION?

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1 THE ULTIMATE CURRICULUM DESIGN FOR THE ULTIMATE LEARNING EXPERIENCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION? Iris Peeters 1,2, Peter Lievens 3 1 Monitoraat Wetenschappen, Faculty of Science, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200I bus 2105, BE-3001 Leuven (Heverlee) (BELGIUM) ² Affiliated with Leuven Engineering and Science Education Center (LESEC) (BELGIUM) 3 Faculty of Science, KU Leuven, Geel Huis, Kasteelpark Arenberg 11 bus 2100, BE-3001 Leuven (Heverlee) (BELGIUM) Iris.Peeters@wet.kuleuven.be, Peter.Lievens@wet.kuleuven.be Abstract All programmes in higher education aim for a curriculum that enables students to become independent, critical-thinking professionals. But how can this goal be reached effectively and efficiently? How does a curriculum design influence student learning and, more importantly, how can the answer to this question be used to improve student learning? These questions are not new and many authors already formulated answers to parts of them. First, at the curriculum level, a serial educational system whereby only a few courses are taught simultaneously over shorter time periods is more efficient than a parallel system in terms of student learning and study progress. Second, at the course level, literature shows that reducing contact hours can significantly improve study efficiency if students are activated to actually use the free time to study, for example, by using a preparation-feedback model instead of a presentation-assimilation model. Third, during contact hours cognitive load should be reduced to allow students to actively process new knowledge and skills. Students cannot remember more than 30% of traditionally-taught, general concepts even if the lecture is given by the most renowned lecturer. Interactive-engagement methods can significantly improve the effectiveness of a course and enhance the problem solving ability of students. Fourth, permanent evaluation can be used to assess the extent to which students reach the set goals, but also to activate students and give regular feedback. In this paper existing knowledge from literature is integrated and supplemented by personal experiences and findings. Hereby the authors want to anticipate students tendency to postpone active studying, which inevitably leads to a high peak of workload at the end of the semester, superficial learning, and a lack of long-term retention of knowledge and skills. Moreover, the didactical guidance that is available during the semester is not used optimally as students often have lost track of the course content after a few weeks, resulting in passive class attendance without any learning activities. Consequently, the main goal of the paper is to define an ultimate curriculum design for an optimal learning experience at the Faculty of Science at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) within the constraints of the existing educational system. Keywords: Curriculum design, time efficiency, student learning, preparation-feedback model, interactive-engagement methods, permanent evaluation. 1 INTRODUCTION The educational approach at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) is research-based and has objectives that correspond to the Dublin Descriptors and thus are typical of an academic education. These objectives enable students to acquire academic competences, including thorough knowledge and skills in the discipline, coupled with a broader interdisciplinary perspective and a critical and research-oriented attitude. Moreover, students integrate these academic competences within a broad ethical, cultural and social formation. From this, they learn to make well-founded choices and to act professionally, constructively and critically in their chosen field. This enables them to assume their social responsibility as committed citizens. In the university's vision of teaching and learning, active students are in the end responsible for their own learning process, while it is the responsibility of the teaching staff to provide optimal support for the student. The Faculty of Science has taken leadership in the implementation of this approach, e.g., by publishing an educational guide, flyers and websites for teaching staff. However many lecturers and Proceedings of INTED2012 Conference. 5th-7th March 2012, Valencia, Spain ISBN:

