Strategic profiling of teaching and learning

As a part of ‘constructing a new UAS’ through strategic profiling, our top management decided to re-organise RDI activities and to launch a project which aimed at implementing new curricula by the autumn 2017. This renewal aimed at blurring the boundaries of teaching and learning and RDI activities, and through implementing a new curricula also the boundaries between different disciplines¹⁶. Our Rector empha-sised the importance of the curricula work already before the merger (Rector, top management meeting of Gardia and Fabria, 12/2013):

‘Here on the other side (taps the picture where the position of an education manager is drawn), curriculum design absolutely. A very big challenge now, when we are about to merge two organisations. A lot of work to harmonise curricula, a lot of work to build curricula based on modules, a lot of work to plan curricula which also serve our open UAS, because that is for us an opportunity and a way to increase performance.’Our shared vision of developing a competency-based learning model and applying problem-based learning methods was propagated in different ways.

This vision is based on student-centered approach to learning, which fosters team work, participating in interdisciplinary projects, close co-operation with the region and solving open-ended cases in each degree programme.

How the competency-based learning approach was perceived, var-ied in fact quite a lot; in practice, many of the programmes relvar-ied on a traditional, subject-specific and classroom-based approach. Because of this, a huge amount of documents related to this renewal was prepared in addition to internal training days and workshops, which were held

16 This refers to a traditional curriculum in which the discipline-specific courses are taught separately. Each lecturer has a specific expertise on running the courses individual-ly according to ‘the teaching-as-usual’ approach.

in the units. The purpose of the training days and workshops was to support the participation of our employees to the curricula renewal.

The role of our education managers was also emphasised. Their task was to support the renewal in the degree programmes. However, they were uncertain of how strategic goals are integrated at the level of curricula (Workshop, integrating teaching, learning and RDI, 4/2014):

Education Manager 1: ‘Do we have a shared vision of how strategic goals are integrated into the curricula? Will the strategy be actual-ised in the curricula or not?’

Top Manager 1 (matrix): ‘In the performance agreements and execution plan we have agreed that there will be pilots according to the strategic profiles.’

Education Manager 1: ‘But how do we integrate the strategy into our curricula? The discourse fluctuates: some say that there will be separate courses and some say that strategy will be integrated to the curricula as themes.’

Education Manager 2: ‘As themes.’

Top Manager 1 (matrix): ‘As themes and not as individual courses.

Strategy is integrated as themes.’

This excerpt is an example of the game of truth related to integrating the strategic profile areas into curricula. The debate illustrates that for some of the managers for example the profile area of ‘the smart use of natural resources’ actualises when students are taught what it means, whereas for some of the managers it means learning in practice how to use natural resources smartly. The debate reveals how discourse informs, guides and rationalises the integration of strategy to current curricula ‘as themes’ and not as courses. It also illustrates the different understandings of the curricula work.

Our employees began to voice grievances related to increased bureau-cracy already in 2014. These grievances were intensified as the merger proceeded (Employee, staff feedback survey, 2015): ‘Someone ought to think which issues require UAS level guidelines and rules, and which issues could be decided on the unit level and on the degree programmes

level. Pressuring everyone to fit the same mould decreases creative and flexible actions related to the environment and different situations (which vary according to the units and degree programmes), because you have to constantly check what the UAS rules and regulations say in this particular situation.’ Here, the phrasing ‘pressuring everyone to fit the same mould’

refers to the curricula renewal, which aimed at implementing a com-petency-based learning model and problem-based learning methods to each degree programmes. This quote implies that the prevailing practic-es were perceived as more flexible and supporting employepractic-es creativity, whereas the new practices were perceived as a hindrance to flexibility and creativity.

Before the renewal, co-operation with the region was done on a vol-untary basis. In the new curricula, projects are embedded to semesters, which is perceived as narrowing down lecturers’ freedom. However,

‘the business-as-usual’ rationality is not ‘powerless’. It is based on power, which operates through mundane discursive and material practices related to our annual performance agreements, budgets, curricula and RDI projects. These practices are bound together by an annual planning process which constitutes of a complex series of practices in which resources are allocated in detail on the basis of curricula and RDI projects.

Traditionally, the degree programmes have also developed the curricula based on their pedagogical and discipline-specific expertise, which is why the exercise of power related to this renewal was seen as a threat to the autonomy of the degree programmes and as undermining their expertise. Because of this, the position of our education was seen as problematic (Top manager, top management strategy workshop, 6/2014):‘It took quite a long time for the education managers to under-stand their position. At first, they perceived themselves as supervisors of the degree programme managers, although their role was to support the development of teaching and learning on the unit level. They cannot give orders, which is problematic.’

The quote ‘they cannot give orders’ reveals that managing the curricula renewal is perceived as challenging due to the relations of communica-tion between the matrix and line rather than due to the existing power

relations. This was also one reason why the power effects of profiling through curricula renewal were moderated in various ways (Develop-ment workshop, 4/2015):

Top Manager (matrix): ‘We spent our first year in trying to find a common language. I had the feeling that it won’t work. But now we are doing things together and we have a clear mission. The empha-sis of the curricula development work is now in the units. This work requires commitment from the unit managers. The people respon-sible for the curricula development are afraid that the so called ‘old powers’ are once again so strong that they cannot handle the process alone. The message is very clear: this change is necessary and it has been decided mutually. These people need your support.’

Middle Manager: ‘Does this mean that we will all adopt prob-lem-based learning?’

Top Manager (matrix): ‘If you heard what we were just discussing here, problem-based learning includes project-based learning as well. We are not approaching this as a ‘one size fits all’ solution.

Our shared vision is competence and problem-based learning.’

‘Finding a common language’ and ‘old powers’ relate to the prevailing practices in which the degree programmes had a considerable autono-my in renewing the curricula. The truth distributed about the curricula renewal is employed as a transformative technology, which ought to take the subjects out of themselves (O’Sullivan, 2014). Yet, this truth is questioned, because it produces a new identity of a team teacher, who works in interdisciplinary projects with others. However, becoming a team teacher unsettles the sense of self and the technologies through which our lecturers sustain themselves as particular kind of subjects.

Because of this, these changes are perceived as oppressive rather than as an opportunity for self-transformation.

New practices related to curricula renewal are also welcomed with grievances of ‘mistrust’ and ‘micro-management’ (Field notes, 9/2016), although the existing rationality is imbued with power that controls individuals through a set of mechanisms built directly into the system.

These mechanisms are based on responding to the ethical demands, which prioritise disciplinary-specific teaching over externally funded RDI projects. This is not to say that marginalising RDI projects to secondary tasks in unethical; it merely denotes how the ethical subjec-tivity of a lecturer (see also Ball and Olmedo, 2013) is enacted.

2.1.3 Producing the subjectivity of an interdisciplinary knowledge worker