For her final-year History module ‘Whiteness: An American History’, Dr Lydia Plath split students into groups to complete a student-designed applied assignment, comprising 40% of the overall module mark. Students were tasked with creating something that could educate their chosen audience on the history of Whiteness in America but how they chose to do this was up to them. Although not all students chose to do digital projects, many completed digital assignments which included podcasts, Instagram feeds and websites. Students also submitted a short essay explaining why they had chosen their formats, who their chosen audience was and how they hoped to engage with them.

The aim of the applied assignment was to encourage students to think about how they can communicate with and influence the public, and many of them sought to do this using digital tools. This ties in with the activist focus of the module as it got students to think about how what they learned on the module could be utilised to further anti-racism, and as the students were finalists, they were afforded the freedom to decide how best to do this. The focus on student-centred learning and co-creation also tied in with the broader anti-racist pedagogy of the module and Dr Plath’s teaching.