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Course Design Blueprint: Foundations and Principles

“it just requires a totally rethinking of the of the content and pedagogy around it. And that requires, you know, requires people changing their styles, people changing their ways of teaching” 

Foundations of Learning and Teaching

The foundations of course design are shaped by our Learning and Teaching Strategy, and our pedagogy. 

Principles

Our Learning and Teaching strategy sets out our commitment to: 

  • Personalised, active and independent experiences for all learners, 
  • Research informed and employer engaged learning and teaching, 
  • Inclusive and collaborative curriculum and delivery,
  • Digitally enabled education and 
  • Championing teaching excellence. 

Click to read our learning and teaching strategy

Click the image to read our Learning and Teaching strategy

Block and Blend

Our Block and Blend design puts our students at the heart of a compassionate and empowering academic experience. Many of our courses use a model of 4 plus 1 where the module content is learned through four weeks of teaching, while a fifth week is used for any final assessment., and preparation for the next block. 

Where courses include theory and practice, a double block model may be used where module content is learned over 8 weeks, with final weeks used for assessment and preparation for the next block

Myth busting and principles

When designing or redesigning courses for block and blend, it is helpful to keep these principles in mind:

  1. Block does not include fewer teaching hours - the amount of tutor structured  learning should be the same as a traditional semesterised module.
  2. Blend does not just mean online. Blend is about a blend of the right activities, delivered at the right time, in the right way to support students in achieving learning outcomes. 
  3. Block and Blend modules may need to include content in a different order, and delivered in different ways to be effective. 

Progressive Learning and Teaching

Our approach to learning and teaching is progressive, through which we support our students to develop confidence and ability in relation to a range of skills, behaviours and knowledge as appropriate for their course. This also relates to the Graduate Attributes and underpinning skills we support all of our students to achieve.

Understanding how confident a student is feeling, and what might help them to develop further will often take place during Personal Academic Coaching.