Curriculum design that welcomes students into the discipline

In this short chapter I introduce three principles for an inclusive (or ‘welcoming’) curriculum design, none of which are completely new and all three often come together. The central tenet of the chapter is that a curriculum can act as a barrier to students entering the discipline. By this I mean students who are enthusiastic about the discipline when choosing their degree subject, can start to feel like the curriculum is foreign to them and completing the curriculum tasks, readings and assessments only increases their alienation (Oprandi, 2014). However, teaching and assessment methods can be employed that can help a curriculum welcome all students into the discipline, whatever their background, and can help develop a sense of belonging. In the first part I say what the principles are, in the second part I make a case for why they are important and I conclude by suggesting some steps and examples.

What are the methods?

The methods are the following:

1. To set learning objectives that require the students to become familiar with the frameworks and methods employed to come to know what we do on each given topic.
2. To provide opportunities to use frameworks and methods to know parts of the topic for themselves through practice. This can be done individually or in groups.
3. To provide opportunities for the students to interrogate the conceptual frameworks and methods which have shaped a topic and provide a space for them to build upon them.

Why are these principles important?

Knowledge is in a constant state of constant flux; it is usually highly context-dependent, often contested, and often changes, grows and develops. Furthermore, the frameworks and methods by which we come to know are entrenched in history and culture. While this in itself is inevitable, the space in which the frameworks  and methods have developed are increasingly contested. For example, the decolonising the curriculum movement challenges the validity of traditional curricula that are increasingly recognised to be created from western, white, middle-class and male  and in a word, “colonised” point of view (Arday et al., 2021). Teaching methods one and two seek to provide a modest remedy to this by firstly acknowledging the history and cultural contexts in which the conceptual frameworks and methods emerged and, secondly providing a space for them to be used in practice, questioned, contested and, if necessary, refuted.

Like many writing (and reading) this book, I understand that most of us learn best by doing and by applying knowledge to a personal context. The benefits of active learning approaches are many and well documented by renowned educationalists such as Dewey (1938) as far back as the early 1900s and, favourites of mine, Chickering and Gamson (1987). I therefore suggest that curriculum design needs to provide opportunities for students to apply these theoretical frameworks for themselves through practice. Problem-based learning is one teaching approach that can be used to embed Principle three; wherein “the starting point for learning is a problem or challenge which defines the scope of learning” (Boud, 1988 p. 87). It seeks to provide the students with the opportunity to understand how the topic has developed, learn how they can contribute to it and have the opportunity to critique the frameworks used.

How can you implement the principles in your teaching?

How can this be done? I suggest the following three part approach to preparing a session:

1. Create learning objectives that require students to be familiar with the conceptual frameworks and/or methods which underpin the topic, to be able to apply the frameworks for themselves and be able to offer a critique of the frameworks
2. Create an group application task which requires the students to apply the conceptual framework and/or method to understand something for themselves
3. Create a concluding activity which requires students to discuss the cultural history and the limitations of the framework and, if appropriate, propose alternatives.

This short chapter offers a curriculum design that seeks to provide students with conceptual frameworks and methods that they can use to come to know new things. It includes providing the students with the opportunity to critically engage with those frameworks and methods so they can build upon them. The curriculum design is intended to lower the barriers that can prevent students from entering the discipline and instead invites students to come to know in their own way, welcoming all students into the discipline, whatever their background.

References

Arday, J., Belluigi, D. Z., & Thomas, D. (2021). Attempting to break the chain: Reimaging inclusive pedagogy and decolonising the curriculum within the academy. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 53(3), 298-313. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1773257

Belt, S., Overton, T., & Summerfield, S. (2002). Tales of the Riverbank: Environmental problems – context and problem-based learning. Royal Society of Chemistry. https://edu.rsc.org/resources/tales-of-the-riverbank-environmental/1045.article

Boud D. (1988). Assessment in problem-based learning. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 13(2), 87-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/0260293880130201

Chickering, A. W., & Gamson, Z. F. (1987). Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. AAHE Bulletin, 3, 7.

Dewey, J. (1963). Experience and Education. Kappa Delta PI Lecture Series. Collier-Macmillan Books (Original work published 1938)

Oprandi, P. (2014). Supporting learning autonomy and curriculum coverage in university teaching: Three case studies of formative assessment [Doctoral thesis (EdD), University of Sussex]. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/51389/

Oprandi, P., & Murphy, M. L. (2019). Specialism-based learning in action: why, how, when? In: W. Garnham, T. Betts,  P. Oprandi, W. Ashall, J. Kirby, M. Steinberg, H. Taylor & V. Walden, Victoria (Eds.) Disrupting traditional pedagogy: Active learning in practice (pp. 58-78). University of Sussex Library.