A burst of energy! Design Sprints at Leeds

As the year draws to a close, we reflect on the rich conversations we’ve had together about how we can transform learning and teaching at the University of Leeds, supported by Curriculum Redefined. These conversations have sparked campus-wide collaboration and uncovered the real challenges that school and programme teams face when delivering change for the benefit of our students.

Within this context, the Learning Design Agency is very much focused on working with schools, and importantly programme teams. We want to support you in finding the right methods for your specific needs and ambitions, ensuring all voices are heard and appropriately integrated into the design of our curricula. Students are an important part of this process. They are experts in their own experience, can contribute meaningfully through sharing their lived experience, and co-create and ideate as partners in the process.

To achieve this, we are adopting a people-centred design approach, which includes exploring opportunities and challenges openly, collaboratively, and informed by students’ voices. As we move from exploratory conversations with colleagues to creating and testing actionable initiatives by using the people-centred design approach, we now have the fantastic chance to use design ‘sprints’.

Sprints are a burst of energy!

Sprints are focused ways for schools or programme teams to do a significant amount of important work effectively and efficiently, in a short period of time.

Sprints are focused ways for schools or programme teams to do a significant amount of important work effectively and efficiently, in a short period of time. Design sprints typically run for one or two days and provide dedicated time for you to work with your school or programme team on an important topic of your choice.

What are the benefits of a design sprint?

• You will get a significant amount of work done in a short period of time. Sprints are efficient and effective.
• Design sprints provide the space to co-create learning experiences with your students and colleagues delivering the programme.
• You will listen to insights from your students, fellow educators and other key stakeholders from your school or disciplinary area.
• You will work and share ideas in a highly collaborative way — a sprint can be more efficient than holding many meetings.
• Through facilitation, you will hear external viewpoints and more easily reach an agreement.

To carry out an effective sprint, you and your design team will need space, time, and support to think differently and produce the outcomes that ensure our students will receive the best possible learning experience: one that is truly transformative.

How can the Learning Design Agency support you with Design Sprints?

Central to their effective delivery is an initial period of discovery. In partnership with students and other key stakeholders, a period of discovery will help you genuinely explore questions or challenges in an open and inclusive environment.

Before the first sprint: The first part of the sprint is the discovery phase. The LDA’s ‘Insights Service’ will support you in gathering useful case studies, resources and contextual insights that encompass the experiences of educators and students, as well as relevant employers, community partners, or other important stakeholders for your programmes.

During the initial sprint (two-days dedication): Following the discovery phase, it’s now time for action. You will start the sprint by sharing the insights and questions that have been discovered in advance and empathising with who you are designing for. You might ask questions such as:

• Who are we designing for?
• How might we make the assessment part of the learning journey more engaging for students?
• How might we communicate with students in a better way?
• What are we trying to solve, and why?

You will then discuss ideas and concepts based on these insights and start to develop solutions with students and co-create opportunities for change. Once you have developed these ideas and opportunities, it’s time to narrow down and choose which ones to focus on. Your end goal is to develop a prototype, a small-scale version of your idea, based on your chosen curriculum theme(s) and a plan of how you will gather feedback.

After the sprint: To make sure you’re on the right track, your prototype will need to be tried and tested. Now is the time for staff and students to give feedback over the course of two to three weeks. It may be that your prototype isn’t quite right and that you need to develop your prototype further, try something new, or hold another sprint. Don’t worry, that’s a natural part of a sprint!

The end goal for you and your design team is to create a proof of concept. This may be a solution that is ready to be rolled out, a longer testing phase known as a pilot period, or a decision to run the sprint again to develop new ideas.

Whatever you choose, you will have the support of a dedicated team throughout each sprint, including a facilitator and a colleague who has expertise and experience in your chosen topic. One of the main goals of the sprint is to increase collaboration between staff and students, to be creative, and to not be afraid of getting things wrong.

We appreciate that schools and programme teams are at different stages of their curriculum design journey, and a design sprint at this stage may not be appropriate as you continue to work with your Academic Development Consultant (ADC) on your plans and priorities. However, design sprints offer a fresh way to work together, address existing challenges, and develop new initiatives and ideas that will transform learning and teaching at Leeds.

Want to get involved?

There are plenty of opportunities to be involved in this exciting next step!

In the new year we will be putting a call out to receive training to become a design facilitator. If you work at the University of Leeds, would like to learn a new skill, want to play a role in shaping design at Leeds, and are passionate about open and inclusive conversation, we would like to hear from you! Get in touch with the Learning Design Agency at learningdesign@leeds.ac.uk.

If you think a design sprint would benefit you, or would like to explore the possibilities of design sprints for your school or programme, please contact the Learning Design Agency at learningdesign@leeds.ac.uk.

We look forward to taking this next step with you.

James Pickering and Iria Lopez, on behalf of The Learning Design Agency.