All guides: Inclusive teaching resources: Design Intentional Curriculum

Principles and Strategies

Variables in curriculum design

There are many Internal and external variables in curriculum design to consider. Use this diagram to think about your design and use the links below to inform your design planning.

Useful links:

English Language Development
These resources suggest a variety of strategies and activities to integrate language into the curriculum so that these skills can be explicitly taught.
Learning and Teaching for Sustainability
This resource assists you to embed sustainability within a program by identifying the sustainability knowledge, skills and perspectives which are relevant to the program discipline/s and professional practice you are working in.
RMIT's Graduate Attributes
RMIT’s set of generic graduate attributes represents the broad skills that RMIT University expects that graduates will have acquired and be able to demonstrate to an appropriate level whatever their program of study.
Quick Guide: an introduction to Equivalence and Comparability
This Quick Guide provides an introduction to Equivalence and Comparability,
and is supported by the College of Business Equivalence and Comparability
Website.
Work Integrated Learning (WIL)
Find advice on embedding WIL in your program, managing WIL activities, engaging partner organisations, WIL requirements and governance, resources and useful contacts.
Disability Liaison Unit (DLU)
Contact RMIT’s Disability Liaison Unit (DLU) for advice on working with students with disabilities.
Guides for Academics by Students with Disabilities
This Guide from the University of Melbourne is written by students with disabilities for academics and provides some great strategies to use across a range of learning needs.

Learning & Teaching Spaces

Learning spaces in the SAB
This video series was produced by the College of Business Academic Development Group and supports staff who are looking for information about using different kinds of learning spaces in the SAB.
New Learning Spaces Library Guide
New Learning Spaces are designed to increase active learning and to support a more student-centred approach.

Global Learning by Design

Global Learning by Design webpage
“Global Learning by Design” is a 2014 Major Project led by the Academic Portfolio, Office of Dean Learning and Teaching.

Inclusive Teaching & Assessment webpage

Overview: Intentional curriculum design
Principles to support intentional curriculum design

Design intentional curriculum - Claudia's story

Intentional curriculum design seeks to provide an environment that respects and represents the multiple identities of the students we teach

Claudia teaches anatomy using a hands-on approach; she brings anatomy to life. By offering students a range of activities to explore the subject matter, from Plasticine, to body painting, to iPads; her students are able to select the activity that best suits their learning style; leading to deeper understanding and better results.

See Snapshots of inclusive teaching for more stories on innnovative practices.

Please provide us with feedback on the Video by clicking here.

KEY QUESTIONS: Design intentional curriculum

Are students given opportunities to draw on their previous educational or life experiences?

Is there a broad range of content examples to which all students can relate?
Is there a variety of teaching activities planned to reflect students’ diverse learning approaches and experiences?

Are there opportunities for students to participate in assessment design?

Do your evaluation methods involve active student engagement?

Are teaching methods suitable for the learning space?

Access the Strategies to design intentional curriculum

First Year Experience & Transition

It is widely acknowledged nowadays that the first year experience at Univeristy will determine student success. The following resources support learning and teaching in the first year:

RMIT Protocols for student success
This guide outlines best practice for curriculum design and transition services for the first year experience.
First Year Principles and Transition pedagogy
Transition pedagogy is framed around the identification of six First
Year Curriculum Principles to support first year learning engagement,
success and retention.”
Designing an orientation and transition strategy for commencing students
This paper outlines a framework 'Five senses of success model' for describing students needs in the first year and suggests practice goals and areas for intervention.
First Year Student Expectations and Experiences
This ALTC/OLT funded website provides a wealth of information for teaching staff including a brochure on getting ready for uni, a factsheet for first year teaching staff and a glossary of university terminology.
First Glance: A Planner for First Year Success
This site aims to help you bring together the vast array of pedagogical frameworks, principles, and strategies which are known to support student engagement and success in the first year.

Using easily accessible technology, First Glance allows you to develop and customise a calendar of activities, strategies, and teaching tips to suit you, your student group and your schedule

Teaching Large classes

Teaching Large Classes Workshop
This resource is a summary of the workshop delivered by Professor James Arvanitakis (UWS) at RMIT in December 2013. It contains ideas, information and strategies to use in teaching large classes.
Teaching large classes
This video is the workshop delivered by Professor James Arvanitakis at RMIT in December 2013.
Transnational Guide: Lectures and large classes
This Guide offers advice on teaching to large classes with a particular focus on lectures.

What students say about inclusion:

Inclusion is promoted if educators:

Are interested in us as people: our names, backgrounds, needs, learning styles, previous experience and knowledge.

Understand our circumstances i.e. we may be ‘time poor’.
Have good listening skills & communicate regularly with students.
Are able to handle conflict and uncomfortable situations.
Respect all individuals and groups equally and give equal time after class and during it.

Make effort to engage us in class, with content, assessment.
Use different ways of teaching, not just lectures.

Knowing your students

"The best way to accommodate diversity and translate this into sound pedagogy is through a greater understanding of the students and their circumstances"

Smith and Dalton (2005)

Resources to support pedagogy:

Pedagogies to support inclusive teaching in the tertiary sector
An overview of some of the theories, pedagogy and principles that support an inclusive teaching approach.
Diversity dimensions
By examining the diversity dimensions, we can reflect on the attributes we have in common with each other, as well as those that make us unique and different from each other.
Gardner's Multiple Intelligences
Gardner identified eight main ways in which people prefer to make sense of the world, which he called ‘Multiple Intelligences’ (MIs).
Transnational Quick Guide: approaching cultural diversity
This guide provides an overview of the key considerations in preparing to teach culturally diverse students in transnational settings.
Transnational Quick Teaching Guide: Deep and Surface learning
This guide from the College of Business provides advice on deep learning - the type of learning that sees students reflecting on their learning, applying it to real life experiences, making connections and analysing and evaluating concepts.

See Promoting deep learning for strategies to develop and enhance deep learning among students.
Make your mark: Your life and further education
Share this portal with your students or use it as a tool to understand what students and their families can do to negotiate the unfamiliar and often confusing landscape of higher education.

Understanding Course Guides

Course Guides provide you with a learning framework for each course.

The following resources support and are in addition to RMIT's Guidelines for Writing Course Guides.

Course Guides: The big picture
This Google site has been created to assist you in your approach to writing your course guides with step by step directions.
Practical Guide to writing HE Course Guides
This guide has two purposes: Firstly to assist you through the steps to write your course guide and, secondly, to provide you with examples and best practices to enhance your course guides.
Transnational Guide: Understanding Course Guides
This Transnational Guide from the College of Business gives advice and direction on understanding and interpreting program & course guides.
Bloom's Taxonomy
Bloom's taxonomy is a a framework for classifying statements and objectives of what we expect or intend students to learn, as a result of instruction.

Useful links

Perspectives on learning and teaching

Library Learning and Teaching guides

Inclusive teaching resources: Design Intentional Curriculum