Abstract:

In February 2016, I had the opportunity to design the curriculum for a newly approved one-year diploma in software development. This diploma, equivalent to the final-year of a three-year degree, was aimed, primarily at international students with a degree or equivalent experience in computing. I expected some of these students to have no experience in software development and minimal hands-on coding skills and others to have as many as fifteen years’ experience in the software industry. Overseas students were expected to enrol in the diploma to gain a New Zealand qualification, learn the latest technologies, network with New Zealand employers, improve their English, familiarise themselves with the New Zealand workplace culture and find relevant employment and settle in New Zealand. We expected students from all over the world. Within the last two-and-a-half years, we had students from 21 countries. In designing the curriculum, I considered the huge variation in the prior technical knowledge and skills of the expected student cohorts, cultural differences and the need to transition them from the traditional lecture/tutorial mode of learning that they would have been familiar with in their home countries to the way of collaborative, project-based learning I was planning. The curriculum I designed had to add value to each of these students, and benefit students with as many as fifteen years’ experience in software development and at the same time bring students with near-zero coding experience to speed and keep all of them engaged in the same class. I did this successfully by combining the concept of Ata and some of the principles of Kaupapa Maori and embedding personal and professional development and the development of other skills needed to secure relevant employment in New Zealand into the curriculum. I also included yoga and meditation sessions. In this paper, I discuss the design of the curriculum and how it has helped over 100 students to achieve their goals with relative ease and become sought after employees in a new country and contributing to the economy of this country.

Keywords:

Curriculum design, Ata, Kaupapa Maori, international students, software development, computing, collaborative learning, project-based learning.