Video transcript: Curriculum Redefined – University of Leeds

Transcript for the video in the What is Curriculum Redefined? section of the Curriculum Redefined page

[Music playing]

[The visuals change frequently and are a mixture of aerial views of Leeds, students around campus, educational activities and talking head shots of speakers.] 

Professor Jeff Grabill, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Student Education: Curriculum Redefined is the heart of our education strategy.

Professor Alice O'Grady, Dean: Student Education (Quality and Standards): It will bring staff and students together in ways that we haven't yet envisaged.

Dr Christina Edgar, Director of Student Opportunity: It's just a fantastic opportunity for everyone at Leeds to get involved in student education.

Professor Kenneth McDowall, Pro-Dean for Student Education: What I think this project allows us to do is to move forward as one as an institution.

Professor O'Grady: We are imagining an interdisciplinary, co-created curriculum where students have ownership of their learning journey and feel 100% supported through it.

[Change of music playing]

Professor Grabill: The education strategy at the University of Leeds is the most ambitious education strategy I've ever heard of. What we're doing to redefine the curriculum is engaging literally in a design process. So what we've asked every school on campus, every staff member, every student is to think about how we might educate human beings in a particular discipline or a particular subject area to meet the needs of the next 15 to 20 years.

Dr Edgar: It's essentially an invitation to colleagues to think again, think together, think creatively, think differently about how they want to approach education.

Professor O'Grady: What's driving the project is that the world has shifted. We've had some fairly enormous global shifts. [Shots of Black Lives Matter sign being held up and melting sea ice. Then back to mixed shots of Leeds, speakers talking and students on campus.] The world has changed and we need to move accordingly.

Louise Banahene, Director of Educational Engagement: The way in which we deliver our curriculum, both in terms of what is delivered but how both assessment and styles of teaching really make a difference to students' engagement, their experience, and their outcomes. Curriculum Redefined is the way in which we will do that.

[Change of music playing]

Professor McDowall: In addition to thinking about how we deliver our teaching, our approach to teaching, in terms of active learning and being inclusive, and then thinking about the contents of programme, we're also going to take the time to think about the portfolio we offer students.

Professor O'Grady: There is an element of reducing complexity to what we're doing and that makes student choice real. But this is also about opening doors, so it's about providing opportunities for students to work together across programmes, across disciplines, so that they really are experiencing challenge-led learning.

Professor Grabill: We want students to roll up their sleeves and work with the ideas that we provide them to work with, and work with human beings and communities and problems and technologies to come up with practical ways that they can engage with the world. And it helps prepare students to immediately move into the workplace and into their communities and have impact.

Professor McDowall: The benefits to student life we hope will be huge. We think they should be better equipped. They have that real disciplinary depth, the transferable skills, the confidence, and the knowledge, and understanding to really be these successful global citizens.

Louise Banahene: And so it is designing our curriculum for the future, but for the wide range of students that come to the university, whether you're mature or disabled, or Black or Asian or from a socially disadvantaged group.

Professor O'Grady: It's making sure that all students feel like they belong, they've got a place here, and that they can succeed.

[Text saying "Curriculum Redefined. Together, we're designing our future."]