UCD Fellows in Teaching & Academic Development

2009-2011

General Electives Group:

• John Dunnion - School of Computer Science and Informatics

• Hilda Loughran - School of Applied Social Science

• PJ Purcell - School of Architecture, Landscape and Civil Engineering

Project Goals

• Study and analysis of elective choice in UCD

• Presentation of findings to SMT Plenary

• Analysis and Review of the five new General Elective modules in 2009-2010

• Participation in call and selection of new General Elective modules for 2010-2011

• Gather feedback from Heads of School and Deans on electives

• Papers on comparison of General Elective provision in UCD with other institutions

Method

Perform a statistical analysis of elective choice (Follow-up of Bairbre Redmond's paper of May 2009)

Give presentation to and receive feedback from the SMT Plenary Meeting, (late) Summer 2010

Analysis and review of five General Electives: Attendance at lectures Discussion with module co-ordinator/lecturer Report on Electives and proposals for 2010-2011

Method

Give input to call for General Electives for 2010-2011 and participate in selection process

Interviews with Heads of School and Deans: School/Head/Programme/Dean/Staff interest in General

Electives and electives in general Academic/Educational/Promotion issues Resource/Financial issues (including RAM)

Investigation of General Elective provision in other universities and third-level institutions, in Ireland and abroad

Outputs

Papers on Elective choice, with particular concentration on the new General Electives

Presentation to SMT Plenary Meeting

Report on five General Electives in 2009-2010

Involvement in proposal and selection of further General Electives for 2010-2011

Report on interviews with Heads of Schools and Deans

Papers on General Elective provision elsewhere and comparison of UCD General Elective provision to that in other institutions

Attitudes to Electives

Why give electives? To give students "breadth"

To provide the opportunity for students of a subject to study the subject in greater depth ("depth")

To give staff in the School the opportunity to design and give an introductory module

Students from outside School/Programme may enhance/enrich a lecture experience (different perspective, etc)

Financial reasons

Attitudes to Electives

And why not? Students from outside the module may require

extra work and/or resources (remedial tuition, more time/work by module co-ordinator/lecturer and tutors/demonstrators)

May slow class down?

Staff not recognised/rewarded (eg promotions)

Finances aren't important? (Or important enough?)

Zero-sum game (or is it?)

Attitudes to Electives

Income

Extra income: "resources will follow the students"

BUT...

RAM (currently) doesn't drive the allocation of budgets to Schools, it "informs" the allocation of budgets

Questionnaire

Questionnaire to Heads of School and Deans of Programmes

Heads may have to/want to/choose to poll their staff

Deans won't be asked about staff or resources/RAM

Follow-up interviews

To take place in May-June (after Semester 2)

Elective choice

Analysis of elective choice in 2009-2010

Follow-up paper to Bairbre Redmond's paper of May 2009 on 2008-2009 data

Preliminary analysis confirms findings of last year

Two most popular modules have been top two since 2006

Number of elective modules went down in 2009-2010

Number of places on key modules also went down

Most popular ElectivesModule code Module title Total

Electives taken

Total Electives missed

FDSC 10010 Food Diet and Health 433 396

LANG 10230 Spanish Gen Purp 1 428 31

PSY 10090 Intro to Applied Psychology 395 36

NURS 20070 Women's & Men's Health 351 13

NURS 10100 Health across the Lifespan 320 29

GEOL 10040 Earth, Environment and Society 252 46

NURS 20060 Psychosocial Perspec forHealth 248 0

NURS 30030 Politics of Health 238 0

NURS 10090 Soc History Irish Healthcare 221 15

LANG 10050 French Gen Purp 4 209 6

NURS 30650 Cultural Competence-Clin Prac 203 0

LANG 10010 Italian Gen Purp 1 197 9

HUM 10010 Study Skills in the Humanities 195 24

BIOL 10070 Biology for the Modern World 194 1

PHTY 20090 Introduction to Massage 169 155

Module code Module title Total Electives

taken

Total Electives missed

ECON 10040 Economics and Society 159 2

LANG 10210 Japanese L & C 1 150 6

ANSC 10010 Intro to Animal Science 149 73

LANG 10020 Chinese L & C 1 134 8

PSY 10050 Introduction to Psychology 133 293

SPOL 10170 Alcohol and Drug Policy 125 48

RDEV 20140 Health, Welfare & Safety 120 0

ANAT 10030 Forensic Anthropology 120 9

PHYC 10050 Astronomy & Space Science 119 2

FS 10030 Film Style and Aesthetics 114 154

MUS 20310 Popular Music and Culture 112 0

LANG 10260 Spanish Gen Purp 2 101 1

CPSC 10010 Introduction to Crop Science 101 18

EQUL 10060 Inequality in Irish Society 100 59

BSEN 10010 Biosys Eng Design Challenge 99 73

Missed Elective Places

Module code Module title Total Electives

taken

Total Electives missed

FDSC 10010 Food Diet and Health 433 396

PSY 10060 Brain and Behaviour 42 307

PSY 10050 Introduction to Psychology 133 293

GEOG 10050 Physical Geog & Environ 31 272

FDSC 10020 Human Nutrition I 6 224

PSY 10040 Psychology of Perception 44 210

PSY 10080 Intro to Social Psychology 42 210

SMGT 10070 Sports Management 45 185

BMGT 10050 Mangt Principles & Bus Environ 20 162

Module code Module title Total Electives

taken

Total Electives missed

PHTY 20090 Introduction to Massage 169 155

FS 10030 Film Style and Aesthetics 114 154

PSY 10070 Intro to Child Development 44 141

LAW 10260 Criminal Procedure 52 131

IS 10030 Information Design 43 122

ENG 30870 Creative Writing L 39 109

SMGT 10100 Theory of Coaching I 23 107

GEOG 10040 Global & Local Human Geog 34 100

ENG 10020 Children's Literature 46 95

ENG 20510 Creative Writing K 33 90

Elective choice

Further analysis: What students chose next

How students chose their electives

Comparison of students taking modules as electives with students taking modules as core/options:

