A group of Edinburgh students and staff who met during the student occupation of March-April 2018 worked together over the summer of that year to design a course we called: The future of our university: an interdisciplinary experiment in cooperative learning. Astonishingly, perhaps, we managed to persuade the relevant people in the university to make this experiment a credit-bearing course. Starting in September 2018, the course ran over two semesters.
Taking the university as field site for enquiry, the course experiments with cooperative learning approaches, including project-based learning. Students and staff participate on an equal basis, and their questions and concerns about the university are our starting point: initial possibilities include student debt, democratizing the university, decolonizing curricula, sustainability and health/well-being. We decide collectively on how to run the course, how participation is evaluated and how assessment is done.
Although based in sociology, the course is inherently interdisciplinary and draws on disciplines including politics, education, history, economics, geography, creativity, art practice and the sciences. What disciplines we engage with depends on what people bring into the space!
The course involves staff and students learning together and deciding on the specific thematic and theoretical fields of enquiry. This means it is highly interactive. Participants identify and work on group projects using diverse forms of research, and present their work in various ways at the end of the course, aimed at generating a creative dialogue with the university community. We also document and archive our own work.
Undergraduate students at all levels are able to take the course, and it is open to students from any school in the university. In 2018-19, first and second year undergraduate students could take the course for credit, while Hons students could take it for extra credit. In 2019-20, it is also a credit-bearing course for Hons students.
In 2018-19, the course operated on a pass/fail model, with 100% of the criteria for a pass involving participation in course activities. In 2019-20, assessment continues to be based on project work and participation, but is a bit different. The criteria for assessment are agreed between staff and students during the course, with options including: reflections on the course process and learning; a group project to be presented at the end of the course; and participation in and facilitation of course activities.
More information on this year’s course for Honours students is available here, and for pre-Honours students here.
What the Sociology external examiner, Prof. Kate Reed of Sheffield, said about the course that ran in 2018-19:
“This is an innovative module that I support wholeheartedly. I really like the way that it has emerged from the student occupation of 2018 and is being developed in a cooperative manner with input from both staff and students. The literature used on the module and approach to assessment are excellent. This is a really good example of cooperative learning. Given the current climate in HE I think it is very timely to be engaging students, not only in their chosen subject of study but also in debates on the future of the sector.”
