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Leeds Online Learning Summit 2023

By Oliver Vas, on 28 July 2023

Picture by Oliver Vas

On the 10th and 11th July, Tim Otway and I attended in-person The University of Leeds’ first ever Online Learning Summit, where we met a number of other colleagues from other institutions and went to a series of presentations throughout both days. The agenda was broad ranging, though it could roughly be categorised into three themes: creating design ecosystems, extending accessibility and enabling lifelong learning.

Firstly, we received an overview of the current outlook within HE online learning from Neil Mosley, and later from Sam Brenton, Melissa Highton and others. They spoke about witnessing steady growth in demand for online learning in the UK, as well as more rapid growth abroad. Sam Brenton mentioned that UK institutions are in a good place to take advantage of increased demand but must capitalise quickly. Neil Mosley foresaw the slow decline of MOOCs as interest intensifies in more flexible, stackable programs such as micro credentials – a topic that featured prominently in the summit. During the event participants grappled with formulating a ‘manifesto’ to standardise the regulation and awarding of micro credentials. Melissa Highton mentioned that while micro credentials still remain relatively unknown, CPD courses are the most highly searched for online. Data shows that learners typically want CPD that is badged, accredited and associated with a known brand or institution.

We also heard from educators who have enjoyed great success as online-only institutions, such as Joann Kozyrev, VP at Western Governors University, who spoke about moving away from the ‘time served’ model to great effect: allowing learners to progress once they meet the completion requirements rather than inflexible time markers. In their case, students pay a fixed fee for 6 months of learning, within which time they can take as many or as few credits as they wish.

Given the novel nature of a lot of challenges faced in the sector, the summit focused on a number of original and effective problem-solving techniques. One notable technique was Aaron Kessler’s learning engineering process which emphasised the continual need to “close the loop” between the stages of challenge, creation, implementation and investigation.  We also learnt about the differences between systems thinking, design thinking and futures thinking, and participated in Leah Henrickson’s “What-if” experiment, brainstorming possible future scenarios in 5-year increments.

The summit then attempted to apply these problem-solving techniques directly to a few of the challenges, specifically: AI and ethics, the nature of assessment, and accessibility integration. Donald Clark asked whether considerations over ethics in AI are doing more harm than good. He pointed out that the more cautious countries risk falling behind unnecessarily, since regulatory efforts are unlikely to be successful. Later, a panel debated the role of assessment and whether online learning had any chance of moving away from the grade-centred approach that dominates most of the education sector. Ultimately, they concluded that assessment remains a necessary tool to show that learning has taken place. Lasty, we heard from course alumni on how accessibility had improved their course experience. They emphasised that accessibility should be embedded from the start of programme development, rather than treated as an afterthought.

Overall, the conference was well organised and successful at balancing its in-person and online audiences. The experience was greatly enhanced by the attendance of a digital artist who drew live tableaus during each talk, helping to illustrate and reinforce key concepts.

Online Learning Workshops

By Oliver Vas, on 30 September 2022

Laptop beside noteboook

The Digital Education team will offer a series of staff development sessions focusing on designing and teaching online courses. These sessions will be delivered remotely via Microsoft Teams and are available to all UCL staff and any postgraduate students with teaching responsibilities. 

Designing live online classes 

One of the main advantages of synchronous online learning is that it allows immediacy in teaching and learning. However, synchronous learning can be challenging for students who may lack access to fast internet connectivity, are situated in different time zones, or experience accessibility barriers. Hence, facilitating interaction in an online classroom must be intentionally planned and holistically arranged with asynchronous learning.   

This 90-minute session provides practical guidance on how to design accessible live online classes, including the creation of learning activities to engage students throughout the session (from icebreakers to exit tickets), deciding which interaction channels to use, and effective mechanisms for moderation and time management. 

To enrol via MyLearning, please visit the Designing live online classes booking page and select one of the following date: 

  • 25th October 2022 – 2:00-3:30pm 

Designing video lectures 

Video is a frequent medium for content in online courses. It can be used to complement and, occasionally, replace teaching methods that might take place in an on-campus context, but while video can offer a range of benefits it’s important to use it appropriately. 

This 60-minute session looks at how we can use the basic principles of learning design to align content and activities to learning outcomes. We will consider the strengths of video, how to ‘chunk’ content clearly, the kinds of generative and active learning tasks you might intersperse between such chunks, and some basic principles of accessibility and usability. Session participants will be given a chunking template to work with and discuss potential activities with their peers. 

To enrol via MyLearning, please visit the Designing video lectures booking page and select the following date: 

  • 13th December 2022 – 10:00-11:00am 

Designing asynchronous learning activities 

Asynchronous learning is a major part of distance education as it offers plenty of flexibility, allowing students to learn at their own pace regardless of time zone, location, or schedule. However, asynchronous learning activities must be carefully designed to ensure students stay motivated and engaged. 

