Implementation Progress

Summary of activities related to Graduate Attributes at UNE to 2004

Introduction of Policy

In 1998 the Vice-Chancellor of the University of New England, Professor Ingrid Moses, recommended to Academic Board that the Teaching and Learning Committee develop a statement of Attributes of a UNE Graduate. The resulting document stated that graduates will be expected to have developed the following range of skills and attributes:

• Communication skills
• Global perspective
• Information literacy
• Lifelong learning
• Problem solving
• Social responsibility
• Teamwork.

The policy paper was accepted by Academic Board on 27 July 1998 and faculties were asked to include strategies for implementing the Attributes of a UNE Graduate Policy in their Faculty Plans for 1999. An implementation plan was also endorsed in August 1998.

The policy was amended in 2004 and approved by Council 9.12.04.

In May 1999 the need to report which attributes are taught, practiced and assessed in each unit was conveyed to Deans and Heads of School. The format was not prescribed although a possible matrix form was suggested.

In addition the New and Amended Unit application form submitted to the Degrees and Programs Committee, requires staff to indicate whether graduate attributes are taught, practiced and assessed.

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CUTSD Project

A booklet titled Skills for the Future: Reflections of UNE academics was compiled under the leadership of Robyn Muldoon, Academic Skills Coordinator. This booklet outlined the thinking and teaching strategies of academics from a range of backgrounds across UNE’s four faculties, who were already embedding strategies into their courses to enhance all or some of the listed attributes. Each was asked to reflect on the role of university education in terms of graduate attributes. Their reflections are contained in the booklet (Muldoon & Buckland, 1998).

The second stage of the CUTSD project was the publication in 2000 of a second booklet, Skills for the Future: Case Studies from UNE. A large variety of teaching and learning scenarios were described in the 38 case studies contributed from across all of the faculties and from the Academic Skills Office, Dixson Library and the Online Teaching Initiative. The approaches described encompassed both direct teaching strategies and modeling of the attributes; were included in unit and/or course objectives; were taught concurrently with disciplinary content or in separate skills courses; and were verified through assessment and student feedback (Muldoon, 2000).

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Skills for the Future Forum

The first of the booklets described above was launched at this forum. The forum was convened to assist academics considering ways of implementing the Attributes of a UNE Graduate. Almost fifty academic staff from across most disciplines attended to exchange ideas and experiences. A number of issues were raised for further consideration and a Special Interest Group was formed.

Summary points from the forum were:

• There are differences across the disciplines
• Planning needs to be considered across a whole course
• Some attributes need further elaboration
• How to's and teaching strategies would be useful
• How do we know what is happening on campus?
• What kind of resources are needed to support development?

One or two meetings of the Special Interest group were subsequently held.

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Workshops

The Teaching and Learning Centre facilitated several workshops during 1999–2001. A Symposium covering Mapping Graduate Attributes, and Building Generic Attributes into the Curriculum was held at Griffith University in November 1999 led by Professor Phil Candy and Professor Gail Hart. Teaching and Learning Centre representatives attended with a view to informing similar practices at UNE.

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Workready Scheme for Internal Students

This was approved by Academic Board, 16 October 2000. The scheme provides an opportunity for UNE students to be Work ready through a range of Workready strategies. Students can enrol in a Workready unit at 200/300 level. The unit includes five hours face-to-face at UNE and 120 hours of work placement with a structured program of negotiated learning objectives, assessment tasks and work-place learning experiences. A 4000 word report is submitted on completion. A voluntary alternative is also available.

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Faculty of The Sciences Project 2001

In conjunction with the Teaching and Learning Centre this project developed a methodology that allowed levels of attainment to be defined for basic (1st year), intermediate (2nd year) and advanced (3rd and 4th years) levels of student progression within the Bachelor of Natural Resources, Bachelor of Rural Science and Bachelor of Agriculture degrees.

A template was developed for each attribute of a UNE graduate, at each level (year) of study. This template provided descriptions of the levels of competency; how students show adequacy in personal and professional presentations, incorporating the appropriate knowledge base; and suggestions for teaching strategies and assessment tasks.

The project provided valuable guidance on processes to employ in mapping graduate attributes and identifying gaps for other groups at UNE.

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2003 Faculty Projects through TLC

A number of the projects approved by the Teaching and Learning Centre for development in 2003 focused on the implementation and integration of graduate attributes.

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The grant was awarded to Dr Mary Notestine and manged by Project Officer Lynne Chapman. The aims of this project were to:

• determine to what extent the current teaching of Attributes is strategic, articulated and coordinated between units and across degrees
• undertake an initial audit of selected UNE undergraduate courses/units to identify how graduate skills have been embedded and assessed in these programs; are they addressed explicitly and/or implicitly within units
• detect where gaps exist in the provision of Attributes in a degree program and to provide suggestions as to how these can be incorporated into units/courses
• identify innovative strategies by individual lecturers in providing these skills to students.

The following outcomes were achieved:

• A Graduate Attributes Resource Guide was produced for academic staff with suggestions and guidelines on how to incorporate appropriate teaching and assessment of attributes into their units/courses
• A mechanism for monitoring and maintaining the provision of Graduate Attributes in units and throughout course structure was recommended
• An information leaflet for students on the importance of Graduate Attributes to their future careers and lifelong learning
• The Final Report included several recommendations for future policy implementation.
  

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2004/05 Large Teaching Development Grant: Facilitate systematic planning for incorporation of graduate attributes into courses and accurately record graduate attributes data

The grant was awarded to Associate Professor Geoff Hinch and Dr Sarah Stein and managed by Graduate Attributes Coordinator Lynne Chapman. The aims of this project were to:

• increase the quality of students' intended learning outcomes through an incremental approach to the development of graduate attributes across courses
• increase the level of integration of attributes into units and courses by developing an understanding of the role of graduate attributes in teaching and learning and the need for planning across courses
• introduce the concept of interpreting attributes and defining levels of attainment for students in courses or majors where this has not yet occurred
• increase the explicitness (documented) of information for students (e.g. inclusion of learning objectives, guidelines or instruction, assessment marking criteria etc in teaching material in relation to graduate attributes
• improve the quality of recorded data about graduate attribute teaching and learning for UNE's external reporting obligations.

The emphasis was on course review to ensure there was an incremental development pathway for students and to define the attributes and associated levels of attainment in the context of each course. Research into the student perspective of the effectiveness of teaching attributes occurred as part of this project.

A small TDG was awarded to Roger Epworth and Trevor Brown for a similar process in nominated streams of the Bachelor of Commerce and the Bachelor of Science. Final project reports were submitted in January 2005.