Decolonising the Curriculum via Student Co-Creation

Decolonising the curriculum is an important and increasingly prevalent aspect in our role as educators. It is our duty to ensure we present a diverse and global account of academic content, teaching methods, and assessment. This blog post introduces an approach to how we might authentically and genuinely diversify our teaching delivery and methods of assessments by working alongside students on a project that designed an essay question and accompanying workshop.  

What did you do? Why did you do it? 

Over the course of regular advisory group meetings with students from ethnically diverse backgrounds, two major issues emerged: First students raised concerns around the inclusion of sensitive content, for example about race. Though the intention from module leaders might be to diversify the content, if not done carefully, this can “shine a spotlight” on our students, rather than making them feel more included.  

Secondly, students did not feel they had the opportunity to reflect on issues surrounding racial bias in the current assessment format. More so, they describe feeling increasingly uncomfortable to bring these issues into their writing unprompted due to fear of not achieving the highest marks.   

During the next advisory board meeting, we collectively decided to co-create a workshop session and a form of assessment. We carefully worked alongside students to produce a teaching session that tackled historical and contemporary accounts of systematic bias for the “Intelligence” topic in the Level 1 Biological Psychology module. Furthermore, we also created an assessment in the form of an essay question.

The key considerations were: 

• Does the content feel safe to engage with, both as an ethnically diverse and Caucasian, home student?
• Does the wording of the question clearly map onto the content delivered, the learning objectives, and is appropriate for Level 1 students understanding?
• Does the Workshop session present material in a way that opens the door for students to be critical around the historical accounts of racial and systematic bias in Psychology?  

What was the impact of your practice and how have you evaluated it?

Students from all backgrounds gave unprompted, positive feedback after the delivery of the co-created workshop. One student, whose background was ethnically diverse, explained how speaking about historical accounts of racial bias led her to feel “more seen” and represented by the university. Our students from non-diverse backgrounds also reported extremely positive feedback after the session, explaining how refreshing it is to learn about Psychology from this perspective. They felt it gave them a wider and “more transparent understanding”. This prompts genuine and organic critical thinking skills.  

When speaking with students to obtain general feedback after the essay question was set, it became apparent students felt enthusiastic to write about issues they personally felt affected by. This was evidence by the communications students voiced about the essay topic outside of the workshop. For example, students approached me for general conversation about this essay topic out of pure interest, rather than asking for specific academic guidance. This inspires increased engagement amongst a cohort of students who previously may have felt both unaligned and uninspired by the content and assessments set. Importantly, there were no reservations noted by students from either ethnically diverse backgrounds or Caucasian, home students.  

How could others benefit from this example?   

When attempting to diversify our content, teaching methods, and assessments- there may be more to consider that us as staff are not aware of. Therefore, co-creation with students via group sessions that foster open dialogue around important but sensitive issues can be a useful tool to help authentically and genuinely decolonise our curriculum. 

Authors

Dr Stephanie Wake, s.wake@leeds.ac.uk, Lecturer in Psychology 

Dr Tom Muskett, t.muskett@leeds.ac.uk, Lecturer in Psychology 

Dr Richard Harris, r.j.harris@leeds.ac.uk, Associate Professor and Director of Student Education in Psychology 

Do you have an example of your practice to share?

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