2 students indicate during informal contacts to experience problems to fully implement the approach, mainly caused by the current curriculum design. For example, the applied semester system with 13 weeks of parallel classes followed by two or three contact-free weeks before three finalising examination weeks causes students to postpone active studying significantly. Consequently, many lecturers notice that deep learning and long-term retention of knowledge and skills are not reached. Moreover, the available didactical guidance during the semester is not used optimally as students often loose track of the course content after a few weeks, resulting in passive class attendance. This paper investigates whether an alternative curriculum design in the bachelor programmes of the faculty is eligible and feasible. Established concepts from literature and personal findings are linked at the curriculum level, the course level and the lecture level in order to define the ultimate curriculum design for the ultimate learning experience. The student evaluation process is also taken into account. Finally, findings are combined into an optimal curriculum design applied within the constraints of the existing educational system at the Faculty of Science at KU Leuven. 2 CURRICULUM DESIGN First, Crombaq et al. [1] already demonstrated that students do adjust their study behaviour to the organisation of the curriculum, which was confirmed by Van der Drift and Vos [2] and Jansen [3]. This is strengthened by the observations described above at the Faculty of Science at KU Leuven. Other authors give a good overview of existing systems and their influence on student behaviour, learning and study progress [3-10]. They conclude that a serial system, whereby only a few courses are taught simultaneously over shorter time periods, is more efficient than a parallel system in terms of student learning and study progress. Furthermore geology students as well as lecturers of Utrecht University (UU), where a serial system is applied, both indicated during qualitative interviews in 2010 that such a system is not only efficient but also very pleasant. However, this comes at a risk that different courses are fragmented and links between subjects are missing [6]. Therefore it is necessary to cluster courses in a logical way, for example by project work. Apart from the organisation of courses, the evaluation format must be considered in a curriculum design. Literature illustrates that pass rates increase as the amount of resit examinations decrease, and that resit examinations should be placed as soon as possible after the initial examination [3, 8]. This is confirmed by Ruijter and Smit [6] who add that examinations should be spread in time so that only a few courses are examined in the same period. At UU a resit examination is called a repair and can only be taken with a result of 4/10 for the initial examination. Moreover, no more than 6/10 can be attained with a repair. This system has increased passing grades through a mentality shift and matching behaviour among the students. 3 TIME EFFICIENCY Apart from UU many other universities apply a serial educational system. However, this does not guarantee study success as the time during a course should be used as efficient as possible by lecturers and students. 3.1 Contact hours versus self-study Many studies show that reducing contact hours has the potential of significantly improving study efficiency [3, 8, 11-14]. This can be explained by the availability of more time for active self-study. This does not imply that the ideal situation is an abolishment of lecture hours. An interactive lecture is valuable for example to motivate students and evoke their interest, to structure the course and give examples, to enable the students to ask questions, or to explain assignments [15, 16]. Lectures are also useful if course material may be forgotten or, most importantly, if the students attend to the lecture prepared. Moreover a minimum amount of lecture hours are necessary to stimulate students for self-study. Vos [13] defined the optimal number of contact hours in the law of Vos, which states that 400 contact hours a year induce the optimal number of self-study hours, as shown in Fig. 1. This takes into account the throughput of students, which is set at 7 or 8 hours a day [6, 12, 17]. 1029

3 Fig. 1 Law of Vos: attended contact hours as a function of hours of self-study (Vos 1985). Unfortunately this ideal number of contact hours is often exceeded in reality. For example the average number of contact hours at the Faculty of Science of KU Leuven is over 800. Moreover, current educational systems are frequently adapted to a pattern where students active contribution during lectures is limited significantly, leading to procrastination during lecture weeks and peak effort during examination periods. As a result not all goals are reached by the students. Vos [14] states that traditional teaching formats have even more disadvantages: students are not required to prepare lectures. A questionnaire at the Faculty of Science in 2009 of first year students Mathematics indeed shows that only 1 student out of 50 prepared for class and only 10/50 students reviewed the past lecture s course material. Furthermore, study time measurements at the faculty in 2009 amongst all bachelor students, whereby students were asked to estimate study time for each component as soon as the semester was finalised, confirm that on average most intended study time (39%) is spent on contact hours, while only 23% is used for the processing of course material during lecture weeks (Fig. 2). Moreover, Fig. 2 shows that only 92% of intended study time according to decretal minimum standard is actually used by students as study time. This means that there is an opportunity of 8% or 120 hours, but also that 43% of time actually devoted to their studies is spent on contact hours. Fig. 2 Average distribution of study time in the bachelor programmes, Faculty of Science, KU Leuven. Vos [14] proposes a shift from a presentation-assimilation model, whereby students come into contact with course material for the first time during a lecture, to a preparation-feedback model, allowing a deeper process during a lecture. Optimally, self-study time is reserved before each lecture and adequate feedback is given during the lecture to what students have prepared. This concept works as intended: students spend 50% more time to the preparation of contact hours, without a significant increase in total time spent [14]. However, students need enough stimulation to actually prepare 1030

