ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ

Co-creation: involving students in the educational design process. What do students learn from this? Does it contribute to their entrepreneurial skills? And, not unimportantly, what is in it for you as a teacher? What do you need to consider if you want to design (parts of) a course together with students? Two colleagues share their experience.

Let students assess their own efforts and cooperation

Group work is the rule rather than the exception in most courses. This is good, because working together with others is an important entrepreneurial skill. Students also receive a grade for the group assignment, which is usually weighted and averaged against any individual paper or examination.

The course 'Responsible ICT' (Information Science) takes a different approach. Lecturer Sergio España: "We don't give the whole group the same grade. At the end of the course, students are asked to score the collaboration and all team members - including themselves - separately.

The criteria on which this assessment is made are devised by the students themselves, a form of co-creation. Part of the course is a workshop on teamwork and cooperation. Students think about questions such as 'What makes a good team member? What characteristics does such a person have? How does he or she behave in a team?'. In small groups, students think about these questions and discuss them until consensus is reached. This way twelve to fifteen criteria emerge that are listed on the assessment form the students fill in at the end of the course."

Students assess their own efforts and cooperation

How these scores are subsequently included in the final grade is up to the teacher. Sergio's students are positive about their involvement: "Such an intersubjective assessment works very well. Students experience the criteria as reasonable and fair, also because they were not 'imposed' by me as a teacher."

Master's students design a complete course

A completely different example of co-creation is the course Digital Pharmaceutical Care, an elective course of the Pharmacy master's programme, that was entirely designed by students. Aukje Mantel-Teeuwisse, Professor of Pharmacy and Global Health: "In 2019, a group of five students spent five full-time weeks developing a new elective course, which was indeed taught last year. They did not have to develop the actual tutorials or exams, but did come up with the structure, working methods and assessment (rubric). The plan was presented to the management of the School of Pharmacy.

The students were supported with a crash course in educational design and weekly feedback sessions. There was also collaboration with Educate-IT and the Teaching & Learning Lab, which was nicely reflected in the result: the course consisted of blended learning, with an e-learning, a hackathon and a written exam. This written exam is planned halfway through the course, so that students have sufficient knowledge before they start working on a concrete project during the hackathon.

Co-creation is a good way to stimulate entrepreneurship among students.

Dealing with uncertainty

"Pharmacy is a risk-averse profession, so the Pharmacy master does attract a certain type of student," says Mantel-Teeuwisse. "This was also reflected in the co-created course. Although they had complete freedom, the students opted for a written exam, a common and thus 'safe' form of assessment."

Sergio recognises this: "I leave relatively little room for real surprises, because I notice that it is also scary for students when everything is open."

Mantel-Teeuwisse: "The students also indicated that they found it very challenging to be working on something new - developing education - about a subject matter they were not yet proficient in. Involving students in the redevelopment of a course that they have taken before might be a good solution."

Both lecturers do see co-creation as a nice way to stimulate entrepreneurship among students. Sergio: "It is exciting and entrepreneurial, both for the student and the teacher. I would love to move towards a radically new approach of assessing and creating education, together with our students."

More on co-creation?
Start by reading  (in Dutch) in the Educational Database of the Centre for Academic Teaching. Educate-it for teachers who would like to incorporate co-creation in their courses. Or meet like-minded colleagues at the Special Interest Group for Co-creation.