Tag Archives: learning design

Recognising the power and joy of being human . . . some thoughts from #digifest2026⤴

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Due to circumstances outwith my control (yes dear reader outwith is a real word), I had a slightly truncated visit to this year’s Digifest.  I also had to spend quite a bit longer of trains, and train platforms so on my way home I was listening to quite a variety of podcasts/live radio, and reflecting on the time I had there.

As with any conference/festival/event ( I think Digifest is actually a mix of all three of these) the “best part” is always catching up with people in person.  I was there to be part of a session showcasing the work from Phase 1 & 2 of the Jisc Beyond Blended Pilot programme.  I’ve written before about how special this programme is ( and yes of course I am biased), but one of the really special things about it is the sense of community, of openness, empathy, sharing and fun that has almost instantly been there from our first in person meeting.  The very human element of this work was exemplified by the hugs and laughs shared by the representatives the pilots as we all met up in our designated room before the session. 

We had all just come from the first key note by Melato Wijsen, climate activist, change maker and founder of Youthtopia.  Melato is passionate about supporting young people to be change makers; about having more space in all educational settings for intergenerational partnership opportunities, and allowing more space to, and talk about failing.  But essentially what she was advocating for was more a more human centred approach in education to global (and local) issues that impact all of us, and allow different (younger) voices to be heard and have an impact. 

All quite challenging in our current political climate – how can you speak truth to power when certain power doesn’t need feel the need to listen to anyone outside its own echo chamber?  But we do still need to try, and as Melato said we do need to have new narratives, new stories to tell and share about the reality of education today. (BTW We have some great stories from real people about the conversations and work they are doing to transform learning and teaching from the Beyond Blended pilots).

We also need to be wary of some stories we are being told and sold, particularly about AI. The wonderful and self proclaimed Cassandra of EdTech Audrey Watters, is always reminding us that some of the loudest stories we are currently being t/sold about AI, aren’t new but are in fact perpetuating old stories and “visions” for the future of education . These stories are predicated on profit – not people. They certainly don’t tell this kind of story about the human cost of training AI.

So, I was thinking about all of this whilst almost dozing off listening to a podcast about toothache (don’t judge me) on the train home, when near the end of the episode, one of the hosts starting talking about poetry. I know, quite a leap from toothache, but bear with me, there is a point here. He recalled how he had recently seen an old interview with Seamus Heaney where he was talking about a book he edited call By Heart ( I haven’t been able to find said book yet). The idea of the book was to encourage people to learn poetry by heart. Heaney was asked if he thought that learning poems would make someone a better person, to which he replied, no, but I think it might you better at being a person. What a brilliant answer, and how apt for some of the discussion around AI in education right now. Isn’t education fundamentally about making us all better people?

Danny Liu’s keynote (which I watched remotely) on day 2 also picked up on this theme. He reminded us that as we navigate our way through our current AI cluttered landscape, we need make space across the curriculum (and beyond) to celebrate and support the values that make us human in ways that only humans can. As Audrey recently pointed out, the qualities we value about being human aren’t actually replicated in so called human centred AI.

So, let’s value teaching and teachers and not boil “learning” down into “efficient”, self accessed chunks. Let’s value and create spaces to develop criticality in conversations; for equality and respect of different points of view but also an acceptance of facts. Let’s value and create safe spaces for people to fail and to learn how to learn from those experiences – not just be knocked down and out by them. Let’s value the fact that some things – like writing – are hard. Let’s value the joy of bringing people together to share the highs and lows of work, and life (thank you Digifest for doing just that).

Maybe if we have that focus around the value of collectively becoming better people, then we will be able create and tell more stories, so that more young people will have stories like Melato’s and we really will have a better future to look forward to. And being “only human” not, augmented with AI is something I certainly want to value and cherish for as long as I can.

Cue cheesy 80’s music. . .

Talking about beyond blended learning⤴

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The latest edition of the Jisc Beyond the technology podcast has a focus on the current Beyond Blended pilot programme, which you will know is something that has been a central part of my work for the last few years. Sarah Knight expertly facilitated a really rich conversation between the institutional leads of three of the pilot project – Dr Jonathan Eaton (University of Cumbria), Dr Emma Heron (University of Northampton), Dr Julie Blackwell Young (Abertay University) and myself.

