3-Minute Thesis

Yesterday I participated in the University of Edinburgh's college-level three-minute thesis competition for the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. This is an initiative to challenge PhD students to condense their vast work into one PowerPoint slide (no transitions, props, etc.) and a three-minute speech. Today's competition really showed the great breadth of PhD research across our College, and it was great to meet other researchers from across the University.

I found this experience to be extremely beneficial, especially whilst in the midst of wading through what seems like almost endless quantities of data that I have collected and trying to analyse it and write up my results. It was helpful to condense my work into such a short piece, explaining what I have researched, my findings, and why they are important. I would recommend this as an exercise to any PhD student!

So what did I write? I'm happy to share my very condensed version of my work below to help others learn about my work, and potentially help those thinking about how to structure such a short summary talk about their work. Many thanks go to Mason Robbins for his insights and support in sharing this structure with me.

INTRODUCTION:

What’s the point of higher education? Transforming students from ducklings to competitive foxes or curious cats? Or helping them defy the odds to fly like mythical creatures?

A high-quality undergraduate curriculum that is engaging and relevant to learners’ interests and the needs of today’s society is vitally important, so why do academics often create curricula in isolation?  Why don’t they involve students in curriculum design?

LITERATURE REVIEW:

Co-creation of the curriculum is one form of student engagement where students and staff work in partnership to design aspects of higher education curricula.

There are different grassroots models of co-creation including staff working with past, current, or future students who are selected or democratically involved as a whole class.

But all models are based on respect, reciprocity, and shared responsibility.

THESIS:

In my research, I look at how students and staff advance their aims of higher education through co-creation of the curriculum.

METHODOLOGY:

I identified rare instances of co-creation and interviewed students and staff across 10 subject areas at five Scottish universities.

These co-creators had developed educational resources, grading criteria, or exam questions together and student consultants supported staff to improve their courses.

I also used arts-based methods (including images such as these) in four focus group discussions with students and staff who were not familiar with co-creation.

FINDINGS:

I have found that co-creation of the curriculum brings together students’ and staff members’ different forms of knowledge, expertise, and skills. Sharing ownership over the curriculum increases empathy and respect while also promoting student and staff engagement, creativity, and enjoyment of learning.

Beyond advancing the personal and professional development of students, co-creation also helps staff improve their teaching practices. By modelling democratic engagement in the classroom, students and staff are gaining skills together to deal with uncertainty and tackle the world's most complex problems.

CONTRIBUTION / CONCLUSION

Co-creation of the curriculum helps challenge consumerist hierarchies and humanise the education experience through inclusive partnerships between students and staff.

It’s not without its challenges and risks but, for those who do engage, there are many benefits that make higher education more meaningful and relevant to their aims.

It helps support duckling students to be creative, curious, and competitive job applicants while also helping them fly beyond what they think is possible.