Mapping students’ educational journey: a collaborative approach to charting thresholds

Abstract

Universities have experienced major shifts in recent times. Pressures of diminished funding, wider accountability and broader learning outcomes have prompted reviews on graduate attributes, programme curricula and student support services. The University of Auckland’s graduate profile now embraces key competencies in specialised knowledge, general skills and capabilities as well as personal qualities, and its faculties are reshaping their curriculum and graduate attributes accordingly. Its library and student learning services have further amalgamated allowing for an integrated approach to advancing students’ information and academic literacy skills. These developments signal the end of working in silos and the beginning of collaborative approaches to facilitating student learning, guiding students in their educational journey to navigate potential knowledge and skills gaps successfully. This paper reports on a recent project between library and learning support advisors and project officer and academic staff of a School that is in the process of reviewing its Bachelor’s programme. The role of graduate attributes, Bloom’s taxonomy of learning domains and Meyer and Land’s threshold concepts in mapping the curriculum and discovering (potential) knowledge gaps is explored. How these gaps can be addressed is illustrated by the project’s first phase of integrating information and academic literacies in a core first year programme of the School. Challenges and opportunities for the project team are discussed and recommendations for sustained collaboration across academic and support staff to enhance students’ learning are offered.