RSD at USP

Jito Vanualailai & Heena Lal

Refreshing the Curriculum with RSD: A Symposium

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Monash University

Caulfield Campus, Melbourne, Australia

12 member Countries. Melanesia: •Fiji •Vanuatu •Solomon Is Polynesia •Tonga •Samoa •Niue •Cook Is •Tokelau •Tuvalu Micronesia •Kiribati •Nauru •Marshall Is

CONTEXT

“For USP to produce graduates with research literacy and skills to help address the environmental, economic, social and cultural challenges that face the Pacific region.” USP COUNCIL, 2010

COUNCIL

USP

Work within Graduate Outcomes

Professionalism

Ethics Critical

Thinking

Creativity Communication

Pacific

Consciousness

Teamwork

RSD Embracing all of

USP’s institutional

outcomes

Ethics

Creativity

Pacific

Consciousness

Sustaining Pacific

societies

Manages time

and processes

Research and

problem solving skills

Responsibility and

contribution

Clarity,

coherence and

citing

Gathering and

appraising information

Academic conventions,

and ethical perspective

and environment

Team Work

Critical Thinking

Communication Professionalism

Implementation of RSD starting 2011

University Generic Courses •UU100 Information and Communications Literacy •UU114 English for Academic Purposes •UU200 Ethics and Governance •UU204 Pacific Worlds

UU100 Information & Communications Literacy

AIM: To ensure that all incoming (first-year) students develop knowledge and competence in the use of computers and information resources. Initial impact on the course: •No change in course content. •The assessment activity and criteria were modified in one assignment

START

SMALL

UU100 Information & Communications Literacy

UU100 Assignment 2 marking

criteria for RSD

Next step for UU100 To use the RSD framework to frame the Final Assessment (40%) which is an ePortfolio submission in 2013.

USAGE

EXPANDED

Implementation of RSD at USP – UU114

AIM: To focus on developing students’ academic writing, reading and speaking skills to support their language needs in courses and in future professional tasks. Initial impact on the course: •No change in the course content and hardly any change in the elements •The only change was that the layout of the marking rubric was modified to align it with the RSD framework.

Implementation of RSD at USP – UU114

Marking rubric for UU114 Assignment 3 Research

Essay

Next step for UU114 To implement the RSD framework

in Assignment 3 in the DFL offering of the course in Semester 1 of 2013, and also to look at framing other Assignments with RSD.

Feedback – UU100 and UU114

• Greater clarity of academic expectations on

research literacy and skills for students. • Greater clarity of the marked assessment to

students in UU100. • Equivalent grading to the past as determined by

comparison of old criteria with RSD-framed criteria with sample of 2012 UU114 student assessments.

• Inter-rater reliability found to be high in UU114. • Common platform for developing research skills

and literacy

NEXT STEPS FOR USP

• To implement RSD in UU200 and UU204, and

100-level discipline based courses – 2013. • Working on questionnaires for pre-RSD and post-

RSD surveys to get students’ perceptions. • Survey of course coordinators, lecturers and

teaching assistants in 2013 for perceptions of RSD utility in their courses.

• Development of a database to show and keep

track of courses and disciplines/ majors which implement RSD.

NEXT STEP FOR THE PACIFIC REGION RSD for PICs universities: •6 in PNG •3 in Fiji •2 French territories •1 in Samoa