4 lectures, by systematically taking action against those who do not prepare, or by asking to hand in assignments. In summary, sufficient time should be reserved in a curriculum for self-study, which needs to be triggered by activating teaching methods, to obtain optimal success rates [12]. Frequent deadlines and a stimulating study environment are essential and study schedules as well as didactical methods need to be adapted [14]. Fragmentation of time needs to be limited by planning only one or two different courses a day. Additionally, Jansen [3] found that courses with practical possibilities have a positive effect on success rates. 3.2 Teaching methods In order to stimulate students to commit themselves more actively to their studies, study more efficiently, remember course material longer and have higher success rates, teaching methods should also change. An interview with a lecturer at University of Hasselt showed that a serial curriculum design is no guarantee to obtain active students. This, however, is independent of the quality of the lecturer, but can be linked to certain general concepts described below. Students remember much less of a lecture than expected. On average less than 30% of traditionally taught concepts is remembered and only 10% of students can reply correctly to general questions 15 minutes after a lecture [18]. Again this shows that students must think actively during a lecture, by letting them reason and reflect during lectures but also afterwards with homework and during examination. Clickers can be a useful tool, preferably in combination with peer feedback. Hereby students answer to multiple choice questions posed by the lecturer electronically, who receives all the answers immediately in a graph. Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) as well has shown to be effective [19]. JiTT allows students to hand in questions and topics in advance so that the lecture can be focused to these topics. Furthermore it helps to limit the cognitive load during a lecture by linking course material to previous or other material and by focusing on why rather than what. This is the case in research-based education [18]. Research-based instruction already increases student attendance, improves engagement, and more than doubles the learning compared to a traditional lecture [20]. But why do students only remember some vague general concepts after a traditionally-taught lecture? Authors have asked similar questions in the past: Do they just sit there? [21], Why don t they understand us? [22]. Some other authors try to answer these questions [23, 24]. They conclude that students do not just sit there, but go through a cognitive process which differs from what is expected and meant by the lecturer. In other words, students have difficulties linking presented information to logical conclusions, which leads to misconceptions. This illustrates the importance of receiving feedback also from students: where do misconceptions originate? This feedback can be obtained by stimulating the interactivity during lectures. Many studies have been performed about interactiveengagement (IE) methods such as active learning and problem-based learning (PBL). These methods can significantly increase the effectiveness of lectures compared to traditionally-taught lectures, and improve the problem solving ability of students [25]. Schmidt, Cohen-Schotanus en Arends [26] give a good overview of active learning and PBL methods, and demonstrate that an active-learning curriculum leads to better academic performance. Many studies have been conducted about PBL, where links with real applications and the importance of context are central [27-29]. Tinto [30, 31] adds to this that the degree to which students feel socially and academically integrated positively influences study progress. This is confirmed by qualitative interviews with several KU Leuven international exchange students and students at UU in 2009 and 2010: a team effort, appropriate mentality and suitable infrastructure are essential to obtain optimal study results as intrinsic motivation and work ethic are increased. It is notable that all interviewed students do not mind working hard. Finally, also small changes can have large effects on the activation of students, such as asking questions, giving assignments, triggering discussions, 4 PERMANENT EVALUATION A direct effect of a new curriculum design and other teaching methods is that evaluation methods should also be revisited. Evaluation is mostly used to examine to what extent students have reached the set goals leading to grades, but evaluation can also be used to activate students during lecture 1031

5 weeks and to guide students in their learning process by giving constructive feedback. Permanent evaluation combines these objectives and thus involves formative evaluation as well as summative evaluation. Formative permanent evaluation, where no accounted grades are defined, helps guiding students during their learning process and stimulates deep learning and long-term retention of knowledge and skills. Summative permanent evaluation examines to what extent students have reached partial goals during the semester. In both cases part of the study load shifts from the examination period at the end of lecture weeks to lecture weeks themselves. In the semester system of KU Leuven this would influence study patterns as shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 3 The effect of permanent evaluation on study patterns of students in the system of KU Leuven. In addition to the above described advantages, overall students respond positively to permanent evaluation themselves because of the extrinsic motivation of summative permanent evaluation and the frequent early feedback [32]. Students at UU mentioned during a qualitative interview in 2010 the advantage of early remediation of problems and misconceptions. Nevertheless, first year Mathematics students at KU Leuven warned for negligence of parallel traditionally evaluated courses during a formal hearing in This advocates for a good alignment between different parallel courses and can be solved by reforming the curriculum as described in previous paragraphs of this paper. Another aspect of permanent evaluation is the workload for the didactical team. In order to restrict this workload evaluation can be partly peer evaluation, whereby students evaluate each other [32]. A shift in a system of many contact hours towards more self-study and feedback as described above would allow lecturers to spend more time to permanent evaluation. 5 THE ULTIMATE CURRICULUM DESIGN AT THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE AT KU LEUVEN All of the above findings are general and therefore can be applied to all higher education programmes. However, every university has its own structure within the framework of a broader educational system which should be considered in the design of the optimal curriculum. Nevertheless, the authors configure an ideal scenario for the Faculty of Science at KU Leuven based on all findings, regardless of decretal standards or practical contraints. Afterwards this ideal scenario is applied to the real situation at the faculty. The ideal scenario can be summarised as follows: Four periods of ten weeks, including nine weeks of lectures and one week of exams; Only three parallel courses are organised in one period; Sufficient time and space is reserved for self-study; Lectures and practice sessions are organised according to the preparation-feedback model; General application of permanent evaluation; Resit-examination is planned as soon as possible after the initial examination period. 1032

