When Tyson Brown teaches Medical Sociology at Duke, his students wrestle with big questions: Why do some communities experience worse health outcomes than others? How do systems like housing, food access, and education shape who gets sick and why?
This year, those same questions were asked and answered far beyond Duke’s campus.
Through a partnership with the National Education Opportunity Network (NEON), Brown adapted his course for high school students across the country, bringing a full, credit-bearing Duke class into classrooms serving 255 students who might not otherwise have access to college-level coursework.
Behind the scenes, the Duke Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) helped make that leap possible.
Bridging the Gap Between Talent and Opportunity
NEON’s work is grounded in a simple but powerful premise: talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. So what if students in under-resourced high schools could take a college course during their regular school day, at no cost, and for college credit?
NEON has built an innovative model around that concept. College courses are embedded directly into the school day, with instruction led by university faculty and Teaching Fellows, while high school teachers (“co-teachers”) provide critical on-the-ground support to help students fully engage and succeed in the course.
“As someone who’s worked in academia for a long time, academia is confusing, and NEON is trying to actively dismantle that hidden curriculum while these students are still in high school,” said Hannah Rogers, CTL learning experience designer. “Ensuring students know about Duke and pathways to get into college, period, as well as giving them the opportunity to earn real college credit, can make a huge difference.”
Reimagining a Duke Course (Without Lowering the Bar)
When NEON connected with Brown, his course stood out to learners immediately.
“Students are really interested in thinking about medicine and health in ways they haven’t before,” said Cobren Greer, a NEON course success manager. “Tyson’s course covers such a wide variety of topics that students are able to see themselves in the material and connect what they’re learning to their own lives and experiences.”
From the start, one principle guided the work: this would be a Duke course, not a simplified version of one.
Students would engage with the same core material, complete similar assignments, and be held to the same high expectations. But delivering that experience to high school classrooms across the country required rethinking how the course would work.
Designing that experience while preserving the integrity of the course became a deeply collaborative effort.
Enter: The CTL
Working closely with Brown and NEON, CTL learning experience designers Hannah Rogers and Megan Lancaster helped translate the course into a format that could function across dozens of classrooms, time zones, and learning contexts.
They helped shape everything from the structure of the Canvas site to the design of assignments and assessments. They co-developed weekly quizzes, built out course modules, collaborated on a redesigned capstone project, and created detailed guides for the co-teachers and Teaching Fellows.
In other words, they designed for the entire learning environment – not just the course content.
“It was a holistic approach where, as a learning experience designer, we’re not only supporting the learner’s journey, we’re supporting the teachers and the Teaching Fellows that are supporting their learners’ journey,” said Lancaster.
That kind of design work proved critical. NEON’s model depends on many moving parts – students, teachers, Teaching Fellows, and faculty – all working in sync. The CTL’s role was to help ensure that the course felt coherent, navigable, and engaging for everyone involved.
“A true partner at every step.”
For Brown, the impact of that partnership was clear.
“The CTL has been absolutely essential to launching the NEON course. We could not have done this well without them, full stop,” said Brown. “They’ve helped with logistics and technology, and they’ve also helped us think carefully about what it means to create a rigorous, engaging Duke course for high school students across the country… The CTL has been a true partner at every step.”
From structuring the course in Canvas to refining assignments and supporting student engagement, the CTL was involved at every stage. This work helped ensure that the course was not only rigorous, but also organized, accessible, and meaningful to students encountering college-level material for the first time.
For NEON, having the CTL embedded in the process meant they weren’t adapting the course on their own—they were working alongside the team that understood its design and intent from the inside out. That collaboration made it easier to bring Brown’s vision to life in a new context.
“Partnering with Duke’s [the CTL’s LXD] team has been incredibly valuable,” said Katie Sullivan, a NEON learning designer. “Their deep, intimate knowledge of Duke’s courses and close connection to the content and professor brought a critical level of insight to the development process.”
The CTL was not the only Duke unit supporting Brown’s NEON course: the Academic Media Services team handled video production, including an introduction video (below) that helped NEON students feel more connected to Duke.
Learning Flows Both Ways
One of the most striking outcomes of the project is how much the experience has shaped Brown’s teaching back on campus.
As Brown worked with the CTL and NEON, he began rethinking aspects of his Duke course, experimenting with new approaches to assessment and incorporating elements of the flipped classroom model. What started as an effort to expand access outward also became an opportunity to innovate inward.
It’s a reminder that partnerships like this don’t just extend the reach of a university, they can also sharpen and enrich what happens within it.
A Model for What’s Possible
The Duke-NEON partnership is still growing, with additional Duke courses already in development for future terms. But even in its early stages, it offers a compelling example of what collaborative teaching and learning can look like.
It shows how a research university can extend its impact beyond campus, how thoughtful instructional design can make rigorous learning experiences accessible to new audiences, and how partnerships can turn ambitious ideas into real opportunities for students.
For the CTL, the project reflects a core strength: working alongside faculty and partners to design learning experiences that are not only effective, but expansive.
Because sometimes, the most meaningful classroom isn’t defined by where it is, but by who it reaches.
With Gratitude
In addition to the many teachers and Teaching Fellows who have made the course successful this term, we want to recognize the following for their contributions to the NEON course development:
- Tyson Brown, Professor of Sociology, Duke
- David Gonzalez Chavez, Lead Teaching Fellow, Duke
- Mich Donovan, Academic Media Production Manager, Duke OIT
- Cobren Greer, Course Success Manager, NEON
- Anna Hiltner, Lead Teaching Fellow, Duke
- Michael Hudson, Learning Experience Designer, Duke CTL
- Megan Lancaster, Senior Learning Experience Designer, Duke CTL
- Jill Powell, Academic Project Manager, Duke Research & Innovation
- Hannah Rogers, Learning Experience Designer, Duke CTL
- Katie Sullivan, Learning Designer, NEON
