New undergraduate curricula for the BSc courses in Human Physiology, Physical Activity & Health, Biomedical Sciences, Neuroscience, Pharmacology and Sports and Exercise Sciences have been developed for the start of September 2023 as part of a new university wide student education strategy. Four strategic objectives are underpinning this process are shown in table 1.
Table 1: Four strategic objectives for student education at the University of Leeds.
| Partnership | Engage students as partners in their education, through active, inclusive and research-based approaches to learning. |
| Transformation | Provide an outstanding education, that is evidence-based, improves students’ learning outcomes, and is underpinned and enhanced by sector-leading pedagogies, digital resources and technologies. |
| Belonging | Foster an engaged and lifelong community of students, staff, alumni and partners. |
| Sustainability | Embed a sustainable approach to delivering high-quality, research-based education |
Reviewing the Leeds curriculum, through focus groups of staff and students highlighted the pressure and stress student were placed under from multiple exams, some of which were not authentic or inclusive. This aligned with comments from recent National student survey results. Staff observed that many students are solely focused on succeeding in module assessments and not appreciating wider applications of knowledge and skills. A synoptic style assessment was proposed across the year 1 programmes, which would include a variety of different authentic assessment methods, designed to integrate students’ knowledge and skills learnt across multiple modules. A variety of authentic assessment methods were discussed including evidence information reports, problem solving exercises and reflective essays ,experimental reports and team work outputs (with some individual planning elements), co-created by the students. The design team were concerned around the style of the assessment being very new to first year students and the communication of synoptic assessment to students being challenging.
A novel method of design was implemented to facilitate this process, the design sprint methodology (Grabill J, et al. 2022). This involved 3 phases of activity. The discovery phase involved two independent researchers holding one-to-one interviews with assessment experts in the field externally, a variety of academic staff, current students and alumni. These 'lived experience' insights were then used in the second phase.
The second phase was ideating, involving a 2 day sprint activity where multiple perspectives were presented to consider and help shape ideas and determine the priority of tasks. This allowed for big ideas to be developed into time limited tasks, to then be prototyped with various stakeholders. The sprint Involved design expert facilitators and a range of students and staff over two full days.
The outcomes of the sprint involved producing a visual aid on synoptic assessment co-created by students, having programme level support for students aiding academic belonging, creating clear consistent assignment briefs, marking criteria, marking and feedback guidance for staff, alongside opportunities for formative feedback via various mechanisms (generic, peer and individual).The final phase is to develop the above resources, and test them with staff and students ready for implementation. This methodology including multiple insights has been extremely valuable moving ideas to development of resources to support student education and curriculum design.