Proactive Design as structured academic practice
Monique Laura and Ella Collins-White, University of Sydney
Higher education continues to operate in conditions of increasing diversity and complexity. Student cohorts differ widely in their educational backgrounds, employment and life loads, digital access, and confidence navigating institutional systems (Marangell, et al., 2024). These realities are well established, and frameworks such as CAST’s (2024) Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines 3.0 offer practical guidance for designing learning environments that reduce barriers and support participation (Burgstahler & Cauce, 2020; Meyer et al., 2025; Cartier, 2021). However, despite broad sector agreement on the value of inclusive design, implementation remains inconsistent and often reactive.
At the University of Sydney, this tension prompted our team to reconsider the professional learning opportunities we offered. While we offered workshops on educational technologies, a graduate certificate in higher education, targeted consultations, and support for semester-long projects, these activities largely responded to issues as they emerged. What was missing was a supported opportunity for educators to engage in substantive design work before teaching commenced, in collaboration with educational designers and peers, and with a clear focus on inclusive, proactive planning.
The Proactive Design Intensive model
The Proactive Design Intensive (PDI) was developed to address this gap. The model is a two-to-three-day, in-person program in which participants bring a challenge from their teaching environment and work on it in a supported, collaborative environment. The structure combines short expert-led sessions on inclusive design, constructive alignment, and accessibility, with extended periods of individual project development supported by educational designers.
Rather than positioning professional development as knowledge acquisition, the PDI treats it as design practice. Participants are not asked to imagine hypothetical scenarios; they work on their own courses, assessments, or learning activities, with the aim of producing tangible outputs that can be implemented in the upcoming semester.
Evidence from four iterations
To date, the PDI has been delivered four times, with 40 participants across all faculties from the university. Across these four cohorts, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback.
In all iterations, 100% of respondents rated the PDI as either “very useful” or “extremely useful.”
Qualitative responses provide additional insight into how participants experienced the program. Participants reported making concrete progress on assessment redesign, clarifying learning outcomes, embedding accessibility considerations earlier in the design process, and addressing specific challenges such as academic integrity and responsible AI use. Several noted that the presence of educational designers throughout the intensive enabled more sustained and exploratory conversations than typically occur in consultation-based models.
“This program was outstanding. It was practical, helpful, efficient, made me feel part of the University, made me feel POSITIVE and HOPEFUL about my teaching where I had felt overwhelmed, disenchanted etc. Please fund and clone these people.”
“I cannot overstate the importance of this workshop...it made a material difference not just to me but also will improve the student experience.”
“The lightly structured event really promoted conversation, collaboration and community. There was a buzz the entire time of people talking and sharing ideas.”
Time as a design condition
While multiple factors contributed to participants’ reported outcomes, one recurring theme warrants attention. Across our surveys, nearly half of the respondents explicitly referred to time when explaining why the PDI was effective. These comments did not frame time as a general workload complaint, but as a design condition. Participants described the value of having uninterrupted, pre-semester time to think through alignment, anticipate student experience, and make deliberate decisions, rather than responding to issues once teaching was underway.
“The protected time in my schedule in attending this course. This NEVER happens and is critical for productivity but also gave me space to finally change some aspects of my unit I simply had not had time to change.”
“This three days of protected, structured time has been invigorating. I found myself starting this course in a state of total overwhelm and despair, especially as my unit of study has been eaten into a module in a curriculum review that has been such a disparate and unproductive process.”
Importantly, time was rarely mentioned in isolation. Participants connected it to the structure of the intensive, the presence of expertise, and the opportunity to learn from colleagues. In this sense, time functioned as an enabling condition rather than the sole explanatory factor.
Collegial learning and shared practice
Another consistent finding across iterations has been the value participants place on working alongside colleagues from different disciplines. Survey responses frequently noted that hearing about others’ challenges and solutions supported reflection on their own practice. This mirrors findings in the academic development literature that collegial learning environments can surface tacit assumptions about teaching and support transfer of ideas across contexts (Craig, et al. 2020; Vreekamp, et al., 2025).
Educational designers involved in the intensives also reported that the format allowed for deeper engagement with participants’ thinking. Rather than providing discrete advice, designers were able to work iteratively with educators as projects evolved, supporting more coherent alignment between learning outcomes, assessment, and activities.
Implications for professional learning
The PDI does not replace other forms of professional development, nor is it intended to be universally applicable. Its scale is necessarily limited, and participation requires institutional commitment. However, the consistency of participant feedback across four iterations suggests that structured, project-based intensives can play a complementary role within broader professional learning ecosystems.
More broadly, the findings raise questions about how institutions conceptualise pedagogical development. If inclusive design is positioned as an expectation of teaching staff, as the recent consultation on possible amendments to the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 suggests could soon be the case, then the conditions required to support it must be made visible and intentional. This includes access to expertise, opportunities for collaboration, and appropriate recognition of the work involved in redesigning learning environments.
Concluding reflections
The Proactive Design Intensive offers one example of how institutions might support educators to move from reactive adjustment toward proactive, inclusive design. The evidence from recent iterations suggests that when educators are provided with structured opportunities to work on their own teaching challenges, supported by expertise and peers, meaningful progress is possible.
For educators, the PDI underscores a familiar but often unacknowledged reality: thoughtful teaching design is a form of scholarly work that requires appropriate conditions. For institutions, it highlights the importance of aligning aspirations for inclusive education with the practical structures that enable it.
Monique Laura, Educational Designer, Division of Teaching and Learning, Education and Students Portfolio, The University of Sydney. Monique is an award-winning educator recognised for her innovative approach to inclusive design and teaching, and the integration of learning technologies. She is passionate about creating equitable learning environments where every student feels supported, empowered, and able to thrive.
Ella Collins-White, Educational Designer, Division of Teaching and Learning, Education and Students Portfolio, The University of Sydney. Ella works on designing for diversity and is an award-winning teacher, receiving commendations for cultivating a practice of inclusive and collaborative learning.