Community of Practice

Curriculum typically refers to the knowledge and skills students are expected to learn, which includes the learning standards or learning objectives they are expected to meet. An individual teacher’s curriculum, for example, would be the specific learning standards, lessons, assignments, and materials used to organize and teach a particular course. Curriculum is the outline of concepts to be taught to students to help them meet the content standards.

It is evident that the university targets not just the main campus island, but the whole South Pacific region as well. As an engineering staff, one of the missions that I can relate to is “to provide communities and countries in the Pacific region with relevant, cost effective and sustainable solutions, including entrepreneurship, to their main challenges”.

Students are encouraged to take up projects that would be beneficial to the South Pacific region. I have personally taken up projects that involves calculating the cost of providing electricity to remote areas using solar energy and designing its set-up. In addition to that, one of the courses which I teach, EE212: Analogue Electronics I, the students are able to identify problems in the South Pacific and come up with projects that are cost efficient as well.

Furthermore, this university offers highly recognized programs, such as, the Bachelor of Engineering program, which has been accredited by ‘Engineering New Zealand’. This helps to retain the students from moving abroad to look for better qualification as ours are of the same standard.

Link: https://www.usp.ac.fj/index.php?id=usp_mission

There are many different approaches and techniques to help student understand the curriculum of a particular course. The following models and theories are effective for better understanding:                

1. Differentiation approach: this involves assessment of the level that the learners are at, takes into account diverse backgrounds and individual needs.

2. Experiential learning approach: learning from mistakes is an essential part of the learning process. This is used significantly in the allotment group. Learners are encouraged to bring their own knowledge and expertise and suggestions are tried out to see if they are effective. This approach requires lot of discussion amongst the group. 

3. Modelling approach: this is the tutor embedding equality and diversity into teaching and promoting inclusivity. The tutor also needs to provide a positive example and lead through example and communicate with all learners equally. This makes sure no student is excluded or marginalized, such as those who have physical or mental disabilities and members of minority groups.

4. Assessment for learning approach: This involves the work of the student to be assessed once completed. By doing so, the students will be motivated to achieve their goal and overcome barriers.

Development in curriculum is important for both an online course and for a traditionally taught course. However, the development impact differs for both of them.

In traditional teaching course, the students would actively participate in the task introduced to them for curriculum development. One such example is putting students in groups to come up with ideas and present it to the class. This way, students are seen participating in such curriculum development strategy.

Thus, as an engineering academic staff, I encourage traditional mode of study as it actively involves the students to participate before your eyes. Getting hands-on experience is always better than just seeing video online to understand a particular equipment works.

Technology changes every day, and as an engineering academic staff, I have looked up on the internet for effective and advanced equipment for students to use. By updating the equipment, students will be head-to-head with the latest equipment in the market. This may seem a bit expensive at first, but it is beneficial in the long run.

For example, the oscilloscope that we have in the Engineering Tech Lab is outdated. Students have hard time to follow up when looking through YouTube for lab tutorials. The oscilloscope used in videos in YouTube are the advanced ones, thus, the video may seem not so useful for the students.