A change will do you good

Abstract

Programmatic review processes within higher education institutions provide programme teams with the opportunity to reflect on their practices. An output of such self-examination is often changes, not only to the content of programmes, but also to delivery methodologies. These changes are influenced by the environment, cultural norms, attitudes and skills of those who were part of this process, the needs of society stakeholders, and students. As a result, they are often challenging to implement and deliver, both for the educator and student. This is the focus for this research paper, which outlines how a major change to an honours degree module within a social science department was implemented, citing, from the students’ perspective, the positive and negative aspects of the new approach. Concluding that, whilst changes to pedagogy can offer much, the importance of supportive administration processes cannot be underestimated and are often key to successful learning.

Keywords:

• pedagogy
• challenges
• success

Notes

1. Banks (1999) first highlighted the term ‘social professions’ as spanning occupational fields, which include SCP, social work, community work, youth work and social pedagogy.

2. Innovative as defined by Rogers (2003) where ‘If the idea seems new to the individual, it is an innovation’ (p. 11).

3. The ION model was introduced to Ireland as part of a pilot programme based around the UK model of the Common Assessment Framework. Following on from an evaluation conducted by the Child and Family Research Centre in NUI Galway, the model is now being extended throughout the Republic of Ireland as The Meitheal Model under the Child and Family Agency (Forkan & Landy, 2011).