While the basic principles of good curriculum design provide a sound foundation for student wellbeing (as well as learning), you can enhance student mental wellbeing through curriculum design by asking:
- How will the curriculum be experienced by my (diverse) students?
- Will the curriculum foster or thwart experiences of M-BRAC (see 1.3 Wellbeing essentials)?
Reviewing your curriculum with these questions in mind will enable you to identify which of the wellbeing essentials needs more support. You can then plan to address the identified area/s. The questions in the purple box will help you with this process.
Identify the strengths and weaknesses of your current curriculum and explore ideas for change.
In what way and how well does your curriculum:
Foster autonomous Motivation?
Read how autonomous motivation was fostered by integrating student-directed learning activities in the curriculum design of a first year Medicine Program, and by embedding an activity-based tutorial program in a first year Design subject.
Promote inclusion and Belonging?
Read how students’ sense of belonging was fostered among a small cohort of Fine Arts students by creating opportunities to experience and practice unconditional positive regard.
Encourage positive Relationships?
Read how issues of isolation were addressed for a large cohort of first-year Biology students by employing a consistent teaching team.
Enable Autonomy?
Read how a sense of autonomy was promoted in four disciplines, each concerned with the transition from student to professional identity: identifying with pre-service teachers as ‘future colleagues’ in Education; establishing professional identities in Law; emphasising the importance of self-care for doctors in Medicine; encouraging a love of learning and self-management in Fine Arts.
Scaffold Competence?
Read how student competence was fostered by intentionally developing metacognitive skills in Design, or embedding authentic tasks in Law.
Now that you have identified some curriculum design elements and choices that could better support student wellbeing, you can plan how to make the relevant changes.
Considerations in designing curriculum to better support student mental wellbeing
- What are the issues and factors affecting your students?
- What resources and institutional support do you have?
- Is there a network of colleagues in your discipline or an institutional community of practice that can support you?
- How can you collect evidence about your students’ experience of the curriculum and overall wellbeing?
Planning a curriculum innovation
The following curriculum review checklist may be of use.
Curriculum review checklist
- How will you document the problems or issues that teachers have observed or experienced and that you would like to address through a curriculum review? (this will also help you assess the effectiveness of your changes)
- How will you reach agreement among those responsible for course/unit delivery on the need for change? (this will also help avoid resistance and undermining behavior)
- How will you, in collaboration with discipline experts and peers, determine where change is needed? For example, by asking:
- How well does the current curriculum align, sequence learning, engage learners, assess for learning (see 2.2: Start here)?
- How well does the current curriculum support students’ mental wellbeing by creating opportunities for students to experience autonomous motivation, belonging, relationships, autonomy and competence (see 1.3: Wellbeing essentials and 2.1: How curriculum design affects student wellbeing)?
- How will you, in collaboration with discipline experts and peers, determine what change is needed in the identified area/s?
- How will you assess the feasibility of the identified strategies in your local context – considering resourcing, timelines, contingencies?
- How will you (and the teaching team) document the changes made?
- How will you assess the extent to which the planned changes are implemented?
- How will the changes be explained to students?
- How will transition problems and issues be identified and managed?
- How will the learning outcomes of the new curriculum be evaluated – what measures are available?
- How will the curriculum’s impact on student wellbeing be assessed?
- How will the curriculum’s demands on staff be assessed?
- How will you know whether the changes achieved your goals?
A note of caution
We would counsel having modest goals for your curriculum redesign. This is no ‘silver bullet’ that will solve the problem of student psychological distress, and some students will experience mental health difficulties while undertaking your course even if your curriculum is optimally designed to support student wellbeing.
That said, your concern for your students’ wellbeing – demonstrated by the attention given to the wellbeing in your curriculum – will be appreciated by those experiencing mental health difficulties. And sometimes even small changes in curriculum – what is taught, and how it is taught and assessed – can make an important difference to the experiences of individual students.
Fostering Autonomous Motivation
- Do curriculum content choices engage students’ interests, strengths and preferences (or do they primarily reflect the different interests, strengths and preferences of academic faculty)?
