Working with students to co-create their education

Collaborating with students is an effective way to develop curricula, classroom activities and even sometimes, assessments. But while many are familiar with the concept of co-creation, fewer are confident in how, on a practical level, to effectively work with students to shape their learning. Here we pull together advice from academics who are successfully using co-creation in their teaching and seeing positive learning outcomes as a result.

Use weekly class surveys to support learning

How regular student surveys help you understand their needs, adapt your teaching content and encourage active classroom discussions

Adrian Man-Ho Lam

The University of Hong Kong

How to reimagine an existing subject

Immersive technology and student co-creation allowed educators to revamp a general education course. Here’s how they did it

Kai Pan Mark, Wai Chi Rodney Chu

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Lessons from an interdisciplinary community engagement course for engineers

STEM curricula in the US don’t often expose students to perspectives on culture, history and power nor equip them with effective community engagement skills. Here, an instructor and students share lessons from designing and teaching an interdisciplinary course that sought to address that gap

Ruthie Yow

Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities

How can Jenga build course co-creation?

Questions about accessibility led to events management students and educators using block towers to foster discussion of lived experiences and a sense of belonging. Here, Katy Proctor and Nick Davies offer their insights into co-creating module content

Katy Proctor, Nick Davies

Glasgow Caledonian University

Students as partners in diversifying reading lists

Bringing the student voice into the creation of a toolkit to decolonise and diversify university reading lists was a key purpose of a library project. Here's what the team learnt about working in partnership with students

Charlotte Gleeson, Debbie Spencer, Jenny Warren

University of Chester

Going for gold: how to craft a winning TEF submission

Teaching excellence rests on clear principles and agile strategy, collaboration with students and a frank approach to educational gain, write Emily Pollinger and Julian Chaudhuri. Here, they share tips for maintaining and evidencing success

Emily Pollinger , Julian Chaudhuri

University of Bath

Film storytelling can enhance learning in STEM subjects

In the era of social technologies, authentic storytelling becomes a powerful tool for cultural and social change, a fundamental role of higher education, writes Arijit Mukhopadhyay

Arijit Mukhopadhyay

University of Salford

Fostering student co-creation to give back to the community

Engaging in local civic projects offers students meaningful learning opportunities, fosters co-creation and supports the community at large. Here, Martha Sullivan outlines the benefits based on working with the Empty Bowls project

Martha Sullivan

Virginia Tech

From cohort to community: how to support student-led initiatives

Building a strong cohort starts with supporting students directly. Here, we, as student and staff co-authors in the humanities, share insights on how to encourage solutions designed for students by students

Ranita Thompson, Joanne Walmsley, Ben Graham

The University of Queensland

Empowering students through co-creation and reflective experiential learning

By giving students agency in course content, the University of Edinburgh presents a fascinating case study of how student-led experiential learning can be used to develop professional skills in credit-bearing exercises. But can it work at scale?

PebblePad

PebblePad

Co-creation and empowerment: pathways to better student engagement

Effective approaches universities can take to promote equity and improve student learning outcomes and employability, shared by a team from the University of Salford

Sara Namvar, David Greensmith, Niroshini Nirmalan

University of Salford

Co-creation: how to find the ‘super’ in supervision

Co-creation can bring together research supervisors and doctoral students to unpick the tensions and challenges in the supervisory relationship and seek solutions, researchers from the University of Warwick explain

Elena Riva, Louise Gracia, Rebecca Limb

The University of Warwick

Co-creating an interdisciplinary well-being module for all students

Elena Riva and Wiki Jeglinska explain how academics can work with students to co-create well-being modules that span multiple disciplines and support students’ self-care, drawing on their own experience of collaborating on such a scheme

Elena Riva, Wiki Jeglinska

The University of Warwick

Co-creating with students: practical considerations and approaches

Stacy Katz explains how to develop meaningful learning experiences by collaborating with students, rather than determining for them

Stacy Katz

Lehman College CUNY

Enabling staff-student co-creation of experiential learning at scale

Simon Riley and Gavin McCabe share a reflective learning and assessment framework for staff and students to co-create experiential learning that is scalable and effective

Simon Riley, Gavin McCabe

The University of Edinburgh

Co-creation of curricula with students: a case study

Eric Tsui outlines a method he uses to enhance student learning through the co-creation of new scenarios for curriculum development in their discipline

Eric Tsui

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Co-creation does not need to stop because we’ve moved online

Co-creation is far more about mindset than suitability for a particular setting, and the evidence demonstrating its benefits is growing, says Catherine Bovill

Catherine Bovill

The University of Edinburgh

Negotiated assessment in online teaching – the same learning outcomes measured in different ways

Authentic assessment is one of the biggest challenges associated with online teaching and learning. Here Katherine Baverstock explains why negotiated assessment engages remote students and lowers the risk of cheating

Katherine Baverstock

RMIT University

Designing back from the future: building scenarios to engage students with global challenges

Anke Schwittay shows how design methods such as scenario building can help students think creatively about diverse challenges and imagine responses to them

Anke Schwittay

University of Sussex

Self-directed learning is becoming the forgotten ingredient in HE

In the heady rush to extol the virtues of asynchronous learning, we are watering down the main element of students’ learning experience, says Linda Kaye

Linda Kaye

Edge Hill University

Students as educators: the value of assessed blogs to showcase learning

Assessed blogs can help translate the thrill of interactive learning into tangible outcomes that enrich and showcase students’ knowledge. Here’s how to do it

Matt Davies

University of Chester

We are not alone: using participatory group activities to engage students in sustainability

Natalie Kopytko and Susannah Sallu detail how participatory activities used for stakeholder engagement can help motivate students to learn about sustainability online

Natalie Kopytko, Susannah Sallu

University of Leeds

Generating immersive, large-scale teaching experiences in video games

Richard Fitzpatrick and Thomas Little offer insights for designing and developing immersive learning experiences using video games, based on their experience using Minecraft in their teaching

Richard Fitzpatrick, Thomas Little

The University of Edinburgh