The Futures Initiative
Outcomes 2011-12:
- Development centres leading to ESF
curriculum models for a range of discipline or
programme areas (planning for two centres and
ten teams in first instance);
- Focused resourcing of educational
developments via the development centres and
facilitated bids;
- Development of ESF Resources
Blackboard and exemplar materials to support
development centres;
- Published output demonstrating innovation/best practice emerging from the development centre discipline/programme teams;
- Staff development conference/workshop
(Easter 2012) to disseminate outputs;
- Contribution to national developments
in ESF via our membership of EAUC and other
related networks/organisations, in form of
conference papers and formal publication (incl.
potential for peer review papers for REF
submission);
The type of initiative can be
exemplified by several ESF projects currently being explored by
the ‘Futures‘ team; for example, the development of an
international critical reading group in which students and staff
at CCCU will analyse a key text related to globalisation issues
and engage (using new technologies) with similar groups in other
universities across the world to help understand the role of
different socio-cultural perspectives.
Parallel to and complementing the development centres will be a range of activities related to the University’s wider commitment to sustainability which will inform the informal and campus curricula. These can act as bridges to other developments in formal teaching and learning (for example, proposed links between biodiversity management and health/occupational therapy through the planting of a medicinal herb garden.