- Do learning and assessment experiences highlight the social value of discipline knowledge and skills (or is it mostly up to students to figure out what the point is of the various tasks and exercises)?
- Does the formal curriculum allow time for students to ‘go into depth’ and explore topics of interest (or could students feel constant pressure to ‘keep up’ with the content and changing topics)?
Promoting Belonging
- Does the formal and hidden curriculum value diversity and social inclusion (or does it communicate a preference for certain types of people or a stereotypical ‘ideal student’)?
- Are students explicitly introduced to the culture, practices and values of the academic field (or could some students feel like ‘outsiders’ because they don’t understand how experts within the discipline think)?
- Are students welcomed into and included within the academic life of the department (or might some feel that students are an annoyance that academics tolerate at best)?
Encouraging Relationships
- Are formal learning experiences designed to benefit from students interacting with and learning from each other (or do they pitch students in competition with one another to earn the highest mark or identify the single right answer)?
- Are students taught, and does assessment value, the skills needed to work collaboratively (or, is group work assigned primarily to reduce marking loads)?
- Do teaching and learning practices enable educators to show an interest in students as individuals (or do teachers only communicate with students as a cohort/ group)?
Enabling Autonomy
- Do curriculum materials explain to students why certain tasks and knowledge are required and why particular teaching and assessment methods are used (or, is the implicit message that curriculum decisions are the preserve of faculty experts, not to be questioned by novice learners)?
- Do learning experiences and assessments value student initiative and afford students opportunities to pursue their interests (or are all students required to complete common tasks, with little choice or flexibility)?
- Do students feel able to make meaningful choices about learning and assessment in line with their goals and values (or are the choices they have to make perceived as too complex or confusing)?
Scaffolding Competence
- Does formal learning and assessment afford appropriate challenge while supporting students from diverse educational and social backgrounds (or could some students feel they have been ‘thrown in at the deep end’ without a life preserver, while others feel bored and under-stimulated)?
- Are learning tasks sequenced and structured so that the ‘basics’ are secured and provide a foundation for advanced learning (or is it expected that student performance improves with time and repetition)?
- Does feedback encourage students that although they may not yet be good at a certain task or skill, they are able to become so (or could feedback make some students feel despondent or leave them bewildered)?
Undergraduate Medical Program
- Student-directive learning, in which students set their own agendas and goals to apply elements of the curriculum to their own lives. This approach promotes students’ experiences of autonomy, in terms of their control of their study and their engagement with material.
- Weekly homework tasks that are practiced and debriefed in class. These tasks focus on regular engagement with mindfulness activities. The regular debriefing and discussion in class improves students’ motivation to engage in these activities.
Read more about the strategies of this curriculum in 2.5: Good Practice Examples.
Interior Visualisation
- Organising topics and lectures explicitly around key skills
- Designing assessments to develop students’ meta-cognitive and self-assessment skills.
Read more about the strategies of this course in 2.5: Good Practice Examples.
Fine Arts (Music Theatre)
- Unconditional positive regard is modelled through staff exhibiting no personal bias towards students, giving each student equal time and attention during class.
- Whole-school meetings to hear from and discuss with students their approaches to learning and studying.
Read more about the strategies of this course in 2.5: Good Practice Examples.
First Year Biology
- Introducing the students to all discipline within the faculty during first week of semester. This provides students with an opportunity to meet coordinators and students with similar interests.
- Ensuring a consistent teaching team allows students to develop a sense of familiarity with their teachers over the semester.
Read more about the strategies of this course in 2.5: Good Practice Examples.
Early Childhood Education
- Embedding a pre-placement conference in semester 2 orientation week, to build students’ professional teaching identity and mirror professional development in their field.
- Using a portfolio assessment piece to document students’ “enacted practice” during placement.
Read more about the strategies of this course in 2.5: Good Practice Examples.
ANU Legal Workshop
- Fostering development of professional identity through simulation of work practice,
- Designing assessments to build students’ competencies and behaviours.
Read more about the strategies of this course in 2.5: Good Practice Examples.