When Students Help Teach the Teachers: Rethinking STEM Curriculum Development

For generations, education for young students has largely been designed by adults. 

Teachers, administrators and curriculum specialists determine what students should learn and how they should learn it. Students experience the results, but they are rarely invited into the process itself. Even teacher professional development—despite being fundamentally about improving student learning—typically happens without students in the room.

Recently, the San Diego County Office of Education teamed up with Sally Ride Science at UC San Diego Division of Extended Studies to try a different approach. They wanted to see what could happen if students were invited into the lesson design process.

"We're often asking teachers to think about what their students might think or what their students' needs are without ever directly asking the students,” said Chelsea Cochrane, science coordinator at the San Diego County Office of Education. "The STEM Design Team Academy creates an environment that asks teachers and students to work together on a curriculum and share with us how it went." 

The inaugural STEM Design Team Summer Academy brought together six educators and 17 high school students to exchange ideas, share feedback and work together to design and improve STEM lessons. The promising results of the inaugural academy could lead to a larger cohort and an expanded experiment in future years.

Creating a New Kind of Professional Learning

For Cochrane, the STEM Design Team Summer Academy emerged from a simple idea: instead of asking teachers to imagine how students might respond to a lesson, why not invite students to participate in the process of creating a lesson plan?

The idea of students acting as "co-design partners" in curriculum development is not new, but it has gained traction in educational circles in recent years. Known as 'student co-design,' the approach invites students to participate as genuine partners in developing, testing and improving the learning experiences created for them.

When Cochrane began looking for a partner to test the idea, Sally Ride Science at UC San Diego Extended Studies seemed like a natural fit. 

"I had always had a connection and a knowledge that Sally Ride Science was the right partner to make this happen," Cochrane said. "They have longstanding experience creating STEM learning opportunities for young people, along with the structure and access to students who had previously taken Sally Ride Science courses."

Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego also joined the partnership, connecting the academy with working scientists to provide an authentic science research challenge.

The academy was additionally made possible through funding from the California Mathematics, Science, and Computer Science Partnership, or CAL-MSCS, a grant program that supports professional-learning systems for California educators providing high-quality mathematics, science and computer science education.

Building the Academy Around Teachers and Students

The academy was intentionally designed as an experiment. Organizers wanted to learn whether teachers and students could become genuine partners in improving instruction and to what degree the process could benefit both groups.

"We kind of blurred the lines between who's the teacher and who's the learner," Cochrane said. "Teachers got to see that the students can teach them a thing or two as well."

Working in interdisciplinary teams, the participating educators created short learning experiences, known as "Lesson Bursts," to teach with small groups of students. Afterward, the students reflected on what helped them learn, what was unclear and how the experience might be improved. Teachers then revised the lesson and taught it to a different group of students the following day.

The 'teach-feedback-revise' cycle was repeated three times over five days, giving educators access to immediate feedback and an opportunity to adjust and test again in rapid succession.

"One of the biggest gaps in curriculum development is that we're not consistently getting the feedback we need from students," said Megan Lancaster, assistant director for Pre-College Programs and Community Outreach at UC San Diego Extended Studies. "They're the ones we're designing these learning experiences for, yet we don't always ask what resonated with them, what they learned or how we could improve. The STEM Design Team Academy was an opportunity to explore a different approach, one that puts student voices at the center of the curriculum development process."

Switching Places in the Classroom

In addition to student/teacher feedback and collaboration, the week's curriculum included a more direct role reversal, in which the students actually taught the educators. As part of the curriculum, students learned to program Micro:bits, a small device that can be equipped with sensors to collect environmental data.

The student first learned how to use the device themselves, then developed activities that taught the educators how to use the technology. To teach the material successfully, students had to demonstrate how to operate the device, answer questions from educators and adjust their approach when someone did not immediately understand.

Teachers, meanwhile, had to become learners again. They experienced what it was like to encounter an unfamiliar tool, ask for help and rely on a student's guidance.

Mark Alcorn, a retired mathematics educator who served as an instructor for the academy, called the experience "a juxtaposition of putting people in different roles." He noted, "It really allowed students to see teaching from the inside and for educators to experience what it felt like to become beginners again."

What the Academy Taught Its Designers

Early feedback suggests that the academy's collaborative model of curriculum development holds great promise. All 17 students agreed or strongly agreed that the educators valued their ideas and feedback. Sixteen said they felt welcomed and included throughout the academy. Every participating educator strongly agreed that student feedback improved the quality of the lessons and that working alongside the students influenced their instructional decisions.

For teachers, it offered an unusually concentrated form of professional development. Educators rarely get to teach the same lesson several times in one week, receive immediate feedback from students and then test those revisions with a new group. 

"It was definitely different and worthwhile," wrote one participating educator in a post-academy survey. "Repeating the process allowed us to fine-tune the lesson in a shorter time frame and make changes we didn't think we needed to make."

The experience also gave educators strategies they could carry back to their own schools. Even without a five-day academy or a complete curriculum redesign, educators gained practical ideas they could use in their own classrooms—such as asking targeted questions after a lesson, inviting student advisers to review an activity or creating regular opportunities for students to reflect on what helps them learn.

Likewise, students could see teachers changing instructions, restructuring activities and incorporating ideas that had emerged during the feedback sessions.

"On Thursday, I was having a conversation with an instructor, and they brought up some of the feedback which they heard on their first day," wrote one student in their own post-academy survey. "They said the feedback has stuck with them and inspired them to rethink their classroom environment. This made me feel very heard as a student."

Another student said that the collaboration changed how they viewed the traditional relationship between students and educators.

"I was able to get to know the teachers on a personal level," shared another student. "It helped me to understand them more and be more grateful for the teachers I have."

Building on a Promising First Year

For one week, during the inaugural STEM Design Team Academy, students were more than just recipients of lessons. They helped shape them. Teachers were more than the experts delivering instruction. They became learners as well.

Following the success of the first academy, organizers hope to expand the program while preserving the small-group interactions that allowed teachers and students to exchange meaningful feedback.

"They really came up with some good ideas that my teaching partner and I hadn't come up with on our own," shared an educator in their post-academy survey. "Ultimately, it will only make our lesson more successful."

And it all began with a simple challenge: give students who will be affected by curriculum decisions an opportunity to be involved in those decisions. This does not suggest that students should replace teachers or that every instructional choice should be determined by student preference. Instead, it demonstrated that students possess valuable knowledge about how learning feels from their side of the classroom, and that educators can become stronger when they have access to it.

As Cochrane put it, "Our professional learning is about students. It was great to finally include them."

Visit the UC San Diego Division of Extended Studies website to learn more about Sally Ride Science, the STEM Design Team Academy and opportunities to participate in future years.