Disrupting first-year curriculum design: A holistic approach to student success
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56433/pmsmg324Keywords:
curriculum design, compassionate pedagogy, ungrading, reflective practiceAbstract
This 'On the Horizon' article presents a reflective case study on the implementation of a reimagined undergraduate tourism curriculum. Grounded in Freirean principles and compassionate pedagogy, the innovative design of the first year moves beyond traditional modular learning and graded assessments. Our students undertake an ungraded and holistically assessed year-long learning journey that is team-taught and project-based.
This article documents the pragmatism and compromise required to bring this pedagogical disruption into being, focusing on those moments of realism and concession required during both its introduction and first delivery. I reflect on how my team and I navigated three separate, but interlinked areas of resistance: institutional rigidity, initial perceptions amongst the teaching team around the loss of professional identity traditionally related to module leadership, and the pedagogical work of guiding students through the unlearning of their entrenched relationship with assessment.
Initial findings, drawn from personal reflections noted after ongoing staff action research meetings and curated from student reflective portfolios, reveal that while this process caused initial anxiety amongst different groups, it ultimately fostered some deeper critical consciousness and a shift in motivation from grades to intentional learning amongst numerous, but not all students. The paper concludes by distilling key lessons from this messy middle of pedagogical innovation to support other curriculum designers considering a radical reimagination of their course.
References
Alinsky, S. D. (1972). Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals; Vintage.
Blum, S. D. (Ed.). (2020). Ungrading: Why rating students undermines learning (and what to do instead). West Virginia University Press.
Carey, W., Millard, L., Nutt, D., Bonne, P., & Åge Sæthree, H. (2024). European First Year Experience Conference: Learning through a third space development community. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 12(3), 128–142. https://doi.org/10.56433/8vj6g064
Darder, A. (2018). The Student Guide to Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
Freire, P. P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. In Toward a Just World Order (first, Vol. 1). The Continuum Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429269400-8
Hall, E., & Meinking, K. (2022). Letting Go of Grades: Creating an Environment of Autonomy and a Focus on Learning for High Achieving Students. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 10.
Hughes, G., & Spanner, L. (2019). The University Mental Health Charter. Leeds: Student Minds. https://www.studentminds.org.uk/uploads/3/7/8/4/3784584/191208_umhc_artwork.pdf
Hull, K., Lawford, H., Hood, S., De Carvalho Oliviera, V., & Murray, M. (2019). Student Anxiety and Evaluation. Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 12, 23–35.
Kift, S. (2009). Articulating a transition pedagogy to scaffold and to enhance the first-year student learning experience in Australian higher education Final Report for ALTC Senior Fellowship Program. https://transitionpedagogy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Kift-Sally-ALTC-Senior-Fellowship-Report-Sep-092.pdf
Nutt, D. Ed., & Calderon, D. Ed. (2009). International Perspectives on the First-Year Experience in Higher Education. The First-Year Experience Monograph Series No. 52. National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.
Schijf, J. E., van der Werf, G. P. C., & Jansen, E. P. W. A. (2025). Students’ experiences in an interdisciplinary module: “It’s like travelling to a foreign country.” Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.53761/7ZSASW29
Seo, S., Van Orman, D., Beattie, M., Paxson, L., & Murray, J. (2023). Breaking down the silos: Student experience of transformative learning through interdisciplinary project-based learning (IPBL). Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education, 32, 100440. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JHLSTE.2023.100440
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Lisa Gorton
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice has made best effort to ensure accuracy of the contents of this journal, however makes no claims to the authenticity and completeness of the articles published. Authors are responsible for ensuring copyright clearance for any images, tables etc which are supplied from an outside source.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
