Gestalt and figure-ground: reframing graduate attribute conversations between educational developers and academics

Abstract

Academics implementing graduate attributes, and the educational developers who support those academics, may experience graduate attributes and disciplinary knowledge and skills as unrelated dimensions of curriculum. Gestalt conceptions of curriculum, together with a figure-ground understanding of the relationship between disciplinary understanding and university-determined graduate attributes may help support a more integrated view. We reflect on the ways in which, by adopting these concepts in curriculum conversations, educational developers and university academics might together define, identify, and develop graduate attributes in disciplinary contexts in integrated ways.

Keywords:

• academic development
• curriculum
• fragmentation
• Gestalt
• graduate attributes

Acknowledgements

The conceptual framework in this article was developed as a reflective activity by the authors during project work undertaken at in the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law at La Trobe University, Melbourne Australia.