Co-create with students

Engaging students in designing learning experiences can have benefits for both the students themselves and for the programme or course unit.

For students, active participation in curriculum design is thought to enhance learning, and can contribute to students becoming active citizens. We can also see connections between co-creation and valuable competencies such as reflection, collaboration, normative and anticipatory thinking. Engaging in co-creation activities can also help students to build confidence and provide opportunities to apply critical thinking skills.

For the programme or course unit, engaging students as critical partners in learning draws upon their first hand experience of successes and areas for improvement. This input isn’t taken in isolation, being just one of the voices that can positively influence curriculum design – including academic colleagues, employers, and accrediting bodies.

Collectively there are benefits to all involved: working in partnership with students can positively disrupt traditional student/staff relationships. Whilst this can be challenging it can bring about a sense of cohesion or belonging to a programme or course unit, contribute to mutual empathy between students and staff, and can lead to a more inclusive and rounded curriculum.

Reciprocity

We want students to benefit from co-creation projects. To facilitate this, we are developing reflective handbooks for students to record their experiences and skills.

We believe students should be rewarded for their time, typically with vouchers. There are various funding sources for student compensation we can help you identify, such as student experience funds, departmental budgets, and faculty budgets.

Inclusivity

We aim to provide opportunities for students with different talents, perspectives, and experiences to contribute to co-creation activities.  Engaging diverse students in co-creation helps ensure that the outcomes are inclusive and relevant.

Trust

Building trust is essential in any co-creation project. To this end, we endeavour to communicate clear parameters and expectations–the role of students in the project, how their ideas will be taken into account, and updates on progress, decisions, actions, and outcomes.

Jessica Williamson, Student Partner with the Learning Design team, offers a student perspective on the challenges and benefits of co-creation:

As a student partner, the biggest barrier I have encountered to students engaging with their courses and programmes – outside of the contractual obligation to attend – is a lack of mutual collaboration and understanding with staff. While peers I talk to about my role are interested and enthusiastic in co-creation, few have described any experiences in which they felt their frustrations and suggestions were actively addressed.
Student participation in developing the curriculum and broader university experiences is limited by a closed cycle of communication; while avenues like unit surveys and evaluative questionnaires are a useful gauge of opinion, without a visible response to contributions, we risk a decline in student ‘engagement’.

Personally, working as a student partner to co-design teaching and learning has brought more awareness of successes and frustrations within my current programme and modules, and encouraged me to think more evaluatively about the methods of learning and assessment that work best for me. Expanded opportunities for both students and staff members to work towards a ‘negotiated curriculum’, while challenging to initiate, will ideally become an integrated part of the process of designing learning experiences, and in turn will improve student attitude to and engagement with their existing programmes/courses/units.

Quotes from students we have worked with

A very novel and inclusive experience where it feels like I might actually be able to make some change in the programme. Also developing some skills that I had not expected to.

Collaborative work, reflecting and feeding back in my university experience, while offering ways to improve the course overall.

For a summary of co creation at the various stages of curriculum development please see our Humanities eLearning Co Creation Overview or our visual overview.

Our student handbook is provided to students taking part in co creation sessions. Students can use it to keep a record of the sessions they participated in and the skills they gained. It includes pointers for the different types of skills, reflection prompts and careers signposting.

Co Creation Student Handbook

Example of a completed handbook including a CV suggestion

Empathy maps are a visual resource that help us understand the experience and emotions of the target group/user, and can be used as a reference throughout the design process to keep the user at the forefront of development.

See this empathy map template for an idea of how this could be framed.

Journey maps are visualizations of the process the target group/persona is undertaking, for example the process of completing a course unit of programme. A journey map should include the actions, mindset and emotions of the user across the journey.

See this journey map template for an idea of how this could be framed.

Questionnaires and similar survey formats are a quick and effective way to gain an understanding of student experiences and opinions, and can reach a wider body of participants than in-person group sessions.capture

In higher education, when long-term collaboration between staff and students presents co-ordination challenges, micro-sprints create a ‘finished’ product or result in a short time frame. They include four key processes–planning, ‘doing’, reviewing, and reflecting–adapted into a session of around three hours, with a focus on ongoing reflection/review.

Storyboarding is a planning tool used to share new ideas and map programme or course  unit development. The process can be as simple as organising sticky notes into a plan. Storyboarding enables participants to collaborate and share ideas through visual sequences and annotations, in a similar style to a storyboard in an animation process. Storyboards can be used flexibly throughout the development process, and are especially useful in visualising course unit aims and objectives. We use storyboarding approaches with staff in developing programmes and course units; students could easily be included in this process at various stages.

Focus groups are facilitated group discussions. They bring together a small number of participants –usually no more than ten–to gain information about their views and experiences. The interviewer/moderator normally steers discussion, but questions should be kept open-ended. Focus groups can be used flexibly throughout the curriculum design process, and have no set format.