“A Standards Based Major: Refocusing the History Major,” presented at the Sydney Teaching Colloquium, 3 October 2012.

This presentation examines the influences from within the university and beyond that shaped the development of the new major in History.  In particular, it looks at the History discipline community’s development of Threshold Learning Outcomes that aligned with AQF Level 7, and the After Standards project that has explored how to assess those standards, and the department’s experience of the Group of Eight’s Quality Verification System Pilot.  Both the TLOs and the QVS highlighted the need for a final year, capstone unit of study that would produce work that demonstrated that students had achieved the outcomes of the major, and the need for students to be prepared for that capstone by the work they do in other units of study.