Abstract:

Goals:
Recent projections published by the EU show that in the years up to 2025, half of the jobs will require highlevel qualifications, while 65% of children entering primary school will be working in occupations that do not yet exist (World Economic Forum, 2016). This implies higher demands on professionals as their tasks are becoming increasingly complex (Benedikt-Frey & Osborne, 2017).
Higher education has to prepare students for this challenging future. Next to professional skills, higher education is expected to educate on problem solving, reasoning, decision making and creativity to ensure that professionals can flexibly adjust to rapid changes in their environment (Merriënboer & Kirschner, 2012). It is irrelevant to focus on the transfer of knowledge, rather on how students can use this information in their profession. It has been argued that students have to learn in an authentic context to facilitate better transfer for the student (Schlusmans et al., 2001; Kelchtermans et al., 2010; Van Petegem et al., 2015; Dochy, 2015) while learning knowledge, attitudes and skills in an integrated way (Van Merriënboer & Kirschner, 2013). To date, most literature focuses on the design of single courses and general pedagogical principles but fails to inform on how to practically designing complete outcome based curricula on professional higher education level (EQF level 5 and 6). Our proposal wants to bridge this gap through design science research (Kaipia et al., 2017; van Aken and Romme, 2009) at a university of applied sciences in Belgium. We asked the following question: How do we design supported and sustainable curricula that are directed towards learning outcomes?

We developed 4 design propositions leading to 8 process steps that guide professionals towards developing future proof sustainable curriculum. Our process of implementation integrates well established insights from the literature as well as own field tested propositions in our process-steps of curriculum design. Doing so, we connect practice and academia through the development of actionable knowledge grounded in the empirical evaluation of how designs work in the field (van Aken et al., 2009). The process-steps where tested within several professional training programs (bachelor, postgraduate, …) in our institution.

Challenges:
The most challenging aspects of our process of curriculum design was engaging teaching staff. The process requires a mindshift in thinking developing a new outcome based curriculum. Staff had to reevaluate the relevance and content of their courses based on the learning outcomes of the program.
Curriculum design also means dealing with practical limitations (e.g., budget, time, infrastructure). On the one hand they restrict the creativity in the design process, on the other hand staff has to develop strategies to overcome them.

Discussion:
Our process steps will never be completed. The design propositions have to be (re)tested to develop further. Following the context-intervention-mechanisms-outcome technique peers reexamined the propositions (Kaipia et al., 2017).
We have come to believe that our process steps have led to sustainable curricula that are outcome orientated. In our curricula developed in line with these process steps, the relationship between the courses and their relevance became more explicit for all actors. Our process supports students in developing the learning outcomes and facilitates a better transfer of learning that lasts.

Keywords:

Curriculum development, curriculum design, higher education, learning outcomes, outcome based curriculum, design thinking, educational development, case study.