This 90-minute session provides practical guidance on designing and sequencing asynchronous teaching and learning activities, focusing on the different tools and types of interaction, as well as on communication and accessibility considerations. We will explore the guiding principles to structure asynchronous learning both in a self-paced and tutor facilitated course. Finally, you will get the opportunity to put it into practice by drafting an asynchronous unit in a storyboard format. 

To enrol via MyLearning, please visit the Designing asynchronous learning activities booking page and select one of the following dates: 

  • 11th October 2022 – 2:00-3:30pm 

Please ensure you are using Desktop@UCL or the UCL VPN when booking.

If you encounter any problems when attempting to enrol, please contact isd-digiskills@ucl.ac.uk 

Other training resources 

Further support 

If you have any issues in relation to accessibility, please contact us on: digi-ed@ucl.ac.uk. 

Office for Students blended learning review

By Jo Stroud, on 25 April 2022

As many of the UCL community will be aware, the Office for Students (OfS) has launched a review of blended learning. Although the experience of the rapid and unplanned pivot to remote learning has been mixed, in the longer-term blended learning must be seen for its inclusive, positive, and facilitative qualities beyond the pandemic context. UCL teachers have demonstrated some outstanding practice in the past two years, and we are conscious of several strong arguments or narratives in support of effective blended teaching.

Make a contribution

The OfS has suggested that there are two key themes upon which the review will focus:
  • Effective delivery of a high-quality academic experience through a blended approach to teaching and learning
  • Resources to support a high-quality blended learning experience.

To support our engagement with this review alongside UCL initiatives such as the Education Priorities and Programme strategy, we would like to invite staff from across UCL to contribute an informal micro case study evidencing effective examples of blended learning. These can be drawn from any time period, either prior to the pandemic or during it, and should ideally underscore an intervention’s value and impact, highlighting key points such as the benefits to students and staff, effects on pedagogy, examples of practice, and so on. As a guideline, a response should be no longer than 250-300 words and submitted by COP 11th May.

Submit your case study

ABC learning design and the challenges of online

By Clive Young, on 26 April 2021

ABC learning design is UCL’s widely used ‘sprint’ method to help busy university and college teachers review and redesign their courses for blended modes.

Originally run as face-to-face workshops, in just 90 minutes teaching teams work together to create a visual ‘storyboard’ of activities representing the student journey. Assessment methods, programme-level themes and institutional policies can all be integrated easily. International ABC user groups soon emerged to share ideas, translations and localisations.

The Covid crisis impacted in two ways; one positive, one negative.

As even traditionally minded universities were forced to ‘pivot’ rapidly to online learning provision, the advantages of digital modes and the need for learning design suddenly became clearer. However traditional ABC on-campus workshops were impossible. The community responded swiftly by experimented with online approaches.

This academic year Clive Young and Nataša Perović, the UCL originators of ABC, created and trialled their own online version based on Google Jamboard and UCL’s Learning Designer tool.

In a popular webinar last week Clive and Nataša showed how this works and compared on-campus and online versions.

A recording of this webinar is now available via: Zoom

The presentation: ABC LD and the challenges of online Webinar, PDF 4.5Mb

You can also find earlier webinars on ABC

 

Workshop series: designing and managing online learning- synchronously and asynchronously

By Alexandra Mihai, on 2 November 2020

To support faculty in designing and teaching their online courses in the next terms, learning designers Alexandra Mihai and Heather Serdar from the Online Education team are offering in the next months a series of four new workshops aimed at providing practical guidance for designing and managing learning activities using both synchronous and asynchronous modalities.

The workshops have been designed as stand-alone 90-minute sessions but attending all four of them provides a 360 degrees perspective on the online teaching experience- from design to delivery, including a curated selection of resources and customisable templates.

Synchronous online teaching

Orchestrating synchronous interactions in the virtual classroom needs to be more intentionally planned than in a face-to-face environment. Setting clear goals and understanding where live sessions can bring the most added value to the learning experience is an important starting point. A well-managed live online teaching session can create opportunities for engagement and conversation.

The session on Designing synchronous learning activities provides practical guidance on how to design synchronous online learning sessions, including creating a variety of learning activities to engage students throughout the session, deciding what interaction channels to use and setting up effective mechanism for moderation and time management.

To complement it, the session on Teaching synchronous classes focuses on creating a community of practice, setting learner expectations of synchronous learning and teaching and managing groups in synchronous sessions.

Asynchronous online teaching

The online space can provide a flexible learning environment, without space and time constraints. Learning takes place also beyond the virtual classroom. In order to make sure students are motivated and engaged, asynchronous learning activities have to be carefully designed and managed.

