Improving learning by changing a curriculum design at different scales: from feasibility study to implementation

How does a curriculum design influence student learning and, more importantly, how can the answer to this question be used to improve student learning? Is it possible to anticipate students’ tendency to postpone active studying, hereby avoiding a high peak of workload at the end of the semester, superficial learning and a lack of long-term retention of knowledge and skills? Can passive class attendance due to students losing track of the course be averted? Many authors already formulated answers to parts of these questions at the curriculum level, course level and lecture level. This contribution integrates existing knowledge from literature and supplements this with in-field experience in order to define an ultimate curriculum design for an optimal learning experience at the Faculty of Science at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). Additionally, establishing the necessary conditions to implement an alternative curriculum design successfully is challenging.status: publishe