Empowering change: Staff and student perspectives on an assessment design sprint
The School of Sociology and Social Policy took part in a design sprint to improve the experience of assessment for both staff and students. Using design tools, co-creation with students and guided by the Learning Design Agency, they worked through their challenge. In this piece, we’ve interviewed staff and students who took part in the sprint to spotlight their authentic experience.
Staff spotlight — Dr Carly O’Neill-Barrett
Carly is a Curriculum Redefined (CR) Lecturer and Teaching Assistant Lead in the School of Sociology and Social Policy. Carly is the academic lead for this design sprint and has championed it within the school.
What made you want to do the design sprint?
We identified different needs in the school. From a staff perspective, people were struggling with the workload that comes with assessment and it is an incredibly important part of the experience for students.
We recognised the importance of assessments in becoming the inclusive school we want to be. A design sprint was a good opportunity to tackle these challenges.
How would you describe a sprint?
A design sprint is a way to invite people to change. It’s not prescriptive, it’s a way to invite people to think about ways to do better without telling them what to do. You’re saying to people ‘I think that this is an issue, come define the exact problem, design the solution and we can go there together.’ It is a softer way of creating change.
What are you hoping to achieve from the sprint?
Assessment should be easier to understand and smoother for students. I’m hoping we follow the plan we’ve put together for prototyping. We’ll test them and we might fail, but we’ll fail quickly so we move on to find the things that will make life better for staff and students.
Student Spotlight- Yiwen
Yiwen is a course representative for the MA Society, Culture and Media, she was invited to the design sprint to collaborate with staff and co-create solutions around assessment in the School of Sociology and Social Policy.
Why did you attend the Design Sprint?
I thought it was a good opportunity to get the voice of students heard by lecturers in our school, to share our concerns and what we’d like to improve in our modules and programmes.
What did you think of the 2-day sprint?
The experience was wonderful, I found the staff were curious and wanted to know whether they can make improvements so students can benefit more from their modules. They wanted to make sure students have a positive experience of their teaching. Everyone was very respectful to my voice as a student and wanted to know about my peers’ views.
What would you say to your peers about design thinking?
The most important things I want to share with my peers is that more students should take part in design thinking activities. Staff really do want to know how we feel about their programmes.
It is an important opportunity for all students, and gives us the chance to discuss things we want to improve, raising this directly with staff.
What did you get out of this experience?
It’s been inspiring, fun, and friendly. We have spent a lot of time discussing problems we are facing during assessment, so I’m interested in what kind of solutions will be tested to address these problems and the changes the school will make to improve the teaching experience for students and staff.
Staff Spotlight — Dr Jessica Martin
Jess is a Lecturer and Deputy Director of Student Education in the School of Sociology and Social Policy.
What happened during the sprint?
The sprint has gone really well. We’ve started to think about how we can change our assessment and diversify what we do, considering the different needs of students. We’ve considered how we can bring in new forms of assessment that reflect the creativity and passion of our staff. Ideas included podcasts, blog posts and magazines. These different forms of assessment move us beyond the ‘traditional essay’ and allow students to display their different skills.
Did anything inspire you about the process?
One of the things that has really inspired me is seeing how passionate my colleagues are and working with students.
Having students as part of the design sprint has been invaluable, asking how assessment feels to them and how we might change it to be better has given some incredible insights that we don’t get in a typical module evaluation.
I would recommend a design sprint, especially to academic colleagues as I think we are often multi-tasking, and the design sprint allows you to focus on one thing.
These spotlights from participants of the School of Sociology and Social Policy design sprint highlight the importance of taking the time to facilitate staff and student co-creation in curriculum design. For staff, it allows the time to step away from day-to-day pressures to focus on improvements to the curriculum whilst collaborating with students allows an authentic voice to be heard during the process.
Hear from other participants that attended the School of Sociology and Social Policy’s design sprint in our short video.
Want to understand more about Design Sprints at Leeds? Read this blog A burst of energy! Design Sprints at Leeds | by Leeds Educators | Leeds Educators Present | Medium
Enquire about a design sprint or design thinking activities by emailing learningdesign@leeds.ac.uk.
