Transforming curriculums for an age of multi-modal education: a 5-phase approach

The pandemic has accelerated the trend towards online and hybrid learning with many educational institutes pivoting their education to online learning environments and has subsequently transformed societal expectations. There have been many benefits associated with these changes (e.g., multi-dimensional interactions, flexibility and deep learning). As we move into more online education due to changing needs and demands from students, how best to adapt our education for multi-modal learning environments can be a challenge. Getting our education ready for a multi-modal age is bringing about disruptive changes forcing us to rethink what we teach and how we teach it. Thus, the objective of this paper is to present a framework that will allow for the evaluation of curriculums and enable educators to create sustainable, flexible educational environments relevant for multimodal learning environments while remaining at the forefront of educational needs. In
this paper, we present the 5-phase approach that we used to assess our programme and redesign our curriculum. The five phases include: Inventory, Analysis, Evaluation, Design and Implementation. We will present the highlights from our experience and the challenges we have had to overcome. The framework that we present is applicable to different computer science, spatial and data engineering programmes that require a mix of theoretical and hands-on practicals.