Curriculum design at the University of Edinburgh

During curriculum design, it is important to consider how we might integrate the digital and physical campuses when designing our courses and programmes. To help us do this, we need to explore various modes of learning and consider how they shape the teaching and learning experience. The University of Edinburgh digital strategy acknowledges the key role the digital estate has had on teaching and learning. It outlines a vision for the digital and physical estates to ‘fuse seamlessly’.

The complexities of digital pedagogy is reflected in the language we use to describe it and the same terminology can have different meanings. An example of this is the term 'hybrid' which is often used interchangeably with 'blended' (QAA, 2020). We’re also seeing the term 'postdigital' being introduced, which describes human relationships with technologies (Jandrić et al, 2018).

Blended learning offers opportunities for flexibility which can often lead to a more inclusive and equitable learning experience. This Teaching Matters blog post explores equality, equity, and social justice during hybrid learning. Embedding flexibility and choice into learning design is a key aspect of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, which is embedded in the University's Accessible and Inclusive learning policy.

Useful resources

• AI Guidance for Staff and Students: The University's AI strategy, definitions, and guidance on how to use it in teaching.
• Open assessment practices: A collation of examples which incorporate non-traditional assessment practices; those of open assessment practices.
• Making blended education work: A Future Learn MOOC aimed at those involved in leading the design and implementation of blended learning including course leaders. The University of Edinburgh were partners in the development of this MOOC. 
• Learning Technology: An overview of the digital technology tools and support from The University of Edinburgh.
• Beyond blended: rethinking curriculum and learning design: A toolkit to help curriculum teams consider the pedagogic differences between modes of learning.
• Exploring the digital pedagogy toolkit: A toolkit to help educators make informed choices when embedding digital into the curriculum.

This project summary, Student views of curriculum (3 pages), provides an overview of the findings from a curriculum development research project that considered student views of the curriculum. The findings indicate that for many students the curriculum is impersonal; something which is 'done' to them. Students’ emphasis on content and structure echo staff definitions of curriculum, and there were vast differences in the level of agency students experienced in relation to the curriculum.

In this ENGAGE network event video - How do students define and relate to the curriculum? Findings from a recent study at The University of Edinburgh (42 mins) - students and staff discuss:

• What do students understand the term 'curriculum' to mean?
• What role do they consider themselves to have in relation to the curriculum?
• What role would they like to have?

Learning is optimised when students are actively involved in processing and making sense of what they are learning, making the learning more authentic and meaningful for them. This can be achieved through an approach to curriculum design known as 'co-creation'.

Co-creation of learning and teaching occurs when staff and students work collaboratively with one another to create components of curricula and/or pedagogical approaches.

(Bovill et al., 2016)

Co-creation of the curriculum provides an opportunity to challenge the status quo of teaching. It is an ultimately disruptive approach, which tests the accepted ways in which we have been led to believe teaching and learning should take place. Co-creation shifts learning and teaching from something we do to students, towards something we do with students.

Engaging students with course and programme design can have many benefits for both staff and students, including: increased motivation and engagement; more developed metacognitive understanding of learning and teaching; stronger sense of identity; greater academic performance; more positive relationships and deeper trust; increased sense of responsibility for learning and teaching (Cook-Sather, Bovill & Felten, 2014; Bovill, 2020).

When thinking about designing curriculum through a student and staff co-creation approach, you may want to think about the following:

• What will students do during the course or programme?
• Could some current or previous students (alumni) be invited to be part of the curriculum design committee?
• Could a focus group be held to ask students for their perspectives and ideas?
• Can current students be involved in designing any element of their assessment, such as marking criteria?
• How do students become part of a learning and teaching dialogue with staff, so that they understand the terminology, policies, regulations, and acronyms we use??

Some examples of co-created learning and teaching can be found in the University’s Co-creation of Learning and Teaching Manifesto.

The term ‘hidden curriculum’ is all those things that we teach that aren’t written down explicitly in course and programme documents. It refers to certain implicit ‘rules of the game’ that higher education students are presumed to have, but are not part of the written curriculum, such as morals, norms, gender roles, and power hierarchies. Below are a few resources to help you understand the hidden curriculum in relation to your teaching:

• Unpacking your Hidden Curriculum: A Guide for Educators (3 pages): In this Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education resource, the authors highlight some of these unspoken rules and processes that contribute to the hidden curriculum in an attempt to encourage educators to think about what this means, and to help us consider how to overcome these invisible barriers which students need to navigate.
• Dr Neil Speirs, a Widening Participation manager, practitioner and researcher at The University of Edinburgh, introduces the concept of the hidden curriculum, how we may be complicit in it, and what we can do about it in a Teaching Matters Podcast episode: The Hidden Curriculum and its impact on working-class students (28 minutes), in a blog post: Let’s talk about the hidden curriculum and classism on campus, and in a video presentation: IAD Hangout: Reflections on the Hidden Curriculum and its Impact on Working Class Students.
• ‘Critical approaches to the hidden curriculum with hybrid learning in Music’: This presentation by Eli Appleby-Donald and Dr Nikki Moran from the University of Edinburgh Learning and Teaching Conference 2020, highlights how to critically think about the hidden curriculum in course design.