Module design

Curriculum Design in Action | Seminar series

About

What does effective, inclusive curriculum design look like right now — in your discipline, for your students, in a rapidly changing higher education landscape?Curriculum Design in Action is a series of two seminars that creates space for exactly those questions, and equips you with concrete, principled tools to act on them.

Grounded in a knowledge-informed understanding of curriculum design as a social practice, the series invites us to think together about the decisions that shape whether a curriculum is genuinely effective and inclusive — and what those decisions look like in practice. A thread running through both seminars is that curriculum design is always programmatic in nature: even when designing a single module, we are contributing to a student's experience of a larger whole, and that bigger picture must inform every decision.

Both seminars are practical and built around critical conversation rather than transmission — you will be thinking, designing, and interrogating your own curriculum throughout. The distinction between them is what they focus on: Seminar 1 builds the engine — the foundational design decisions that drive everything else. Seminar 2 turns to the wheels — the design of assessment and learning activities, and how the parts of a curriculum work together. Both are shaped by — and tested against — the realities of the current moment: a shifting HE sector, the challenges and opportunities posed by AI, and an increasingly diverse community of learners we design for.

You will leave with tools you can use immediately.

Open to all disciplines and higher education curriculum designers with varied experience.

At a glance

programme & module level design

Seminar 1 | Tue 14th July 2026 10am-12pm

Seminar 2 | Tue 21st July 2026 10am-12pm

online [Teams]

Series overview

Seminar 1 | The Engine

The engine of any curriculum is its purpose and people. This seminar begins by asking: what isyourcurriculumactually for? That question — grounded in your discipline, your context, and the current moment — drives everything that follows. It is not a simple question, and it is not answered once: the current HElandscape, shifting sector expectations, and the emergence of AI all demand that we interrogate it afresh.

From there, we turn to who our studentsactually are— the diverse communities we design for, what they bring, and what inclusive design genuinelyrequires ofus. We then explore the role of knowledge in curriculum design: what we include, what we foreground, and what those choices communicate about value and belonging. These threads come together as we work through aims and intended learning outcomes (ILOs) — not as administrative outputs, but as principled design decisions that shape everything downstream.

The seminar is built around critical conversation and practical design work. You will leave with a clearer, more grounded sense of your curriculum's engine — and the tools to keep interrogating it.

Seminar 1 will explore:

The purpose of your curriculum — examined in the context of current sector challenges, AI, and a rapidly changing HE landscape

Who your students are — understanding the diverse communities we design for, and what that demands of our curricula

The role of knowledge — what we include, foreground, and value, and whatthat signalsabout inclusion and effectiveness

Curriculum aims and ILOs — as principled design decisions, interrogated through a knowledge and inclusion lens

Optional prep resources will be shared prior to the seminar.

Seminar 2 | The Wheels

Assessment and learning activities are the wheels of curriculum design — the mechanisms through which the purposes and commitmentsestablishedin Seminar 1 are either realised or undermined. This seminar invites critical, collective interrogation of those mechanisms: what our assessments communicate about what we value and who we design for; whether our learning activities connect meaningfully to the knowledge at the heart of our disciplines; and what inclusive, effective design demands of us in the current moment — one shaped by the challenges of AI, a shifting HE landscape, and an increasingly diverse student community.

Drawing on a range of disciplinary perspectives and approaches, participants will engage in substantive critical dialogue about the principles and practices that underpin assessment and learning activity design. You will leave withnew ideas, conceptual tools, and a broadened sense of the possibilities available to you.

Optional pre-seminar resources will be shared in advance for those who wish to engage with the theoretical and practical foundations before the session.

Seminar 2 will explore:

Assessment design — examined through a knowledge and inclusion lens, interrogating what our assessments communicate about value, rigour, and equity in the current landscape

Learning activities — the relationship between disciplinary knowledge, inclusion, and the design of meaningful learning experiences

Curriculum design critique — developing the critical capacity to evaluate and interrogate curriculum design before it reaches students

Series facilitation

Lead facilitator | Jo Kukuczka | Curriculum Expert | ADC | University of Warwick

Co-facilitator | Dr Mouzayian Khalil | Curriculum Expert | PAIS | University of Warwick

Sign up

Register here and we will send you a series of calendar invites by Mon 13th July 2026 (noon) the latest. Meanwhile, please hold the seminar dates/times in your calendar.

You are welcome to attend one or both seminars (according to your needs), and there will be optional preparation suggested. If you can't make the dates, please 'follow' or 'tentatively accept" the invite and we'll ensure you receive the recording(s) after. Certificates of attendance will be issued upon request via email to jo.kukuczka@warwick.ac.uk