Using a design thinking approach to support staff and students in re-imagining provision of large first-year bioscience modules

There are many internal and external challenges when attempting to holistically re-imagine the bioscience curriculum, which can be especially pronounced when tackling the first-year experience. For example, balancing the teaching of fundamental disciplinary knowledge with the appropriate skills acquisition, while providing a supportive/engaging transitional environment that also adequately prepares students for higher level study. These factors are often compounded by the reality that many first-year bioscience students are taught in large classes that do not lend themselves to either developing the active learning skills required for higher level study, establishing meaningful peer/tutor connections or to providing varied and authentic assessment rather than defaulting to overused mass MCQ testing. To stimulate new thinking into how our first-year curriculum could be re-imagined and to address long-standing concerns about impersonalised teaching and low progression, we instigated a proactive problem-solving curriculum development approach based on 'design thinking‘. This engaged staff and students in a collaborative and empathetic process of re-imagining the first-year biosciences provision. Design thinking, founded upon empathising, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing, encouraged creative new perspectives on learning, teaching and assessment, where a novel aspect was developing more empathetic understanding of each of the different stakeholders involved. This presentation outlines steps we took in developing new ways to engage staff and students in curriculum co-creation to empower, break inertia, determine the 'bigger picture‘ and to produce outcomes based on quite polarised viewpoints.