Case Study: Designing & Planning for Learning – Taking a student-centred approach.

In this case study, I will demonstrate how I take a student-centred approach to designing and planning. In 2022 the Digital Learning team began to work collaboratively with the Unit Leader of Creative Unions, to plan and design the blended delivery. Creative Unions is a cross-course unit focusing on collaboration.

The goal was to plan and design an inclusive, accessible, and consistent learning experience for 360 students. It also needed to form a template for delivery as the unit is set to expand to 520 students in 2023, and 700 in 2024. The digital elements of the unit had to fit seamlessly alongside the in-person delivery. Our starting point was to storyboard the student journey through the Unit. This allowed us to consider how the students interact with the different elements.

My main responsibility was to develop the Moodle pages. We agreed that Moodle should act as the central digital hub. This would become the single point of entry for everything related to the unit. The structure of the Moodle page would mirror the learner’s journey, making information easy to find. All the key unit information, links, tasks, recordings, support information, and staff information etc would be in one place. By doing this, we can ensure that students can access information at their own pace and on any device that they choose.  

On top of this, by utilising Moodle as a digital hub and engaging with tools like Ally, I could also ensure that the content is accessible. By taking an accessibility-first approach, we can be sure that we are making anticipatory adjustments. Two key pieces of legislation are relevant here. Firstly, the Equalities Act 2010, states that we have a duty to make reasonable adjustments, and those adjustments should be anticipatory. Then in 2018, there was more legislation that covered the digital content of public sector bodies. This legislation makes it explicit that our digital content should comply with the Equalities Act and meet Web Content Accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.

However, putting our legal obligations to one side, I believe it makes much more sense to take an accessibility-first approach when it comes to designing your digital interactions with students in this way. Partly because having to remediate resources can be much more challenging than making them accessible from the beginning. But also because, in my opinion, good accessibility practices are helpful for everyone. In other words, it is Universal Design for Learning. For example, providing an appropriate heading structure makes Moodle easier for everyone to navigate. Or adding captions to recordings can benefit students who have English as a second language.

Upon completion of the unit in 2022, I evaluated the project to assess how the different elements were working together. I received feedback from staff, and students and took engagement statistics from the different platforms we had included (Moodle, Teams, Miro etc). Platform data shows us that student engagement is high. When questioned directly about their experience with the digital learning platforms, they felt the Moodle site was very well organized and they enjoyed working with Miro.

However, feedback from the students identified several areas we could consider for improvements. For example, some students struggled to find clear instructions for producing reflective writing, and some wanted clearer instructions for submitting online. We are now acting on that feedback to implement the next iteration of the unit. It will also be vital to re-run a full post-delivery evaluation. This is to ensure the design is robust enough to withstand the next expansion of the unit.

Evidance

Original submission on workflow

Unit-1: Theories, Policies and Practices workflow portfolio

References

Equality and Human Rights Commission, What Equality Law Means for You as an Education Provider – Further and Higher Education.  n.d. Accessed March 21, 2023. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/what_equality_law_means_for_you_as_an_education_provide_further_and_higher_education.pdf

Hardaker, Glenn, and Gregory Anderson. Technology Facilitated Teaching and Learning. Bingley, UNITED KINGDOM: Emerald Publishing Limited, 2015. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ual/detail.action?docID=2070173.

Legislation.gov.uk, The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. Queen’s Printer of Acts of Parliament. Accessed March 21, 2023. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/952/introduction/made.

W3C, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. Accessed March 21, 2023. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/.