The conversation focused on insights from the first research phase and illustrated how the beyond blended resources – particularly the strategic lenses, pillars, and activity cards are reshaping staff development, curriculum design, student engagement, and assessment practices. The podcast further enriches the narratives shared in the Beyond Blended in Action report, which shares evidence and experiences from all the phase 1 pilot projects.

Celebrating beyond blended pilot projects: not an ending, but a sense of a new beginning⤴

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Early this week I had the pleasure of joining colleagues in Birmingham to celebrate the work of the Jisc Beyond Blended Pilot Programme.

Along with Helen Beetham, I have been working with colleagues at Jisc (Sarah Knight, Elizabeth Newall, Simon Birkett and Lou McGill) since 2022 on this theme. Starting with our post pandemic survey and subsequent report on approaches to curriculum and learning design in UK HE, through to developing resources and the launch of the Beyond Blended: rethinking approaches to curriculum and learning design web guide, and more recently supporting the 17 institutions that made up the pilot programme.

The aims of the pilot programme were to:

  • Understand how higher education providers (HEPs) are using the materials that make up the rethinking curriculum and learning design guide to support their strategic goals
  • Gather information about different approaches to developing institutional strategies for blended learning
  • Facilitate the sharing of approaches to curriculum and learning design
  • Find out what further support and guidance HEPs need from us to further develop their practice
  • Develop case studies and briefings of the learning from the pilots to inform sector understanding on designing blended learning

The event was an opportunity for the pilots to share and celebrate what they have done over the past year since applying to be part of the pilot programme. And my goodness, what a sharing took place. Even though myself and and Jisc team have met regularly with the each of the teams, have had onsite days with almost all of them (aka Sheila’s UK tour!), it was amazing to see and hear from the teams the resources the teams have/are using and have adapted for their context. Our swapshop (remember this, dear reader?) sessions were such a great opportunity for each of the teams to share what they had done, why they had done it, and the impact of their work.

Near the end of the day, Helen and I had the chance to reflect on our involvement with the programme. Our conversation was very ably steered by Elizabeth Newall. This has been a really special piece of work to be involved in. In fact it has been a joy to be part of it, and I don’t say that lightly. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with everyone involved in the programme. Again, not something that I say lightly or often in public.

The UK HE sector is, to put it mildly, in quite a state of flux. All our pilot projects have been dealing with quite major restructuring. The have had to deal with (and some still are) the uncertainty of being in the “restructuring zone”. You know that really difficult time when things are being decided on high, and there is an underlying hum of uncertainty around everything. Or they are now on the other side of that trying to figure out who is still around, who is responsible for what, and who they need to work with.

Whilst many across the sector are having existential angst about GenAI, the future of HE etc, these pilots exemplify the “do’er’s” in their respective universities They are people who have to ensure: implementation of new learning and teaching strategies, ensure that programmes are “fit for purpose”, meet the expectations of employers and students,provide support for staff to tackle the thorny issues around student engagement . . . and of course because they are “do-ers” we now have a new strategic lens for AI in education developed by the team at Sheffield Hallam.

From our very first meeting with the pilot teams in November last year, there was a tangible sense of positivity from all the participants. Partly this was due to the focus of the pilot and their recognition of the value of the resources. Partly also due to the structure of the expression of interest application form. As well as a clear rationale, each of the pilots had to have a statement from a senior management project sponsor, and overall everyone of those sponsors has taken an active role in the pilot. That senior engagement has again had a positive impact for the whole programme. I also think that the teams really saw the resources themselves and the structure of the programme as a positive in and of themselves. In times when it can feel that everything is being taken away, I got a strong sense that the resource and opportunity to be part of the pilot programme was seen by the project teams as them been given something of real value.

We were confident about the relevance of our resources due in no small part to to the level of community engagement we undertook whilst developing them and the enthusiasm from the pilots about them over the last year. But it was still incredibly gratifying yesterday to hear and see just how useful the pilot projects have found them and how useful they have been used to start and extend conversations around approaches to learning and teaching.

The pilots formed a really strong community of practice pretty much from the first face to face meeting. And again, it was wonderful to see such openness in sharing resources and practice yesterday. The programme has provided teams with a very needed space to step away from the day to day, have some thinking time and have some time for experimentation.

The resources have acted as a gateway to such a range of activities – from strategic consultations to extending/rethinking approaches to learning design to formal and informal CPD opportunities for staff to support to student co-creation and support to actual live changes to courses/modules and evaluation of impact of those changes.

