From principle to practice: designing a Public Health curriculum with co-design

By adopting an iterative, dialogic approach, the process created collaborative spaces with a third space team, comprising of teaching and learning staff, learning designers, librarians and an academic skills advisor for shared interpretation, meaningful dialogue and rapid prototyping. Informal student input was also incorporated. Curriculum materials were refined collaboratively, drawing on learning designers’ pedagogical and design insights and academics’ disciplinary and practice-based expertise.

This approach enabled embedding of inclusive and accessibility principles informed by Universal Design for Learning and tailored learning supports for the diverse cohort. These processes directly addressed challenges of scale, variable student preparedness, and the need for clearer scaffolding, with impacts evident in shifts in teaching approach, improved student navigation of unit site, stronger engagement with learning and improved performance across assessment tasks.

Reference McKercher, K. A. (2020). Beyond sticky notes: co-design for real: mindsets, methods and movements, Sydney, Australia: Beyond Sticky Notes