The session on Designing asynchronous learning activities offers practical guidance on designing and sequencing asynchronous learning activities. Participants will have the opportunity to zoom into the actual activity design process and discuss how to create different individual and group learning activities, how to communicate them clearly to students and how to embed them into the overall course.

Moving on to the more practical aspects, the fourth session of the series, Teaching with asynchronous learning activities provides the opportunity to discuss communities of learning, learn about different activities that are appropriate for various subject areas and identify functions in Moodle that support asynchronous learning.

Here is the schedule of the new workshops. You can register here.

Wednesday, 4 November

Wednesday, 9 December

12:00- 13:30 Designing synchronous learning activities
Tuesday, 10 November 13:00- 14:30 Teaching synchronous classes
Tuesday, 24 November 14:00- 15:30 Designing asynchronous learning activities
Wednesday, 2 December 12:00- 13:30 Teaching with asynchronous learning activities

In addition to the new workshops, Heather and Alexandra will still run two 60-minutes sessions of the Designing Connected Learning Lectures this year, on Wednesday, 18 November, 12:00 and Wednesday, 16 December, 12:00.

We look forward to welcoming you to the workshops and supporting you in designing and teaching your courses.

Understanding student activity in Moodle

By Steve Rowett, on 7 August 2020

The reduction of on-campus teaching and students studying remotely provides a greater emphasis on understanding how they are engaging with the learning activities within their course.

Moodle does provide some tools for this, and anecdotally they are less well known than they might be. The tools range from a quick check on whether students are accessing a particular course, to a much more detailed view of who has completed which activities within a course. They provide a window into how students are doing but of course are only crude proxies for engagement and learning, and should also be supplemented by other information to understand and support our students as best we can.

Here’s a quick guide to three options based on questions you might want to ask.


When did students last access this course?

You can get a quick report of the last time each of your students accessed your Moodle course. This is particularly useful at the start of term for highlighting students who have never accessed your course and might be having access difficulties and need further support.

To view this report, go to Course Administration -> Users -> Enrolled Users. The Last Access to Course header of this table is clickable so you can sort by this field (clicking once will show those students who have never accessed this course, or have not accessed this course for the longest times, at the top of the table.

Table showing students enrolled on a Moodle course, including their most recent access to that course


Who has or has not viewed or participated in a given activity?

To understand engagement on a specific activity, use Course Participation reports. Find these at Course Administration -> Reports -> Course Participation. You will need to select an activity. In this case, we’re choosing an early activity where students say hello to each other. This is a forum called ‘Getting to know each other’. I select this from the Activity list, and select Students from the ‘Show only’ list, then click Go to get the following report:

A Moodle course participation report, showing that some students have been much more active in a discussion forum than others

This shows your students and indicates whether they have engaged with this activity with a Yes or No. The number in brackets shows the number of engagements, and gives a rough and ready guide, but I wouldn’t take it too literally as different people will normally use websites in different ways. Again the table headers are clickable, so clicking on All actions will order based on that column.

You can drill down a little further by choosing one of the options from the Show actions menu. In this case the options are View and Post. These terms are however slightly misleading, as they count other actions too, but give a broad measure of level of active contribution as compared to reading the work of others.

Finally you can quickly send a message to all students in a No in the actions column, but clicking on Select all ‘No’ and choosing Send a message from the dropdown.


How can I see if students have completed the activities across my course?

Activity completion is a tool in Moodle that lets you get an overview of student participation in all activities in your course. This does need to be set up in advance and is very flexible and configurable.

Once activity completion is turned on for your course, each activity in your course is marked either complete or incomplete for each student. Each activity with then be marked as complete based on student activity in a number of different ways:

  • The student themselves mark is as complete, using a checkbox next to the activity;
  • A simple ‘view’ of the activity marks it as complete;
  • A more complex set of criteria is established to mark the activity is complete. This depends on the type of activity but might be getting a certain mark on a quiz, or submitting a document to an assignment, or posting a message in a forum. These criteria are defined by the teacher on an activity-by-activity basis.

An illustrative screenshot of the report available is shown below. Here you can see that one student has gone ahead of the others, two are up to date, one is a little behind, and one has not completed any activities at all.

Activity completion report in Moodle showing which students have completed which activity according to criteria set by the teacherThe video below explains more about activity completion:

There is a Miniguide on activity completion and also a case study from Jane Burns of using it in UCL teaching.

Reporting across Moodle courses

A limitation is that these tools apply at the level of a Moodle course, which is normally a module, and this limits the ability to get an holistic view of the activities of any particular student. We are very aware of this limitation and are rapidly looking at options for providing a more holistic and student-centred reporting ability.