6 In order to apply this ideal scenario for two pilot programmes at the faculty, Bachelor of Science in Physics and Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, all conditions and constraints need to be taken into account. For example, at KU Leuven two semesters are organised, which should be compatible with an alternative system in terms of shared courses, (resit) examination periods and contact-free weeks. Therefore the feasible scenario fits four periods into the existing two semester periods and has the following characteristics: Four periods of nine weeks, including eight weeks of lectures and one week of exams; Maximum four parallel courses are organised in one period; Shared courses with other programmes and/or faculties are organised throughout two periods of nine weeks, which corresponds to a semester in the current system; Sufficient time and space is reserved for self-study; Lectures and practice sessions are organised according to the preparation-feedback model; A maximum of four contact hours a day is organised; General application of permanent evaluation; Resit-examination is planned during the examination week of the following period, except for the last period it is held in September as in the current semester system. An overview of the current, ideal and feasible scenarios is given in Fig. 4. Fig. 4 The current semester system at KU Leuven versus an ideal and feasible alternative system. The application of such an alternative system needs to be prepared thoroughly, consulting and involving didactical teams as well as students intensively. Therefore the faculty organised extensive feedback sessions for all students and the involved lecturers in 2011, to present the above findings and to discuss potential constraints and opportunities of an implementation in two pilot programmes. Most mentioned concerns by students and lecturers involved practical issues and time effort. Consequently, it is necessary to investigate all practical implications in detail to avoid unpleasant surprises. Teaching and learning must be integrated at all levels and quality learning conditions should be optimised, for example through Constructive alignment [33]. This includes the alignment of goals, assessment and activities at all levels [34, 35]. Finally, an appropriate change management must be applied. 1033

7 6 CONCLUSIONS This paper integrates key knowledge from literature and personal findings from qualitative interviews and quantitative questionnaires in order to define the ultimate curriculum design for the ultimate learning experience in higher education. Hereby the authors want to anticipate to students passive class attendance and procrastination of studying, leading to superficial learning when the exams approach and a lack of long-term retention of knowledge and skills. At the curriculum level, a serial system whereby only a few courses are taught simultaneously over shorter time periods is more efficient than a parallel system in terms of student learning and study progress. Moreover, evaluation should be spread and resit examinations should be limited in amount as well as in time. At the course level, reducing contact hours improves study efficiency significantly if the contact-free time is used actively for self-study. A preparation-feedback model, in which students prepare classes and sufficient feedback is given during contact hours, has many advantages over a presentation-assimilation model. During contact hours students must be stimulated to actively process new knowledge and skills in order to improve retention. Interactive-engagement methods such as active learning and problem-based learning improve the effectivity of a course. Cognitive load should be limited by linking course material to real applications and previous concepts, by emphasising why. Finally, frequent deadlines through permanent evaluation activate students and allow regular feedback, improving deep learning and long-term retention of knowledge. All findings are combined into a feasible optimal curriculum design for the Faculty of Science at KU Leuven. In the future, this scenario can be used for an implementation study, including the investigation of all practical implications, the alignment of goals, assessment and activities at all levels and the application of an appropriate change management. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank Johan Quaegebeur, Walter Troost, Inge Serdons, Carolien Van Soom, Philippe Muchez, Bavo Meuwis, Bieke Dutoit and Dienst Universitair Onderwijs of KU Leuven for their significant contribution to the project. All participants to interviews and questionnaires are thanked for their cooperation. This study was financed by KU Leuven, OWP2009/07. REFERENCES [1] Crombag, H.F.M., van der Drift, K.D.J.M., Vos, P. (1985). De inrichting van curricula en het werkgedrag van studenten. Universiteit en Hogeschool 31, pp [2] Van der Drift, K. D. J., Vos, P. (1987). Anatomie van een leeromgeving, een onderwijseconomische analyse van universitair onderwijs. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger. [3] Jansen, E.P.W.A. (2004). The influence of the curriculum organization on study progress in higher education. Higher education 47, pp [4] Jansen, E. (1993). Educational planning related to study progress. In Koppen, J.K. and Webler, W.D. (eds.), Strategies for Increasing Access and Performance in Higher Education. Amsterdam: Thesis publishers. [5] Joostens, Th. H. (1990). De studie in de farmacie te Groningen. Resultaten na de invoering van blokonderwijs (The study of pharmacy in Groningen. Results after the introduction of block teaching). In Jochems, W.M.G. e.a. (ed.), Onderwijsverbetering, voorbeelden uit het Wetenschappelijk Onderwijs. Delft: Delftse Universitaire Pers, pp [6] Ruijter, C.T.A., Smit, N.J. (1995). Effecten van onderwijsprogrammering op studeergedrag. OC- Bulletin 35, Universiteit Twente, 19 p. [7] Schoonen, B.J.M., Joostens, Th. H. (1993). Modular curriculum organization and study completion. The case of pharmacy at the University of Groningen. In Joostens, Th. J., Heijnen, G.W.H. and Heevel, A.J. (eds.), Doability of Curricula. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger. [8] Van der Hulst, M., Jansen, E. (2002). Effects of curriculum organisation on study progress in engineering studies, Higher Education 43, pp [9] Vaughan, Ch., Carlson, Chr. (1992). Teaching and learning. One-course-at-a-time. Innovative Higher Education 16 (4), pp

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