Curriculum design + educational development = true! An ongoing development project at the Faculty of ForestSciences, SLU Umeå.

As part of the Bologna process, with focus on students’ learning, the Faculty of Forest Sciences together with the Forestry Library at SLU initiated the Generic Skills Project in March 2010. Its purpose was to improve students’ learning and their employability by training generic skills (henceforth GS) throughout the course of their study. These GS include study technique, written and oral presentation techniques, group dynamics, information literacy, computer literacy, critical thinking and problem solving, and internationalisation. GS complement the academic subjects taught at the Forestry Science Programme. The implementation of GS connects to research and theory in different ways. Working with GS emphasizes on constructive alignment (Biggs & Tang 2007). GS are included as expected learning outcomes in the course plans, and have their own assessment and evaluation (Campbell & Norton 2007, Falchikov 2005). These assessments and evaluations are adapted to each individual course they occur in. Apart from employability (Knight& Yorke 2003, Hager & Holland 2006), additional key concepts in working with GS are reflection (Moon 2004, Brockbank & McGill 2007), feedback (Burke & Pieterick 2010, Irons 2008), and progression. A document has been developed ensuring progression in each GS, building on different taxonomies (Bloom 1956, Biggs & Collis 1982, Anderson & Krathwohl 2001). The theoretical background for implementation of GS draws on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of learning. The project was made permanent in June 2011 and is lead by the LRC-pedagogue. The way of working with GS implies reaching teachers as well as students. Thus, support is given to both groups. For teachers, competence development days, seminars, and workshops are organized on practical implementation of GS in their courses and on a range of connected pedagogical topics, such as assessment and evaluation, and feedback, amongst others. In dialogue with the teachers, ELOs and assessment criteria are developed for each course. For students, there are lectures and workshops in GS as well as handy documents and worksheets. The LRC-pedagogue also coordinates the LRC-group, which consists of representatives from the faculty, the library staff, the teaching staff and the student council. This allows a comprehensive view of the needs of staff and students alike regarding GS. The results so far have been positive. The students like the way they improve their GS along with the academic subjects, and the teachers value new fun (and often time-saving) ways of teaching with improved student results in for example oral presentations and academic writing.