Currently there is no way of assessing the skills that a student with a degree in, say, geography from one university has compared with a similarly named degree from another university. This is all changing as the QAA (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) undertakes a national initiative to provide benchmark standards for universities and colleges. Furthermore it is a requirement of the QAA that courses can demonstrate that they are delivering what they say they are. As the benchmarks are implemented there is also a need to evidence that what courses deliver broadly conforms to these benchmarks.

This set of cards is designed to help those with responsibility for running courses, classes and development workshops to identify what it is they want the participants to know and be able to do as a result of the course. It is a tool for enabling them to produce clear, unambiguous and readily comprehensible statements of learning outcome. Since the cards require groups of staff to work together to reach consensus on what is expected from courses it is also a powerful tool for developing teams. At the same time it enables those with responsibility for operating programmes to set out the progression occurring in specific areas of performance, knowledge and/or skills since results can be recorded and compared over time.

 

(Normally delivered within 5-7 days).