Curriculum Agility: Responsive Organization, Dynamic Content, and Flexible Education

Paper in proceeding, 2021

This special session, within the conference theme of Incorporating Convergence into Programs, Curricula, and Continuing Education, focuses on Curriculum Agility in engineering education. It will introduce the concept of Curriculum Agility and its current trends, as well as further co-develop the concept behind it. This is done following an iterative design thinking approach, by co-creating guiding principles that engineering institutions can use to make their study programs more responsive, dynamic, and flexible. Curriculum Agility is particularly important in engineering education in order to keep pace with the rapid development of new technologies and materials. In addition, the concept aims to meet students' expectations and needs for more individualized study plans, as well as society's need for forward-thinking engineers equipped to contribute to finding solutions to current and future societal challenges. Thus, to anticipate and meet these challenges, institutions for engineering education need to have an organizational and management structure with the capacity to act within a much shorter timeframe than traditionally seen in universities. Curriculum Agility is a framework for introducing necessary changes in operations to be able to act responsibly and rapidly on change and expectations. This work presents seven principles for Curriculum Agility that have emerged from a series of sessions at international conferences and network meetings. The seven principles currently include: Stakeholder Involvement, Organization and Governance, Decision Making, Program and Course Design, Innovation of Education, and Pedagogy and Didactics. This special session brings educators together to discuss the 'what, how and why' with regard to Curriculum Agility. The overall aim is to further develop a shared vision on Curriculum Agility and build upon the intention of assessing it at different levels in the organization of engineering education institutions. The expected outcome of the special session is a collection of refined, redefined, and perhaps even newly defined principles for Curriculum Agility.