Performance Drop-out rate

Flow of students and (potential) resources between Colleges

A Tale of Two SystemsUCD Fellows in Teaching and Academic

Development Group Project : Electives in UCD

The Harvard Elective System

It is less moment what a young man studies in college than how he studies, if he can be inducted to make a judicious selection of studies for himself, freedom of choice may of itself be beneficial

Elliot Harvard University Annual Report NY Times 1886

There is room in UCD

Vietnam-era upheavals led to the American academy’s transformation into a politically correct multicultural smorgasbord seasoned to please the modern student palate. When today’s students demand to be entertained and scholars continue to narrowly train, is there still room on the plate for the best that has been said, thought, and written about the human experience? Nieli (2008) commenting on the American University

UCD transition Then and Now

UCD Strategic Plan 2005:

Implement a modularised and symmetrised curriculum, with a rolling implementation beginning September 2005 and complete September 2007

Drive curricular reform at programme and module level to focus on defining the core

UCD Education Strategy

The further exploitation of the modular framework to allow a wider range of coherent pathways within programmes and to allow individual students to adapt the curriculum to their prior learning, aptitudes, abilities and goals

The enhancement of elective opportunities to provide a broader educational experience

Key concepts in ‘elective’ rationale

Attracting the best Electives as marketing strategy {Horizons}

Engaging Electives offering choice

Retaining Electives as motivation

Being the best Electives offering breath and depth

Elective Provision

All students will take 6 modules over a three year period = 30 credits

Need to research the best practice in terms of offering / not offering direction and structure in their selection process.

The group have identified a continuum of options for elective provision

Those who favor the principle of the elective system, but doubt the capacity or disposition of the students to select studies wisely for themselves, very generally advocate a group or ‘block’ method, in which studies are laid out into groups of cognate studies.

Elliot NY Times 1886

Continuum of Elective Provision

BREADTH YALE

DEPTH

Continuum of Elective Provision

BREADTH 1

2

3

DEPTH

Outline

Other elective models

Electives in Computer Science and Civil Engineering

5 New General Electives

Undergraduate education models

Newman Learning for its own sake Broad education

Von Humboldt Unity of research and teaching Specialisation

Other elective models

Major American Universities’ elective model

Distribution (breadth)

Concentration (depth)

Yale Typically 36 modules over 4 years

Breadth 2 modules in arts and humanities 2 modules in basic sciences 2 modules in social sciences 2 modules in quantitative reasoning 2 modules in writing skills >1 module in foreign language

Depth> 12 modules in a single discipline

Second Civil Engineering 2008 - 2009

0

20

40

60

80

100

Core In-programme Non-programme

No

.of

stu

de

nts

Second Computer Science2008 - 2009

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Core/Option In-programme Non-programme

Nu

mb

er

of

stu

de

nts

Summary Civil Engineering

~ 1/3 of students opt for in-programme elective

~ 2/3 of students opt for general electives taken

from approx 60 modules across University

‘Traffic’ from Engineering to other disciplines.

Only 5% of students taking Civil Engineering

modules are non-engineering students

Summary Computer Science

~ 1/2 of students from within programme

~ 1/2 of students from outside programme

New General Electives

SchoolSchool Module titleModule title Places Places

takentakenHistory of ArtHistory of Art Art & Architecture in Dublin: Art & Architecture in Dublin:

A selected introductionA selected introduction

5757

Geological SciencesGeological Sciences Earth, Environment & Earth, Environment & SocietySociety

187187

Irish, Celtic Studies, Irish, Celtic Studies, Irish Folklore & Irish Folklore &

LinguisticsLinguistics

Myths & Legends in Irish Myths & Legends in Irish FolkloreFolklore

3838

PsychologyPsychology Introduction to Applied Introduction to Applied PsychologyPsychology

393393

MusicMusic Opera from Monteverdi to Opera from Monteverdi to VerdiVerdi

2020

Methodology

Analysis of registration data

Attendance at lectures

Discussion with module co-ordinator

AH 10070

PSY 10090

PSY10090 Introduction to Applied Psychology122 core/option

295 elective1 occasional

0

50

100

150

200

Scienc

eArts

Agricu

lture

Archit

ectur

e

Busine

ss

Engine

ering

Land

scap

e

Med

icine

Nursin

g

Radiog

raph

y

Veter

inary

Occas

siona

l

Occup

ation

al he

alth

Social

Scie

nce

Law

Physio

ther

apy

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

MUS 10100MUS10100 Opera from Monteverdi to Verdi

(2 core, 21 electives)

012

3456

789

Arts Medicine Science Occasional

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

IRFL 20080IRFL20080 Myths and Legends

1 Core38 Elective

10 Occassional

05

10152025303540

Science Arts Agriculture Social Occassional

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

GEOL 10040

Geol10040: Earth, Environment & Society118 core

62 in-programme2 occasional190 elective

020406080

100 Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Comments

Motives of Schools

Class sizes

Modes of delivery

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