Curriculum MakerSpace 6: Research & Evaluate

by Rose Lewis

Western Sydney University is changing the Student Partnership game and it's time the world hears about it!

Curriculum MakerSpace 6 held on 31 January, the final event in the 2018 21C series, focused on Research and Evaluation. It was a moment to both smile back on a successful 2018 and to strategize for an impactful 2019 . Many 21C Flagship Curriculum Project (FCP) teams were present: they dreamed big and visualized the research they wanted to undertake as part of evaluating the impact and effectiveness of their new curriculum elements.

Through group discussions, the opportunities for FCP teams to collaborate became clearer, and boundaries that seemed insurmountable disappeared by the minute. The focus on a University-wide umbrella 21C ethics application provided the context for asking ourselves: what contribution do we want to make to the scholarly research about curriculum?

For the 21C SAPs in the room - Marisse Manthos and I - we began to notice how our Summer Research Scholarship skills could apply to the real work of inquiry and scholarship - what academics do every day as researchers. We presented some of our ideas for research too, and generously, the staff present confirmed the importance of our ideas, opinions, critiques and our role as curriculum peer-reviewers and potential co-researchers. We plan to move forward with our own SAP program of research. Like academics, we want to read, generate puzzles, collect data, theorise and learn why and how to publish the outcomes of research. We also want to collaborate as co-researchers with staff. I felt proud to be engaged with and truly listened to.