Track C - Extreme Course Design: Making Step Changes in the Learner Experience - Elizabeth Parkin (University of Bedfordshire)

Elizabeth Parkin delivered a workshop about course design and changing learner experience by sharing her experiences about redesigning an undergraduate course in Business Studies.

From the beginning of the workshop she highlighted that her approach towards redesigning a course stems from a practice based vision and that an intelligent innovative teaching practice should be developed considering the student profile after graduation and student experience.

Elizabeth Parkin delivered a workshop about course design and changing learner experience by sharing her experiences about redesigning an undergraduate course in Business Studies.

From the beginning of the workshop she highlighted that her approach towards redesigning a course stems from a practice based vision and that an intelligent innovative teaching practice should be developed considering the student profile after graduation and student experience.

The workshop was divided into three parts:

1. Why do you want to innovate?  To do extreme course design?
   
   This part of the workshop encouraged the audience to think about the reasons why redesigning a course, what do they want to achieve by it.  The audience presented reasons such as a better student experience, better employability after graduation, more interesting teaching experience etc.
2. How do you do it?  How do you stimulate ideas?
   
   This part of the presentation began with the argument that conventional course structure should not be employed when designing a course as it does not encourage innovation.  Another approach is to spend time with the academic team designing the course and assessment and then dividing into modules and units accordingly. This model was inspired by an academic team from Denmark that approach education and learning from a completely different unconventional perspective  (www.kaospilot.dk).
3. How do you manage your stakeholders?
   
   Different strategic tools that can be used were delivered and explained and the importance of stakeholders was also emphasized during this part of the workshop.

Most of the discussions of the workshop evolved around the implications and possible issues when developing a radical course design. Issues such as practicability, embracing change, engaging the academic team and the importance and influence of student body when redesigning a course were debated.

Session video

Report by Alexandra Cotiga, Online Learning Content Developer, Centre for Academic Practice Enhancement