Category: Our practice

  • From email alert to delivering a talk: Unexpected scholarship

    From email alert to delivering a talk: Unexpected scholarship

    Paul Astles and Catriona Matthews ~ Learning Designers   Scholarship can happen in unexpected ways and an opportunity can present itself when you least expect it. In this instance, a colleague from the Open University Library shared a call for content at a webinar series curated by the University of Kent. The theme of the […]

  • ‘Get engaged and enraged’: imagining sustainable futures for digital education in times of climate crisis

    ‘Get engaged and enraged’: imagining sustainable futures for digital education in times of climate crisis

    Hayley Johns ~ Learning Designer  Earlier this month, in a world first, the University of Barcelona announced that their students will take a mandatory climate crisis module from 2024. This development came in response to a sit-in by student activists as part of a protest to end fossil fuels and confront the climate emergency. A […]

  • “It’s OK not to know!”: Professor John Hattie and the power of feedback

    “It’s OK not to know!”: Professor John Hattie and the power of feedback

    Hayley Johns ~ Learning Designer    Feedback, according to Professor John Hattie, is ‘one of the most powerful notions we have’ in education – and also one of the most variable. Earlier this year, I joined an instalment of Phil Anthony’s award-winning Digitally Enhanced Education webinar series to learn more about how institutions around the […]

  • Working together in module design

    Working together in module design

    By Amy Leon and Catherine Du Baret High quality, online and distance education materials, building on a huge legacy of groundbreaking distance education. This is what Learning Designers and editors, working alongside academic colleagues, at the Open University shape and hone during the creation of new modules. The Open University (OU) creates around 150 new […]