Curriculum Mapping to Embed Graduate Capabilities

Abstract

Graduate capabilities are an essential aspect of undergraduate development in tertiary education. Accordingly, La Trobe University’s “Design for Learning” has identified particular university-wide graduate capabilities and required all faculties to explicitly embed these in their curricula. The Faculty of Law and Management adapted Sumsion and Goodfellow’s (2004) approach to map the teaching and assessment of eight graduate capabilities across the first year of the faculty’s degree programs, allowing staff to evaluate the embedding of graduate capabilities and identifying where they might further develop their curricula. This article describes a process designed to collect, analyse and present data of current teaching and assessment of graduate capabilities. The discursive approach supports reflective practice of curriculum design while the resulting heat maps provide diagrammatical accounts of current practices and indicators of where redesign of curriculum should centre.

Keywords: curriculum mapping, graduate capabilities, law and management, curriculum redesign

JEL Classification: I20