Geographic contributions to institutional curriculum reform in Australia: the challenge of embedding field-based learning

Abstract

In the context of continuing pressures from managerialist and neoliberal drivers of university reform in Australia, Macquarie University’s recent undergraduate curriculum innovation, based on “People,” “Planet,” and “Participation,” has resulted in the embedding and integration of experiential learning in its curriculum and institutional framework. Such an approach challenges academic and administrative staff, students, and partners in industry, the community and public sector settings, to engage and collaborate across significant boundaries. This article outlines the scope and nature of the curriculum reform, then considers the way geographers have both shaped and responded to the opportunities it created. In so doing, it proposes a number of challenges and recommendations for geographers who might seek to extend their longstanding commitment to field-based learning through similar reforms. In this regard, the discipline of geography and its tendency to engage with the “field” can offer much in fostering deeply transformative learning.

Keywords:

• Fieldwork
• field-based learning
• experiential learning
• community engagement

Acknowledgments

The authors constitute the Macquarie Human Geography Group. Kate Lloyd and Richard Howitt are lead authors of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Though still relevant when discussing the White Paper, the term “participation” has since widely been replaced by the acronym PACE. Originally this stood for Participation and Community Engagement but in 2013 changed to Professional and Community Engagement.

2. Aligned to the third undergraduate curriculum pillar of “participation,” and as detailed in Winchester-Seeto and Mackaway (2011), this term captures the many different forms of experiential learning that a student might undertake through PACE.

3. These PACE units are open to students of a discipline and sit at the faculty level as opposed to within a Department.

4. PACOS is a community-based organization dedicated to supporting Indigenous communities in Sabah, Borneo (Malaysia) who facilitate networking among Indigenous organizations that struggle to assert rights over community land and resources. PACOS also seek to strengthen Indigenous knowledge systems; generate small business development; promote and support cultural identity and Indigenous ways of being; and improve child-care initiatives. (see http://www.pacostrust.org/).

5. These international field-based activities operate through the PACE International program, jointly managed by Australian volunteers International and PACE.