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Words of Wisdom: Creating a compendium of Sustainability
Paul Astles and Catriona Matthews ~ Learning Designers You may have read our previous blog post with reflections on our experiences at the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC) conference in Sheffield last year. And if you did, you may remember that at that time we gave an overview of a project called…
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Maximising student support: Equitable Outcomes Challenge Week 2025
Jannah Aljafri, Anna Judd-Yelland, Penelope Lee, and Catriona Matthews ~ Learning Designers The days may be getting colder and darker, but the Christmas season is upon us, plus we’ve just enjoyed some great virtual ‘fireside chats’ during The Open University’s Equitable Outcomes Challenge Week. 🍵🔥 Colleagues from across the University shared their projects on…
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A Faculty in Conversation: FBL Scholarship Connects Vision, Practice, and Partnership
Liz Hardie ~ Centre Director, The Scholarship Centre for innovation in online Legal and Business education (SCiLAB) What happens when a Virtual Courtroom escape room, a WhatsApp peer mentoring community, the Chartered Association of Business Schools and two learning designers meet? (I’m not sure if this sounds like a bad joke or the start…
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How do online students use digital technologies to manage their emotions?
Jake Hilliard ~ Learning Designer Have you ever put on a music playlist to help you focus on a task, or turned to YouTube for a quick break when you feel stressed or overwhelmed? For many online learners, these aren’t just habits, they’re strategies for managing emotions while studying. Last month I had the…
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Inside the ICEBERG: How we updated the ICEBERG principles
Catriona Matthews, Jake Hilliard, and James Openshaw ~ Learning Designers Earlier this year, we proudly shared a blog post introducing the updated ICEBERG principles – a set of seven evidence-based learning design principles that positively impact student retention. Originally created in 2016, the principles were updated across 2023-2024 to reflect new research, student insights,…
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Innovating Learning Design in Higher Education: Reflections from an International Collaboration
Paul Astles and Catriona Matthews ~ Learning Designers Since 2022, members of The Open University’s (OU) Learning Design and Institute of Educational Technology (IET) teams have played an integral role in the Erasmus+ project Innovating Learning Design in Higher Education (iLED). The three-year iLED project was co-ordinated by the University of Zagreb and alongside…
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‘Words of Wisdom’: Presenting our project at the EAUC conference 2025
Paul Astles and Catriona Matthews ~ Learning Designers We felt proud (and lucky, given the uncertain financial situation across Higher Education) to be invited to speak at the 2025 Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges (aka EAUC) conference and to represent both the Open University and the Learning Design team for the second year…
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Learning Design and sustainability: Reflections on the 2025 Advance HE Sustainability Symposium
Kathleen Calder SFHEA ~ Senior Learning Designer In March I joined a panel to present our poster ‘Learning design as a catalyst for embedding sustainability’ at the AdvanceHE Sustainability Symposium. The poster describes some of the structured approaches the Learning Design Sustainability Group has taken to support embedding sustainability in curriculum design through connecting with…