Co-Design in Curriculum Innovation

The best way to teach brainstorming? Let students brainstorm your teaching approach. Today, our design thinking class at the University of Kentucky, TEK 300, "Teens and Screens," reached a pivotal moment. With midterms behind us and spring break over, we faced a critical question: How might we structure the remaining weeks to promote deeper understanding rather than just blasting through the steps of our semester-long project? Instead of deciding for our students, we chose to "eat our own dog food"(as they used to say at Apple). (HT Reinhold Steinbeck, charles kerns) We turned our students into users and co-designers through a structured brainwriting session focused on this challenge. The process was beautifully simple: • Students received worksheets with our "How Might We" question and a 3×5 grid • Everyone silently wrote initial ideas (one per box) in the first row • Sheets rotated three times, with each person building on or adding to previous ideas • We ended with a gallery walk and dot-voting to identify the strongest concepts In just 20 minutes, we generated over 50 unique ideas! The winner? Incorporating hands-on, interactive activities in every session that directly connect to that day's learning objectives. The meta-realization? We were already practicing the solution before formally adopting it. The brainwriting exercise itself exemplified exactly what our students told us they wanted more of. My teaching partner Ryan Hargrove immediately began storyboarding how we'll implement this approach, moving us closer to the collaborative learning journey we want to have with our students. We're moving from "Once upon a time..." (not as great as we could be...) to "Students designed..." (active participation), to "Now we really dig learning all this..." Your students already know what they need; your job is to create space for them to tell you. P.S. What teaching approaches have you transformed by inviting your students to become co-designers of their learning experience? #DesignThinking #HigherEducation #TeachingInnovation #BuildingInPublic #StudentCenteredLearning

Over the past few months, I've read a lot about teaching process over product. But here's the thing... We need to understand that the focus on product is often embedded within colleges' structures. We can design assessments for "process over product," and that certainly helps. But what would it mean to commit ourselves to process more generally? ---- 1️⃣ Less Lecturing, More Thinking In Public The Problem: Many people focus on how lectures encourage passive learning. (Sometimes, that's true. Sometimes, it's not.) The bigger problem is that it represents learning as something that's already happened: an authority delivers ready-made knowledge. The subtext: knowledge is a product, not a process. The Reframe: "Think in public." Model the process of applying and adapting the knowledge to new evidence. Talk about something you're not an expert in. Demonstrate connective thinking and label it as such. More to Consider: What does this mean for online asynchronous courses? ---- 2️⃣ Fewer Pre-Designed Courses, More Co-Designed Courses The Problem: Most courses are designed end-to-end months before the semester begins. They have pre-designed assessments, pre-designed readings, and pre-designed course themes. The Reframe: We're moving into an age where customizable (or semi-customizable) courses will be expected. We can use this as a chance to co-design courses with students, showing them the process (designing the course) as well as the product (the course itself). More to Consider: How do we ensure the quality of courses when professors are co-designing them with students? And how do we develop programs out of courses that may have striking differences? ---- 3️⃣ Fewer Mentor Texts, More Workshopping The Problem: Most college courses feature "mentor texts." These are texts (books, articles, videos, etc.) that highlight the kinds of products we want to make. They're inspirational at their core. Read ______, and be inspired by the product they created. We've designed courses in a way that hides the messiness of the process. We see a whole range of products, but rarely see the process-in-action. The Reframe: We can push against this by (a) showing earlier drafts of someone's work, (b) workshopping more frequently in class as we move towards final products. More to Consider: How do we go beyond the conventional peer review process, to highlight the messiness of thought and work more generally? How do we work this into the body of the course, rather than as something we do a couple of times per semester? ---- We should make changes that -- in big and small ways -- signal that we're focusing on process. After all, bringing process-thinking to colleges is a structural challenge. We should think about it structurally.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗼𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗯𝗹𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹? Their individual skill and will are called into question. But what if the problem is not them, but the very structures of higher ed? Our new paper examines a Student–Staff Partnership project on assessment co-design. Despite goodwill, the traditional hierarchies of higher ed remained intact. Asking students and academics to play different roles is risky. It is striking that partnership practices work as well as they do — with hundreds of successful examples published in the International Journal for Students as Partners (IJSaP). But we can learn from researching "failure". Failure wasn’t about individuals. It arose from assumed patterns of behaviour in universities that pulled teachers and students back into established hierarchies. Rather than focusing on individual will or skill, we need to see how systemic conditions shape what partnership can and cannot achieve: “When partnership fails to live up to the promise of challenging the status quo, it is important to examine the underlying logics of HE for possible explanations and to recognise and empathise with the courage of students and teachers – they are pedagogical risk-takers.” This research is not evidence to end partnership programs or co-design practices. Quite the opposite: it underlines the urgency of working against structural conditions — short-term contracts, simplified teaching metrics, entrenched hierarchies — that make co-design so difficult. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘄𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁–𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗼-𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗻𝗼𝘄 1. 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 — Partnership moves students from passive recipients to active participants, making education more engaging and relevant. 2. 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 — Co-design builds reciprocal trust between students and staff, especially important in systems where precarity and metrics can undermine confidence. 3. 𝗔𝗱𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 — With generative AI reshaping knowledge, students need opportunities to practise judgement, collaboration, and creativity through shared design. 4. 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗰 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 — Working in partnership fosters dialogue, negotiation, and shared decision-making — capacities societies urgently need. 5. 𝗘𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 — Co-design surfaces diverse perspectives and lived experiences, disrupting entrenched hierarchies and making education more inclusive and responsive. 𝗧𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱, 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼-𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 — 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲 𝗵𝗶𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝘆. Led by Meng Zhang — an emerging scholar to watch! Open access link: https://lnkd.in/g8uhzCu7

The early moves we embody help us more easily design and build learning walls alongside our learners and before you even begin adding documentation to your vertical spaces here are a few habits to consider at the start of your academic year or term… 1️⃣ Build essential agreements and create a space to set goals that helps define qualities of the skills you hope to build across time together across the year. Return to this often, use it as you reflect together during community circle time & revise it as you grow together as a class 2️⃣ Take inventory of your students interests, ask them preferences for learning and use their feedback RIGHT AWAY so that way your learners see their voice immediately making a difference 3️⃣ Leverage collaborative students that encourage learners to dig into topics and concepts together. Lift of patterns and celebrate the collaboration that’s already occurring right before you! 4️⃣ Co-design learning with question and thinking routines. These structures provide you with clear next steps and express and interest in student thinking and ideas right away 5️⃣ Co-create indicators of success criteria for non-academic areas first (i.e. What does collaboration look like and sound like for us as a community? OR Build a bank of sentence stems to be used during partner sharing or giving and receiving feedback) While there are many more things I could add to this list, begin your year with co-design in mind. Take a look at your lesson plans and routines and ask yourself how you might start with your learner voice first 🥳 #inquiry #inquirymindset #learningwalls #teacherprofessionaldevelopment #studentagency