Our six pillars and 4 modes of participation in particular, have provided not only easily understood starting points for conversations – a picture really does speak a thousand words, but also have helped to widen conversations around our understandings of how we as educators, and our students, think about and use places and platforms both on and off campus. There is some really rich evidence coming through from the pilots particularly around student engagement in different modes of participation, and the importance of gaining more understanding of the transitions through places (particularly on campus) and platforms . The final report and case studies from each of the pilot institutions will make for really interesting reading when they are published later in the year.

Whilst yesterday was the end of one phase, it really did feel like just the beginning. All the projects are planning to extend and/or embedded their work and Jisc is keen to keep supporting that (but maybe not quite at the level of the pilot programme). So hopefully I will be able to continue on this really exciting and relevant journey too.

pie chart diagram of the six pillars of blended learning. The six elements in the diagram are place, platform, pace, support, flex, blend

How do we know if we have the right blend? Some reflections on SQAA’s Future of Learning & Teaching event.⤴

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I really enjoyed attending the SQAA The Future of Learning and Teaching: Planning and Delivery of Digitally Enhanced Blended Learning on 20 September in Glasgow. Here in Scotland, there is now a focus on developing approaches to learning, teaching and enhancement across tertiary education. You can read more about the work on developing a common approach here.

The event was very much focused on the learning and teaching aspects of the wider quality framework work. And, as the title suggests, exploring approaches to the planning and delivery of digitally enhanced blended learning.

Over the past year, SQAA have led a cross sectoral agency project around defining and delivering and inclusive digital/blended learning for across tertiary education. This is the first cross sector enhancement project, as well as the first cross agency one, including CDN, ES-HMIE, and sparqs. Thework includes Scottish universities and colleges.

The team shared the an outline of the research they have been undertaking to discover the current balance of delivery across the sector. They are using the terms f2f, hybrid, and online, but were very clear that they recognise that there are issues around definitions – or perhaps it is contextual use of definitions. Hybrid in particular has quite a range of practice interpretations. The overall aim is to establish what the current balance of delivery is across the sector. A key question the partners are hoping to address is how can institutions re-balance their provision to “get the blend right” for all students.

Using a mixed methods approach of desk research and interviews the team have been exploring 4 lines of enquiry with colleges and universities, namely: what they state they are offering, what learns want, what learners are experiencing and what does the evidence suggest is best for learning. A report with the initial research findings is due for publication soon.

The focus of this year is to establish the effects of different modes and to facilitate national conversations, around the theme of designing and delivering blended learning to improve leaner outcomes in a tertiary landscape. The meeting on Wednesday was the start of those conversations.

The team shared some of their early findings which included:

  • Need to focus on getting the blend right
  • All provision should be accessible and inclusive
  • Digital poverty is recognised and being addressed
  • Sense belonging key to learner engagement regardless of modality
  • Active and peer learning are essential
  • Learners and staff need clear, consistent info about what blended means
  • Ongoing promotion of digital literacies with a shift to pedagogical understanding for staff and learners
  • There are tensions between institutional estates and learning and teaching 
  • Institutions need to build in times and have a particular strategy for designing and delivering high quality blended learning

These findings resonated with the research Helen Beetham and I have been doing with Jisc around curriculum and learning design. In our recent “Beyond Blended” report we share our findings particularly around evolving understandings of the changing relationships of time, space and place of learning post pandemic. In terms of tensions between estates and learning and teaching, we have recognised this and have developed a series of strategic lenses one of which is focused on use of space. These lenses provide a series of prompts which we hope will foster richer, curriculum focused discussion between stakeholders.

The day was designed really well in terms of engagement and discussion. A big shout out to Susi Peacock and the SQAA team for that. There were plenty of opportunities for discussions, and I was delighted to be asked to be participate in the lightening presentations to share our Beyond Blended work. Though I was slightly out of breath running up and down the stairs to each group!

In the plenary session the perennial issues of time, finding and developing evidence, senior management support were all raised. Simon Thomson highlighted the need to explore the value of different modalities of learning so we can share them with students. If we want students to turn up and participate in any mode of learning, they need to recognise the value of it. Equally at institutional (and sectoral ) levels we need to ensure we aren’t making knee jerk reactions to perceived issues. Foro example stopping lecture capture to get students to turn it could actually disadvantage students. I just spotted this excellent paper from Emily Nordmann which provides evidence of the benefits of lecture capture.

