When I very first started teaching (not at UAL) I was completely taken by surprise at the lack of joined-up thinking across the unit on which I was teaching. I couldn’t make sense of what the course roadmap looked like, how all the units fitted together and how my teaching needed to connect.
My very first contract was to undertake some marking with very little guidance or understanding of the course. I took the work on more out of curiosity and because I was interested in moving into higher education. When exploring the apparent disconnect with the course leader, I was told that it was for the students to piece together the learning, to connect the dots across various content. At the time I didn’t question or challenge this as I was new to education but felt uncomfortable about the quality of the teaching and learning that this approach created. I did not really know how to articulate this.
In preparing my planning and design case study, this topic came up again and I tried to find reading around the topic of disconnected curriculums (my own words for how it felt) this quote from Faculty Focus seemed to support what was an intuitive feeling for me.
Another reason why learning doesn’t seem to last long for many students is because they don’t see how each “part” of the instruction fits into the “big picture.” Teachers often choose to teach their material in discrete units for ease of course organization. This often leads students to compartmentalize, cram, and then forget as they turn their attention to the next unit.
Using Context to Deepen and Lengthen Learning Tyler Griffin is an assistant professor at Brigham Young University
The idea that this is for ease of course organisation does not seem to support a student-focused learning environment. My experience at UAL is that this is less of an issue, however, I have only taught on one course and have a long and positive relationship with the course leader who is very inclusive with our team and encourages all of us to input to unit and course design and ensures we have a clear understanding of the ‘shape’ of the course.
However, this seems to happen by default due to personality and leadership rather than being systemised as part of ‘how we work’ at UAL. I am aware of teaching staff who have moved to other courses who still feel this sense of disconnect and lack of joined-up thinking regarding learning outcomes and teaching inputs.
On discussing my case study topic with Lindsay she mentioned the concept of a ‘hidden curriculum’ which is a new phrase for me. We also discussed the idea that this creates a sink or swim situation for many students, which has implications for inclusivity – some students may be capable of making those connections enabled by factors such as previous educational context or language, for others it will be much more challenging and may reinforce and exacerbate inequalities. I was interested in this idea of a hidden curriculum so read further about it.
I found Unpacking the Hidden Curriculum published by the Quality Assurance Agency and downloaded the guide for educators and will discuss with our course lead whether this is currently part of our planning, it may be covered in sessions in which I am not involved. I also feel it connects to ideas around cognitive load – if international students are navigating so many mentally competing situations and environments when they first arrive in the UK and at UAL, we could aim to reduce some of that through extra support on the hidden curriculum. I intuitively feel that this issue is probably the most difficult for them to navigate as it is, by definition, opaque and hidden!
The ‘hidden curriculum’ of higher education refers to certain unspoken ‘rules of the game’ about the norms, processes, and language of higher education that students are implicitly assumed to have but are not explicitly taught or explained (Hubbard et al, 2020; Semper and Blasco, 2018).
I followed up by listening to a podcast from the developers and authors of the guide, Pam Birtill, and Richard Harris, amongst the points made, were the ideas of confidence and cultural capital bringing advantage to some students. They discuss the idea that some students are ‘just surviving’ their university experience and that even by the final year of a degree some topics are unclear. This ‘survival’ mode can deeply affect stress levels and a sense of belonging which in turn can impact learning and outcomes.
Reflections: I am currently unclear how much of the hidden curriculum thinking is explicitly covered in the Design Management course, and even if work has been done to address this, my own experience of dealing with students on a one-to-one basis in workshops and FMP tutorials would indicate there is more that could be done. On the DM course, 100% of our students are international, many of whom are living away from home for the first time and whilst they all have previous experience of university it will often have been totally different in the cultural norms and rituals that exist vs UAL / studying in the UK. Birtill and Harris discuss the differences between universities in terms of language, terminology and rituals and that applying a local context for their hidden curriculum guide is critical – at a university level but also at a course level.
Additionally, I feel I could integrate some of the principles of the hidden curriculum into how I design my topics or units, for example, checking understanding of terminology using padlet or whiteboards (for anonymity if students don’t feel confident speaking up) at the start of a teaching session
I would like to run a more explicit session on elements of the hidden curriculum with students at the start of my FMP supervision process. I usually ask/check if there are any questions but I think I could do a deeper dive to assess levels of understanding and make it a much more interactive session – again using padlet, asking them to work in groups to identify areas that are unclear or confusing.