OU Learning Design team blog

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 curriculum development.

1. Ensure all students can access the curriculum by:
   Checking that all material uses inclusive language, and that new and complex terms are clearly explained. A glossary is useful.
2. Ensure that all students see themselves reflected by:
   Drawing from sources that reflect a wide range of diversity
   Allowing students to bring in their diverse experiences and backgrounds to contribute to the learning and assessment activities.
3. Ensure students are equipped to participate in a diverse world by:
   Exposing them to a range of culturally challenging opinions and contexts
   Providing structured opportunities to build understanding of and respect
   for diversity and the contribution diversity makes in an international context.

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.

1. Curriculum design student panel
   Our student panel now has nearly 3,000 members. They provide feedback on activities, tools and learning materials so that our course teams can design for students’ real experiences.
2. Building student profiles
   We provide data and research to help module teams design student profiles that capture students’ goals and challenges. They can refer to these throughout module development to ensure they’re addressing students’ needs.
3. Student experience workshops
   We work with module teams to help them reflect on students’ perspectives and what support and resources students might need to succeed.
4. Real-time student feedback
   We advise module teams on how to gather student feedback while courses are live. They can then respond to students’ comments immediately and in future courses.
5. Student-focused scholarship
   We carry out research into students’ needs and perspectives so that we can share these (often via our blog) with module teams and learning design teams outside The Open University.

We need to make sure that the learning we create is suitable for everyone. That means we need to think about students’ needs and goals right from the start of the learning design process, and then design learning actitivies that
we know will meet these.

Use our top tips to reflect on your students’ needs and to design learning that will help all students meet their goals.

1. Use data and evidence to inform student profiles, including students from underrepresented groups.
   Develop student profiles that represent all students. Refer regularly to your student profiles throughout the design process to ensure all needs are
   catered for.
2. Use what you know about students to plan learning activities.
   When designing activities, talk to students about what they need. Ensure that learning resources and media are accessible and reflect the diversity of learners.
3. Consider design challenges at the start of the process.
   Use prompt questions to generate discussion on how equality, diversity and inclusion will be addressed.
   Take a collaborative approach: it’s not just one person’s responsibility.
4. Design collaborative learning activities with the diversity of learners in mind.
   Consider the barriers to taking part in discussion and collaboration.
   Provide appropriate support and encouragement for all voices to be heard.
5. Ensure that learning tasks build up confidence and skills for assessment over time.
   Consider entry points to study and transitions as well as sticking points for students with particular challenges – where might extra support be needed?
   Clearly identify skills required and integrate them into the subject material so that learners from all backgrounds are equipped for study and life-wide learning.

We’ve found Twitter to be a great way to keep up with research, share our practice and make new connections. However, we juggle tweeting with our daily learning design work, and it can easily become distracting and time consuming.
These tips outline the tools and techniques that helped us make the most of Twitter and keep it from taking over.

1. Live tweet from events.
This is a great way to make new and relevant connections. Use the event’s hashtag to find other attendees to connect with and discuss ideas during the event and after.

2. Filter tweets with free tools.
Use a social media dashboard to filter tweets from relevant people and organisations. You can also use it to schedule your own tweets. We find that free tools are fine.

3. Create lists.
Create lists of different groups of followers (ours include OU teams and external researchers). You can then filter content from these lists via your Twitter dashboard and see at a glance what people with similar interests are discussing.

4. Cut distractions.
Your Twitter dashboard will also keep distracting tweets out of sight – essential when strong opinions are being shared and time is precious.

5. Explore others’ Twitter lists.
People in your network may have curated lists of their contacts. If they’ve made these lists public you can view them via their Twitter profile and include them in your dashboard.

6. Save tweets for later.
Save interesting tweets and other nuggets of news to the drafts folder of your Twitter management tool. You and your colleagues can dip into this and share its contents.

7. Schedule posts.
Schedule posts when you know you’ll be busy so you can focus on the tasks at hand.

8. Don’t worry about repeating yourself.
This can feel awkward at first. However, tweets are ephemeral and, with an ever-changing Twitter audience, repeats won’t be obvious and will help you engage with relevant people.

9. Share the load.
If you’re part of a team, split the Twitter work using a rota and individual responsibilities. Two of our team members create content to share while others focus on engagement with followers. This means we’re working to our strengths and making the most of people’s time.

10. Use analytics.
Even a brief glance at your analytics will show which topics are of interest to members of your network.