I am slightly distressed as to why inclusive design of course curricula is such a novel concept in the UK. In many universities in the US and Australia, it's natural when designing a new course to bring many individuals besides academics to the table to include them in the discussion. This includes librarians, IT specialists, curriculum development specialists, career advisers, and (importantly!) students. This is such a logical, straight-forward idea! Why, then, is it so novel and why are academics in the UK often left on their own to design new courses and even entire programmes without support from students and university services? Academics should not be operating in a vacuum, with the assumption that their research expertise can magically be transferred into strong teaching pedagogy that engages students.
Traditionally there has been very little training for academics on curriculum design and educational pedagogy (as seen in work by Barnett and Coate), and assessment has too often been designed to asses knowledge rather than been used as a tool to promote learning in new ways. How has this come to happen, especially when primary and secondary school teachers must engage in rigorous training? Why do British universities tend to rely on specialists primarily when dealing with courses after they are set up, or with problems as they arise?
The intuitive answer is to involve specialists from the start to provide different important perspectives to course design so that higher education curricula can improve students' dispositions of knowing, acting, and being (Barnett) at university and beyond. It is exciting that in Scotland this discussion is starting to emerge, and I am really looking forward to taking part in an inclusive design pilot this year.
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