Welcome to Teaching, a weekly newsletter from The Chronicle of Higher Education. This week, Beckie Supiano describes what one college has learned from involving students in course design. We also report on new data on distance education, share a couple of teaching tips, and invite you to tell us where you turn for such advice.
Student-Driven Course Design
Before welcoming its first full class of students in 2002, Olin College of Engineering worked with a couple dozen students who spent a year helping develop the curriculum before enrolling as freshmen.
Giving students a voice in what and how they would be taught was so successful that “we realized right away this is going to be one of the things that defines Olin,” says Robert Martello, associate dean for curriculum and academic programs. Today, he says, Olin offers students several ways to participate in course design.
Many professors at Olin regularly check in with students to see if assignments are meeting a course’s goals, says Mr. Martello, who is also a professor of the history of science and technology. That could take the form of a quick survey or poll, or a short discussion, he says.
When they create a new course or significantly revise an existing one, Olin professors often apply for summer innovation grants, which include money to hire student workers.
Olin also offers “student-led courses,” which evolved out of a paradox — students’ desire to take independent study in groups, Mr. Martello says. A small group of students choose a topic and act as teachers, creating and running the course with the support of two professors, one with pedagogical chops and the other subject-matter expertise. Students who take the course ultimately earn credit from professors, not the students teaching it. That said, student leaders — who need some prior teaching experience, such as serving as teaching assistants — do all of the work of teaching, under faculty supervision.
Providing feedback helps students because they examine their learning more closely than they otherwise might, Mr. Martello says. Professors, for their part, are better able to achieve their teaching goals when students have a clear sense of what they are. They also benefit, Mr. Martello says, from the new ideas students bring.
Olin is not a typical college, and the way it has baked student input into the curriculum is unusual. Even so, professors at other colleges also work with students to design new courses or overhaul existing ones, and some colleges have formalized this approach. You can read about some of them in my forthcoming article on Chronicle.com.
Have you ever sought extensive feedback from students on a new or redesigned course? What did you learn? Share your thoughts with me at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com, and you may see them in a future newsletter.
