Category: Methodology

Evolving design: shaping our work around a service-led model

Gerald Evans ~ Head of Learning Design

Since 2020 our experiences as a Learning Design (LD) team have been heavily influenced by much of our work moving online. The pandemic led to us resetting how we operated and in particular required us to find effective online mechanisms for running collaborative sessions while continuing to have the richness of conversations needed for learning design to be successful.

We’ve achieved this through a combination of intentional and emergent activity over the period since 2020. Intentional in that we’ve been consciously moving all of our learning design activity away from face-to-face delivery. And emergent in that we’ve learnt as we’ve gone along, and tried and tested out many online tools and approaches before settling on the core parts of the toolkit that we now work with. Continue reading “Evolving design: shaping our work around a service-led model”

The Introverted Facilitators’ Club: How to be a quiet LD in the sometimes noisy world of module design?

Hayley Johns ~ Learning Designer

Back in September, I attended my first ever ‘real life’ or in-person conference (the ALT conference, at the University of Warwick – you can read about my and my colleague’s experiences here). It was a brilliant experience, and we learnt a huge amount.

As well as all of the fascinating sessions we attended, being in that kind of big, mingly conference space for the first time really got me thinking about the social side of our role in Learning Design (LD). When I got back to my WFH set-up (feat. tea, dressing gown and small brown cockapoo), I decided to reach out to Learning Design colleagues who consider themselves to be introverts and to hear about their experiences in the LD role in either physical or virtual spaces. Continue reading “The Introverted Facilitators’ Club: How to be a quiet LD in the sometimes noisy world of module design?”

Out and about with Learning Design: Learning from working with others

Gerald Evans ~ Head of Learning Design; Emilou Hayden, Catriona Matthews, and Paul Astles ~ Learning Designers

 

In this post, we’re sharing some of the experiences of team members who have worked on external projects. As a team we periodically work with clients both inside and outside the OU to provide Learning Design specialist support. This has something of a virtuous circle effect as it provides benefits initially for the client and brings benefits back into the team through the learning we are able to do as part of the process and then into our day-to-day design work. And the day-to-day design work then in itself informs the offer we are able to provide to clients internally and externally to the OU. Hence completing the circle! Continue reading “Out and about with Learning Design: Learning from working with others”