Life-wide Curriculum: An Inclusive View of a Personal Higher Education Curriculum

The diagram attempts to provide a holistic and inclusive representation of a higher education curriculum: inclusive because it recognizes both institutionally designed and learner constructed experiences. SCEPTrE has coined the term life-wide curriculum to capture the scope and value intentions of such a curriculum.It shows three different curricular domains –  1) academic curriculum (disciplinary/interdisciplinary focus)  2) co-curriculum (designed experiences that lie outside the credit-bearing programme which may or may not receive formal recognition for learning 3) extra-curricular experiences outside of the credit-bearing curriculum that have the potential to be integrated into a learner’s personalized higher education curriculum.

Listen to a podcast that describes this development.

Support for integrative learning

An important question for higher eduication curriculum designers is to what extent does the curriculum experienced by a learner encourages them to integrate the learning they have gained from experiences in different contexts?

Learning that is recognized and valued by a university or college may be exclusively contained within the credit-bearing academic curriculum. The term Work Integrated Curriculum or Structured Service Learning are sometimes used to indicate that a credit-bearing academic curriculum also integrates learning gained through work placement or volunteering. Study abroad experiences may also be integrated into an academic curriculum and be recognized through the award of credit and the achievement of an honours degree. There are also educational designs where students may be given the opportunity for additional academic credit by participating in extra-curricular experiences. But this credit does not count directly to the degree award: it is additional credit to the 360 credits needed for the award.

Universities and colleges differ in the extent to which they encourage, value and recognize learning gained from extra-curricular experiences like part-time work/ internships, volunteering, participation in student societies, sport or business enterprise and many more experiences where learning is a byproduct of some for of activity or enterprise. There is a growing movement in the UK to create new Complementary Award Frameworks to recognize and value learning gained outside the credit-bearing academic curriculum. This movement is recognizing the importance of integrative learning in a higher education experience.