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In 2024, the two COs of the third-year course Pathogen Biology 3 (Dr. Patricia Castro and Prof Achim Schnaufer) obtained funding from the Student Partnership Agreement fund to work with students to improve the two-stage exam in the course. Six third year students enrolled in the course worked together with us to (a) design a survey to gather feedback from all the students in course on the two-stage exam experience, (b) analyse the results of the survey, (c) design and run a focus group to further expand on the feedback gathered on the survey and (d) use all the insights to design ways to improve the exam experience for students. The students involved in the project were compensated for their time and had the opportunity of sharing their work in the 2025 University of Edinburgh Learning and Teaching conference. Collaborating with students was an extremely rewarding experience and as a result of the project, student feedback on the two-stage exam experience has improved.

As a result of the project, student feedback on the two-stage exam experience improved in the second run of the course in 2025/26.

The six students involved in the project were compensated for their time, could include the experience in their CV and had the opportunity of sharing their work in the 2025 University of Edinburgh Learning and Teaching conference.

Collaborating with students was an extremely rewarding experience for staff and it really stimulated us to do more co-creation in the future.

Contact details:

Patricia Castro, Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, Ashworth laboratories. patricia.castro@ed.ac.uk

Achim Schnaufer, Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, Ashworth laboratories. Achim.Schnaufer@ed.ac.uk

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Dr Patricia Castro Sanchez, Dr Alan hayes, Dr Jason Mooney and Dr Richard Fitzpatrick obtained funding from the Student Partnership Agreement fund to work with students to trial and co-create a Minecraft-based workshop for the course Infection & Immunity 3. Three third year students enrolled in the course and one postgraduate student currently doing an MRes in infectious diseases are working together with us in this project. Throughout the 2026 summer, we are trialling and further developing a Minecraft world and co-designing a workshop that uses this Minecraft world to teach about the immune response to infection, factors that influence spread of an infectious disease, effective data collection and analysis, and integration of different types of evidence to build a bigger picture.

As a result of this ongoing project, we expect to co-create an engaging, accessible and effective tutorial that will be incorporated in the third-year course Infection & Immunity 3.

The four students involved in the project will be compensated for their time and use this experience to further develop their skills and their CV

Contact details:

Patricia Castro, Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, Ashworth laboratories. patricia.castro@ed.ac.uk

Richard Fitzpatrick, Edinburgh Medical School
rfitzpa2@exseed.ed.ac.uk

Alan Hayes, Institute of Immunology and Infection Research
alan.hayes@ed.ac.uk

Jason Mooney, Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, Ashworth laboratories. Jason.Mooney@ed.ac.uk

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Co-Creation of Content through Feedback Podcast

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Co-Creation of Content through Feedback Podcast

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I run an elective for our Part-Time, Remote Masters in Biodiversity, Wildlife and Ecosystem Health called "Use of Artificial Reproductive Technologies in Conservation" (called ARTs for short). In this course the student have to write an assessed case study of the use of ARTs in any species they want. This leads to a lot of excellent variety but also questions on how to fit their chosen species and techniques into the case study. What to focus on, what is relevant and what isn't important enough to fit in 1500 words. This course is quite small, varying between 5-14 students each year so I have the time to offer 1:1 sessions to chat about their case studies. I give them the option to allow these chats to be recorded and posted on the course, most are very happy to. This has left multiple years of 1 hr podcasts of students talking about one of their favourite species with tonnes of passion and research, expanding range of species students get to learn about with the context of ARTs far beyond what I'd be able to curate. Feedback shows the sessions are helpful for the individual "The podcast to discuss my assignment was really helpful" and informally students have showed appreciation for the availability of all these podcasts to explore in their own time after the assignment.

Andre Phillips, Medical School, Biodiversity, Wildlife and Ecosystem Health MSc, andre.phillips@ed.ac.uk

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Imploding Clinical Education: Exploring Digital Culture through an Object-Oriented Pedagogy for Co-Creation

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Imploding Clinical Education: Exploring Digital Culture through an Object-Oriented Pedagogy for Co-Creation

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Co-creation can be challenging: creating freedom for exploration and self-directed learning while ensuring equity of assessment and scaffolding for that learning. Luck and a good network of connections for inspiration are key.

For the Clinical Education and Digital Culture course on the MSc Clinical Education Programme I was inspired by an STIS seminar on deconstructing devices by Alice Street and Millie Webb from the After Single Use project introduced the "implosion method", a pedagogical approach developed by Joe Dumit that asks students to identify a specific object and then ask a series of questions. This provided exactly the sort of flexible open framework I was looking for to give an open topic and then a set of questions to ask and explore in answering it.

Rather than use Blackboard Learn discussions, Miro boards were suggested by the eProgramme Support Officer, Femke, based on her experiences as a student on the MSc in Digital Education. Student responses were positive. The poster presents some of that work and feedback from students. Miro provided a flexible space.

