Co-Designing for Learning with Schools and Communities

3 credits · Peabody College - Professional

This course engages students in co-designing learning with schools and communities through a sustained partnership with a local middle school. Rather than approaching schools as sites to be fixed, the course examines how learning emerges across relationships, histories, and systems shaped by power, identity, and place. Students are introduced to frameworks such as Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), design justice, and community cultural wealth to analyze how educational opportunities are structured and experienced. Through tutoring, ethnographic inquiry, and collaborative design work, students learn to identify both systemic constraints and the often-underrecognized assets present within communities, including cultural knowledge, social networks, and longstanding commitments to youth. Attention is given to the historical and contemporary context of Nashville, helping students understand how past decisions continue to shape present-day schooling. As the semester progresses, students engage in approaches to imagination and world-building to consider what more just and sustaining learning environments might look like. The course culminates in a co-designed proposal that responds to the needs and strengths of the partner school community. [3]