Abstract
Significant attention is rightly given in literature concerning institutional curricular change to the design and delivery of the formal curriculum. Particularly influential in this area has been Biggs’ work on constructive alignment (Biggs, 1999, and subsequent editions) and the learning taxonomies which higher education has sought to utilise in the alignment process (Biggs & Collins, 1982; Bloom, 1956). However, the role of the hidden curriculum (Giroux & Purpel, 1983), much discussed in the context of school education for many years, has barely featured in the discourse around learning and teaching in higher education. In this reflective analysis, I consider the question, ‘To what extent do the learning communities we create and the hidden curriculum which frames them foster or fight the development of capabilities needed by our global students?’ and propose the hidden curriculum to be an area we can no longer neglect.
Highlights
Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies is the notion that a person learns only the particular things he is studying at the time
This reflective piece has grown out of that work, and I believe it illustrates the importance of the hidden curriculum in inhibiting or advancing student learning across a range of dimensions, and perhaps most significantly in areas of learning where our outcomesbased formal curricula dare not go
I do suggest that when it comes to institutional curricular change, the hidden curriculum needs to be exposed and interrogated and, in so far as it is possible, aligned to the aspirations we espouse for student learning
Summary
Perhaps the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies is the notion that a person learns only the particular things he is studying at the time. While IOC sees the creation of equitable and successful learning experiences as an essential part of the careful design of the formal curriculum, experiences which foster communication and collaboration with cultural others, we must examine how intercultural spaces and encounters are framed in the broader experiencing of university life.
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