Masters students’ are autonomous and experienced and require an
innovative and autonomous curriculum. In the Master in Public Health
(online) programme, we offer an alternative to the traditional
dissertation where students can apply their learning to their
professional lives. As one of the first MPH programmes in the UK to seek
APHEA accreditation, an integrative element is required. To address
these needs, we have developed a postgraduate model of the Student-led,
Individually Created Courses (SLICCs) where students design their own
projects, set their own learning outcomes and reflect on their learning.
In the postgraduate SLICC model, Masters students are asked to apply
their programme learning to a public health issue of their choosing. The
learning is often an innovation in their professional roles, for
example changing national disability policy and influencing new
approaches to the delivery of community pharmacy smoking cessation
services. Graduate attributes are key in the course design and students
are encouraged to disseminate their learning to other than academic
communities to make a real difference.
In this recording you can
expect to find out how we work with students to develop their SLICC’s
and to be inspired to include it in their own programmes. We will
discuss how it can offer a means to encourage reflection and autonomy
and serve as an integrative and applied element to any Masters
programme. We will also discuss what a more autonomous and innovative
curriculum can mean for students as co-creators and for our role as
teachers. In the postgraduate SLICC course, we have purposively acted as
mentors rather than tutors, which has made us partners in students’
learning co-creating the curriculum with them.
Presentation from the University of Edinburgh Learning and Teaching Conference 2020.