In terms of senior management support, I have been reflecting on how quickly that has changed again. From research and conversations I had with colleagues here in the UK and in Ireland, it was very clear that during the pandemic senior management were very focused on learning and teaching. So many people told me that “they had a seat a the table” they never had before, that they were listened to and supported. And now . . . well I’m not sure if the seats have totally been removed from all the tables, but the “back to normal” mentality does seem to have meant that senior management focus isn’t as sharply focused on the key issues of delivering flexible, accessible, equitable learning and teaching opportunties.

During and just after the pandemic, I talked quite a bit (well in one keynote at least!) about pandemic amnesia. By that I mean forgetting the experiences of lock down, of thinking that everything will be like before. It can’t be and it isn’t. If we are going to provide flexible, accessible and equitable learning that really engages our students, an meets all the claims of various strategic goals, then we need to be changing our practices and attitudes to planning and designing learning and re thinking our workload models so we can allow educators (and students) to develop, engage with, reflect and share evidence around the different modes of learning we are using. That needs serious senior management engagement. But it might also take a little bit of bottom up subversion of “normal” practice too.

The SQAA work is a such an important part of developing and sharing evidence and practice and I’m looking foward to seeing their report and being part of the discussions moving forward.

ILTA Winter online conference keynote: beyond blended⤴

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Last week Helen Beetham and I were delighted to give the keynote presentation at the ITLA Winter online conference. The conference provided us with a very timely opportunity to share the findings of the review of approaches to curriculum and learning design we completed for Jisc last year, but also some of work we are currently developing with Jisc in response to the findings and recommendations of the review.

Starting from the premise that everything is now blended, we are developing thinking around the different aspects of time, space, place and modes of participation that contemporary HE need to develop in order to support accessible, flexible and equitable learning opportunities for students.

Many thanks to everyone involved in organising the conference for giving us the opportunity to present our work. We really appreciated the engagement from all the participants.

There will be a longer post soon from me around some of our emerging thoughts, but in the meantime you can catch up with our presentation in the recording below.

Approaches to Curriculum and Learning Design across UK HE: report now published and available⤴

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It’s maybe taken a little longer that originally planned, but I was delighted that at the 50th meeting of the Jisc Student Experience Experts Community, the findings of a survey about changing approaches to curriculum and learning design we undertook earlier this summer was published.

Jisc commissioned myself and Helen Beetham to explore how and if the pandemic experience had impact on HE in terms of changing approaches to designing more flexible and open approaches. The report summarizes the key findings from a survey with 155 individual responses from staff across the UK, and a number of more in-depth interviews. It also includes a review of learning design models in use across the sector.

The report provides a snapshot of changes, successes, challenges that respondents highlighted. Many of these will come as no surprise, particularly the need for more time and care for students and staff. The mental health impacts It also highlights the impact of the original Jisc funding for curriculum and learning design programmes. Many of the approaches and models developed through those programmes are now contextualised and embedded in universities across the UK. It also highlighted the open nature of practitioners working. There are lots of openly available learning design resources.

You can read more about the report in this new item and access the full report and podcast we recorded about it here.

There is some excellent work taking place across the sector, but time and resources are still a key challenge. Helen and I are now working with Jisc to follow up on some the key issues raised through the survey – particularly around the implications of changes to use of spaces, places and modes of participation in education. So watch this space for more updates.

Reviewing curriculum and learning design podcast⤴

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What with all the excitement of the recent ALT-C conference, I totally forgot to share the link to the Jisc Beyond the Technology podcast where Helen Beethman and I chatted with Sarah Knight about our recent review into curriculum and learning design in the UK HE sector. Apologies, dear reader, if you have seen the tweet already!

A report sharing details of the survey, interviews and desk review we undertook will be published in October but the podcast gives an overview into the key findings and some of the areas we feel need more research.

You can listen to the podcast from this link.

screen shot of beyond the technology podcast logo

Turning up the learning design heat – LDCIN meeting, recordings presentations⤴

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This week saw the welcome return of a meeting of the LD-CIN (Learning Design Cross Institutional Network) hosted by Jim Harris, University of Northampton. This informal group of practitioners involved in the support of learning design started quite a few years ago, I remember attending a few meetings in those rose tinted pre-COVID days. I had planned to attend face to face, but given the extreme weather conditions I decided that travel via London wasn’t really a great idea! Despite the record breaking heat, quite a few people did manage to travel to Northampton in person.

