DEFINITION OF CURRICULUM

Curriculum, from the Latin for ‘course’, is the content or subject matter that is taught. Pedagogy, from the Greek words for ‘boy’ and ‘guide’, refers to the art or science of teaching or the techniques used to teach students. The notion of a teacher guiding students through a course of study has more contemporary relevance than the content driven, ‘drill and skill’, approaches that characterized schooling until the last few decades of the 1900s. Good teachers have always, through sound and supportive teacher/student relationships, guided students through what they need and want to learn. This chapter considers the importance of relevant curricula and engaging pedagogy in promoting learning as well as the methods used to assess student achievement. If the definitions of curriculum and pedagogy are clear, the separation of the two in classrooms is not. While the curriculum is the content that education departments mandate must be taught, classroom teachers have significant responsibility for, and control over, how the curriculum is presented and delivered. In practice, an inspired and talented teacher can energies dull content and find ways to link it to real life while a mediocre or unmotivated teacher can compromise the appeal of the most relevant and imaginative curriculum by poor delivery. The research at Flinders University by Slade and Trent indicates that boys are aware of and reactive to what they view to be irrelevant curriculum and poor teaching. Boys see curriculum and pedagogy as inseparable from each other and from other aspects of schooling. When the boys talk about both the work and teachers being boring, irrelevant, and repetitive, they do this as though these were inseparable aspects of the one process that they simply call ‘school’. This includes school organisation and its culture; the length of lessons, the day, the school week, the term, and so on, as well as homework, uniforms, attendance and behavior expectations of teachers. Boys like to be able to see how what they are learning. 

Innovations in curriculum and pedagogy are motivated by the need to educate and train students in the most up-to-date knowledge and skills. The research-focused nature of postgraduate study allows a creative and original approach to engaging students. This is not only relevant to new courses or modules; well-established courses may benefit from a review of content and teaching methods.

Innovation may involve cross-faculty approaches or research centre collaboration. In addition, the professional dimension of many programmes also allows for innovation through external partner collaboration. PGT students on traditional one-year programmes need to accelerate quickly into their programmes. Your approaches should aim to support that transition.

At PGT level, approaches to innovation may be prompted by

• student feedback
• staff evaluation
• assessment results
• a changing student profile
• new developments in research
• developments in professions or industry
• commissions or requests from external partners