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The art of conversation: why collaboration matters in online learning
If you’ve ever witnessed an awkward role play exercise in a training session, you may dread the idea of collaborative learning activities. The good news is that when it comes to online learning, you can plan and manage collaborative activities to ensure that nobody’s embarrassed and everyone benefits – possibly in ways they hadn’t anticipated. You may have already designed some online collaborative activities. If you found it tricky, you’re not alone. They…
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Supporting students in collaborative online activities
Collaborative learning activities build students’ critical thinking skills and encourage them to reflect on their learning. However, students can struggle to engage with them if they don’t feel supported. Use these steps to build in support for students before, during and after online collaborative activities. The steps are based on a study by Zheng et…
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The ICEBERG principles: Learning design for retention
Retention – helping students complete the studies they’ve signed up for – is an essential element of learning design. Open University researchers Jitse van Ameijde, Martin Weller and Simon Cross developed the ICEBERG principles (2015) to highlight seven learning design elements that support retention. We’ve created a quick guide to the principles and some prompts…
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The ICEBERG principles: Learning design for retention
Retention – helping students complete the studies they’ve signed up for – is an essential element of learning design. Open University researchers Jitse van Ameijde, Martin Weller and Simon Cross developed the ICEBERG principles (2015) to highlight seven learning design elements that support retention. Below we’ve outlined briefly what the principles look like in practice.…
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Planning the student journey
Key questions to ask STUDENTS • Who are your learners? • What is their starting point? What are the enablers and barriers to learning? • What outcomes do they need to achieve? • What will they do to learn? • How will you measure success? INCLUSION & DIVERSITY • What do you want the student…
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Four types of online quiz and how to use them
Quizzes aren’t just for testing knowledge. They also encourage students to recall their course material, apply it and reflect on the feedback they’re given, whichin turn prompts learning. This is known as the testing effect’ and there’s plenty of research (including a paper by Roediger and Karpicke (2006)) that explores it. Use our quick tips to…
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Inclusive curriculum: The Open University’s three principles
The Open University’s mission is to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. We have a similar role as learning designers: we’re committed to meeting the needs of all students. Inclusive curriculum is at the heart of this. Here are the three principles developed by the OU’s Access, Participation and Success team to guide…
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Five ways the learning design team focuses on students’ needs
Students are at the heart of learning design. Part of the role of the learning design team is to explore students’ needs through data and research. We then work with module authors and other colleagues to to advise on how these needs can be met. Curriculum design student panel Our student panel now has nearly…