One of the benefits of the pandemic experience is that we now can easily have hybrid events and accommodate late changes of plans. Even when the tech doesn’t quite go to plan, it is amazing what can be done with a mobile phone until tech support arrives. Those of us online also appreciated seeing the alternative air conditioning uses of leaf blowers for in person delegates.

Alongside Sarah Knight, I was delighted to present some of the high level findings from the recent Jisc survey on approaches to Curriculum and Learning Design in UK HE. We are still working through the data, and preparing final shareable outputs, but it was a great opportunity to share some of our findings with the group. The whole day was full of sharing of excellent practice in supporting learning design from across the sector.

Recordings of the sessions are all now available here, our session is named Part 2 in the playlist (direct link here.) You can also access a padlet board with all the presentations (including ours) alongside additional resources and a rather good playlist if you are looking for some new summer tunes, including this video from me which I’m going to share here because it’s too good not to!

What’s going on with curriculum and learning design in UK HE? – help me to find out⤴

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Survey by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free

One of the great things about working freelance is that you get the opportunity to work with a range of people. Over the past three years I’ve been really lucky to have been able to work with some really fabulous people, and happily I’m in that situation again. For the next couple of months I am working with Helen Beetham on a review of curriculum and learning design across UK HE, commissioned by Sarah Knight at Jisc.

Helen, Sarah and I all worked on the Jisc Curriculum Design and Delivery programmes well over a decade ago. So it is great to come almost full circle with this piece of work. With everything that has happened over the past 2 years, I think this review is really timely. The pandemic and the subsequent “pivot” to emergency online teaching caused a huge cultural shift in learning and teaching practice. As we transition back to more on campus delivery, have the experiences of the past 2 years impacted practice and what are the main challenges facing the sector moving forward?

As part of the review we have developed a survey which had launched today and will be open until 13th June. We’re also looking for vignettes of effective practice, so if you would like to share more, then please do complete the survey and leave your contact details. Or if you want to find out more – just DM me.

We’ll be sharing the outputs of the review, including the survey results, in late summer.

You can access the survey from the link below. Thank you in advance if you are able to participate in this study.

https://jisc.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/curriculum-and-learning-design-survey

We need to talk about learning . . . and teaching⤴

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Photo by Cody Engel on Unsplash

Throughout the pandemic I, like many of my peers, have been worried by the overriding narratives around education, particularly HE, that have (and still are) being perpetuated by the media and certain parts of government about education. Debbie McVitty has written an excellent piece on WonkHE about this, and the need for for public engagement with pedagogy.

It’s a great article and does encapsulate the issues around internal university discourse, students’ developing understanding of learning, the work and research that is part of contemporary university life and public perceptions i.e. the lecture and the exam. In the article Debbie calls for more public engagement with pedagogy . Whilst this statement from the Russell Group about blended learning is welcome, it does speak volumes that this is needed at all. And, is this engagement?

In the article Debbie goes writes:
“I see this public engagement in pedagogy work less as the responsibility of institutions and organisations than as a possible emergent area of thinking and practice.” . She goes on to say “this would require people to adopt public personas in ways that are not established at scale in the UK.“

Whilst scholarship around pedagogy is now an established field, it is still quite precarious. It’s still not universal in the sector to get formal recognition and promotion based on teaching practice. Whilst the number of Chairs related to learning and teaching is increasing, many staff still face issues around getting adequate official time allocation for developing their teaching practice. So much of the engagement with pedagogy is still at an internal level, which makes wider public debate even more challenging.

However, that discussion needs to take place. Even being able suggest that maybe we shouldn’t be asking our children “what did you learn in school/college/uni today” to “how did you learn in school/college/uni today” could enrich parts of wider public discourse.

One thought did come to mind though. Maybe what we need are Professors of Public Engagement for Learning, in the same way we have those roles within science. For example Professor Hannah Fry, Professor of the Public Engagement of Science at the University of Birmingham. I know many people who would be brilliant in a role like this, who are passionate, successful, articulate and steeped in knowledge about pedagogy and are excellent communicators.

As the pandemic has highlighted there is a real need for public engagement around teaching and learning to create informed, evolving conversations around the realities contemporary education. I wonder if any Uni would be confident and forward thinking enough to do this . . .