TUNING Methodology and Quality in study programmmes LEFIS Annual Assembly Florence, 11 February 2006 Ann Katherine Isaacs University of Pisa Tuning Management.

TUNING Methodology and Quality in study programmmes

LEFIS Annual Assembly

Florence, 11 February 2006

Ann Katherine IsaacsUniversity of Pisa

Tuning Management Committee

Tuning Educational Structures in Europe:

• A Pilot Project, now in its third phase, designed and executed by more than 150 European Universities and Higher Education Institutions.

its aim is to create a concrete base, agreed and respectful of different national realities and traditions, to implement the Bologna process: comparability, compatibility and transparency of University education – that is, guaranteeing QUALITY in the fullest sense.

Tuning is supported by the European Commission through the Socrates-Erasmus programme of the Directorate General Education and Culture

The Tuning logo

Background: European blue“Tuning fork” – diapason -- tuning the structturesUniversity – Universal – UnionOpen, coordinated, flexible -- flexible UDiversified, multicolour, dynamic -- multicoloured

Tuning was born in the University world and it is based on the awareness that – in final analysis – it is the Universities and University staff who – with

the students – and the other ‘stakeholders’ have the real responsibility for Quality in higher

education.

TUNING has created a coordinated, multidisciplinare and pan-european context, where it has been possible to define common reference points for a relevant number of disciplinary areas.

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• Pilot disciplinary areas:Business Education SciencesGeologyHistoryMatematicsChemistryPhysicsEuropean StudiesNursing

“Action Lines”Line 1: Generic Competences and preparation for professional life and for citizenship

Line 2: Subject specific knowledge and contents

Line 3: ECTS as a measurement of student work-load measured in time

Line 4: Approaches to Learning, Teaching, Assessment

Line 5: Quality in the design and delivery of study programmes

Tuning has extended:• To the Erasmus Thematic Networks (45)• To the Archipelagos (HUMAN PLUS)• To the 18 countries of Latin America• To Russia…• To other countries …. The Kyrgyz Republic

TUNING – AMÉRICA LATINA

the same idea, a new context ...

2004 –

Buenos Aires

Bishkek

Tuning: Phase 2 book is available...

from Tuning site :

(www.unideusto.org/Tuning)Summaries of results, 9 subject areas (Templates)

Results on Approaches to Learning, Teaching and Assessment;

Tuning approach to Quality

Practical tools and good practice

Tuning and the quality of study programmes...Tuning furnishes conceptual and practical tools for offering curricula that are:

Suitable to the national and European context;Described in clear terms, understandable and agreed upon at European level;Suitable for professional preparation and employment;Suitable for citizenship and personal culture;Conceived and described in terms of learning outcomes, generic and subject specific competences;Feasible in terms of student workload;Delivered in learning environments suitable for forming the required competences;Assessed in appropriate ways in order to ascertain that the required competences have been formed.

Tuning and the quality of study programmes...The process can be visualized as a series of steps:

Establish, through a broad consultation, if it is useful and necessary to offer a programme (course of study);Define the academic and professional profile with reference to international and international contexts;Establish the desired and required learning outcomes of the programme, in terms of competences;Design the “modules” or course units useful for reaching those general outcomes, defining the partial outcomes in terms of competences and levels;Plan appropriate methods and learning environments to reach those outcomes, taking into account of the time necessary (ECTS credits);Utilise assessment methods suitable for establishing the planned outcomes;Establish monitoring and feedback systems (quality culture)

Tuning and Quality: The “virtuous circle”

Definition of academic and professional profiles

Curriculum design: definition of the learning outcomes/competences

Identification of resources

Construct of curricula: contents and structure

Selection of learning/teaching approaches

Selection of the evaluation method

Evaluation and improvement (on the basis of feedback and feed forward)

Quality Enhancement of programmes

Tuning tools and examples of good practice...(Appendices to Chapter 4 of the volume Tuning Phase

2)Key questions for the design of new programmes, for the maintenance and development of qualityChecklist for curriculum evaluationThe development of new curricula at the University di GroningenThe development of new History curricula at the University of CoimbraThe development of new curricula in Physics at the Imperial College of LondraMatrix for evaluation of teaching, University of HelsinkiExample of the evaluation of generic competence (teamwork) at the University of Deusto, Bilbao

isaacs@stm.unipi.it