Course Design as Product Development

SPEAKER: Cara Ruggiero, Senior Director, Center for Curriculum, Instruction, and Technology, Berkeley College What do students actually want from their education, and are we designing for them? This interactive workshop-style session applies product development methodology to course design, challenging educators to shift from content 7deliverers to experience makers. Drawing on principles of user research, rapid iteration, and feedback-driven design, participants will explore practical strategies for building courses that students feel genuinely invested in—from simple ways to capture student feedback to more sophisticated approaches for embedding iterative redesign into your development process. Whether you’re making a small tweak or rethinking a course from the ground up, this framework meets you where you are, and reflects students wants and needs, which ultimately can help with such issues as student disengagement, chronic absenteeism, and the occasional skepticism of a college education from modern learners.