Curriculum Design Workshops
Curriculum Design Workshops use a range of thought-provoking and stimulating activities to help you and your colleagues shape your programme.
The Curriculum Enhancement Team is planning to run workshops in every school in the first half of 2023. These workshops will support teams to bring about curriculum and assessment changes in readiness for the revised Structure of the Academic Year (SAY), programme simplification, and our new assessment strategy. Each workshop is a team event, bringing together your ideas, best practice from across the university, and discipline-based ideas; it is productive and fun, and aims to support you to make decisions about your programme in the light of the University’s three interrelated strategic developments:
- University Assessment and Feedback Strategy
- Programme simplification policy
- Moves towards a new Structure of the Academic Year (SAY)
The workshops are in-person, and typically run for a full day or a half-day, depending on advice from your HoS and Faculty Education Director. All workshops include lunch. Workshops (usually one per school) will cover all UG and PGT programmes. They do not require preparation from participants, just come with an open mind and be willing to share ideas with your colleagues!
School perspective
Professor Catherine Kelly talks about how the Curriculum Design Workshop enabled her team to think creatively about how and why we are assessing students.
“The workshop was a positive learning experience that included useful and stimulating group activities to help us to get to grips - as a team- with the upcoming changes. Before the workshop, the team worked with us to determine the specific needs of our School. The facilitation team were knowledgeable, friendly and have helped us to feel supported beyond the workshop.”
Faculty perspective
Faculty Education Director Astrid Linthorst discusses how the Curriculum Design Workshop enabled an overview of assessments across the faculty.
Student perspective
Layla Savage talks about her experience of a Curriculum Design Workshop from a student's point of view.
Who should attend?
- Unit and programme directors and as many staff who teach on the units as possible.
- A few current (and/or recent students), potentially these may be course representatives, members of student disciplinary societies, or students whose contribution you would value.
- Representatives from careers, the library, faculty employability advisors, and those who support your teaching are welcome.
- Alumni or industry-linked advisers who can contribute an external perspective, if appropriate.
This is an opportunity for everyone linked to your programme to take ownership and shape it, and to contribute their ideas, experiences, and ambitions.
What will we do?
Each workshop is a guided session with thoughtful activities to stimulate ideas and creativity. We will engage you in activities, discussions, and productive tasks which enable you to:
- Understand the rationale for university-wide changes and their anticipated benefits.
- Identify the kinds of graduate qualities your programme is aiming to develop in your students.
- Become familiar with the University’s assessment priorities, what they look like in practice (using examples from colleagues and externals).
- Undertake team-based activities to understand your programme’s current assessment patterns in relation to the assessment priorities and to generate fresh ideas which align more closely with it.
- Work productively on planning unit and programme level changes to align with programme simplification and SAY changes, with a particular focus on assessment.
- Take away actions from the workshop and have a clear understanding of timelines, your role and team responsibilities.