Students chose topics of interest and relevance to their clinical education area. They could use Miro to brainstorm then created two 8-minute presentations: one outlined the problem space, the second responded to it.

Students - who are clinical educators supporting UG and PG medical, veterinary, nursing and AHP students in HE and on clinical placements - were free to select their tools and approach. One student made mini-documentaries using a smartphone and CapCut video editor. Another explored the origins of the heart surgery live case, then vibe-coded an eLearning platform using real heart surgery video and open text entry analysed by an LLM against a model answer. Learning to code or create an eLearning platform was not the task; however, AI vibe-coding enabled an incredibly creative and thorough response. Another student took an analogue response to a digitally saturated training area.

We also used Miro for course readings on a different collaboration board where PDFs were added and guest speakers including Max Perry and Tyler Harvey from STIS could select readings and share artefacts to annotate and discuss during live conversations via Teams. Guest lectures also came from Richard Fitzpatrick (Minecraft - explored in another case study here) and Kate Wainwright (Twine - to showcase approaches to developing innovative digital education.

Lots of the materials and copies of the the conference posters for Edinburgh L&T 2026 about the co-creation as well as links to the videos are on the course Course Outputs and Experimental Web Publishing pages.

Contact Details:

Dr Steve Wright

Lecturer in Clinical Education

steve.wright@ed.ac.uk

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Co-creating success: Collaborative learning in the MSc Clinical Education Programme

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Co-creating success: Collaborative learning in the MSc Clinical Education Programme

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The MSc Clinical Education programme offers a variety of opportunities for faculty to work with our students collaboratively to co-create their learning activities and assessments. Throughout the core and elective offer, our synchronous live conversations relate to weekly topics but the specific content is led by students’ contributions and shared experiences. Weekly interactive activities are loosely planned by faculty, who remain flexible should the conversation lead in another direction, depending on students’ contributions. Assignment approaches are varied and make use of reflective essays, presentations and mock conference settings, allowing students to explore topics depending on their interests, experiences or contexts.

An example of our progressive approach to co-creation is in one of our final year courses. This 40-credit course puts co-creation front and centre for the final half of the course. While faculty continue to provide guidance and support, we encourage students to work with us to decide weekly content, discussion topics and resources. This includes leading sessions (putting learning into action) but also the chance to revisit topics and revise content or share and create new resources. By the end of the course, learning outcomes are demonstrated in an assessment which is set in their own context, processes and experience, drawing on course content and their reflection upon this experience.

Students were initially reticent and uncertain, with concerns about the faculty role and the course continuing to provide value and support for their success. Through careful planning, open conversations and tailored guidance, by the end of the course there was recognition of the value of co-creating educational activities and assessments. Students demonstrated an enthusiasm for incorporating this concept into their own educational designs for improvement in their context.

Although co-creation at this level can be a daunting prospect for faculty, it is a truly valuable opportunity to collaborate with students and work with them to identify and support their learning needs and development.

Lynsey Campbell

Lecturer in Clinical Education

lynsey.campbell@ed.ac.uk

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Students are organised into 'lead groups' in one course on the PGDE programme. Each lead group gets to lead a workshop with support from tutor. students take the theme and make olit their own, focusing onbtheir response to the topic and what they think is important. Workshops can be creative and discussion focused with the sharing of key points from literature. Students can support each other in thr process and recieve feedback from tutors.

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Co-creation of our new programme: Master of Family Medicine

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Co-creation of our new programme: Master of Family Medicine

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We embarked on programme redesign a few years back. We co-created the new programme with students and alumni including the addition of a new 40 credit course which follows a family through the lifecycle and provides a more authentic experience for our students. The process took years so the students involved became graduates during this time. There were many challenges but ultimately this has enable us to create a new programme designed for our diverse and unique student community. It has been a nourishing experience for the team and the students/graduates with a lot of shared learning. I’m not always sure we have gone far enough in placing students at the forefront of the design and decolonization of the programme and curriculum.

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Creating Open Educational Resources for Students by Students

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Creating Open Educational Resources for Students by Students

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I have been running an extra curricular activity endorsed by the University of Bradford ‘Creating OER for Students by Students’ over the past three academic years. The activity is voluntarily and open for Yr3 students enrolled in the Biomedical Science Research Projects module. Participation has no impact on module marks, but it gets recorded in their Higher Education Achievement Report. The activity is structured around tutorials and students reflections. Towards the end, students have to create 3 recordings (podcasts or videos) with tips and advice for future students enrolled in the module. They select their topics and they are all discussed in our tutorials. So far, 21 participants have successfully completed the activity creating a library of 63 OERs. These resources are open access. You can email me if you want to access them or chat about this activity and how you could implement it in your institution. Thanks.

Juanvi Canet j.v.canet-perez@bradford.ac.uk