Throughout our project we have captured over a hundred examples of how staff have used the OULDI curriculum design tools and methodology. Sometimes their experience has been captured through formal interviews yet often they themselves have posted blogs, videos, images and screen casts.
This compendium of just a few of these user stories, narrative reports and examples shows how our tools are impacting practice.
1. Joe Doak (University of Reading) on CompendiumLD
This senior lecturer has used CompendiumLD to review the teaching and learning in his faculty. A narrative report features images, student feedback and quotes – including one where Joe says ‘my view is that it’s revolutionsed our thinking … to learning and teaching’. Link: Reading Pilot – Narrative 1. Also, a 16-minute video recording of a presentation by the team has been posted.
2. Kleio Akrivou (University of Reading) on the Course Map
Kleio, a lecturer in Organisational Behaviour and Management, talks about how the Course Map and Pedagogy Profile enabled her to ‘get out of my preferred learning mode of assimilation’. In doing so she found the tools helped her ‘better appreciate and respond to students’ feedback from year one in a process of improving the module rather than being defensive about parts of the feedback.’ Link: Reading Pilot – Narrative 3
3. John Cossar (Brunel University) on the Course Map and Pedagogy Profiler
John Cossar is the course leader for the BSc Physiotherapy course. This narrative report examines how the Course Map and Pedagogy Profile were used in a one-day ‘Design Challenge‘ workshop to support course development: “…The day influenced our thinking about the course. We … split our course into study blocks…We pulled everything apart and redesigned this” Link: Brunel Pilot: Narrative 1 and Brunel University Pilot Final Report
4. Katherine Reedy (The Open University) on impact in Library Services
This narrative report looks at the impact OULDI tools have had on an Information and Digitial Literacy specialist working in the Open University’s Library Services. She comments that “some of the tools have been used to good effect and in terms of how the librarians work I think it’s as much about chang[ing] thinking as about the tools”. Link: Library Services Pilot:Narrative 13
5. Catherine McNulty (The Open University) impact of early design activity on design processes and practice
Catherine is a faculty based Curriculum Manager. She provides project management and administrative support to module teams at all stages of module development and delivery and acts as the primary information and communication interface between the module team and other areas of the faculty, university, students and other external bodies. In this narrative report Catherine provides a perspective from her role on how a series of 3 early Design Workshops impacted on the process of module redesign “all the meetings have gone very, very smoothly. I think our module team meetings are shorter than they would be had we not thrashed out these things so early”. Link: FELS Pilot: Narrative 18
6. Patrick McAndrew (The Open University) on the use of OULDI representations for design benchmarking and review
Patrick is the Principle Investigator for an international OER project. In this narrative report he discusses the impact of using the Course Map, Pedagogy Profile and Learning Outcomes View to provide a benchmark of an OER design prior to redevelopment. He identifies impact on project evaluation, and on the re-design process more generally. In particular he discusses the unexpected impact it had on the dynamics of the team in an early planning meeting “I think it helped open up dialogue and a spirit of compromise and a better understanding of what the project was trying to achieve rather than what the content might achieve”. Link: B2S Pilot: Narrative 22
7. Anna Hvass (The Open University) on the Learning Outcomes view
In this narrative report Anna, a Learning and Teaching Librarian, describes how she used the Learning Outcomes view alongside an Information Literacies (IL) framework to support communication and collaboration with academics on a module team, and embed IL through the curriculum. The view provides a very useful structure which, she says, is ‘essential when you are looking at such a big peice of work.’ Link: Library Services Pilot: Narrative 14
8. Andrew Charlton (University of Reading) on Course Design
Andrew is a lecturer in Meteorology and in these four to-camera video presentations he discusses his experience of introducing new problem based learning (PBL) elements to his course. A more formal summary of his experience is also available. Link: Reading Pilot: Narrative 2
9. Alison Clark (The Open University) on using a learning design approach to module re-design
As Module Team Chair, Alison is responsible for providing academic leadership to ensure the coherence, cohesion and quality of the learning experience, and setting and maintaining academic standards. Alison
has been a member of a number of module teams but this was the first time she has chaired the process. In this narrative report she gives an overview of her experience of using a learning design methodology early in the design process. She found the experience positive but argues very strongly for ongoing support for pedagogical design through the module redesign process, not just at the beginning. Link: FELS Pilot: Narrative 17
10. Anonymous (London South Bank University) blogs his design process
This blog by one CompendiumLD workshop participant shows how he used the software to help develop his course. There are several blog posts with links to templates and screencasts. The ‘Week 2’ screen cast shows a CompendiumLD map created by the designer.
11. Donatella (ITD, Italy)
After having tried using CompendiumLD, Donatella posted comments about her experience on Cloudworks. Initially she found “the freedom in choosing tools and placing them in white space is almost intimidating for a beginner.. but after I saw one example from the tutorial, I understood that [this was] a good way to organise the LD…All in all, I think this way to represent does have advantages with respect to more verbal approaches: it perhaps takes more time to learn to use it, but the final result is more ‘readable’. See this page for full quote.
12. University of Geneva
CompendiumLD has been noticed by staff and students at the university. A presentation by Daniel Schnieder on new trends in technology included a CompendiumLD map whilst a report about the design and evaluation of a module by Aviva Chmiel includes representations drawn using the software.
13. Donato Cereghetti (in French) on CompendiumLD layouts
In this very interesting post, Donato presents the three CompendiumLD maps he created and shows how these were useful in then constructing a LAMS sequence. He notes (text translated from french): “I met some difficulties in modeling the learning scenario in CompendiumLD: … What information must be present on the map? [Then] I discovered the … sequence mapping icons. These are a great way to guide the implementation of the concept map! Finally, I realized that a concept map, well built and well-reasoned a priori, [can be] used to implement the activity in a very easy [way.]” Link: author created webpage (2012).
14. Anonymous (Cambridge) on Course Map
In this case study narrative a senior lecturer reports on her use of the Course Map. She finds it can function as a checklist for ‘getting you to think about all of the aspects of learning’ and ‘is a very visual method which does allow ready comparisons.. [and it may be] often easier to use this approach when you are owrking with a gorup of people.’ She may revist the tool next she starts a course from scratch. Link: Cambridge Pilot: Narrative 9
15. Paul Carden and his team (London South Bank University) explain their design process
This 7 minute video is presented by Paul Carden, a member of the design team. In it, he demonstrates how they begin with a paper representation of a course (in this instance using a storyboard framework) and then move on to using CompendiumLD and another representation to further visualise their course.
16. Sam Thomas (The Open University) on using the Library Information Literacy cards
Sam talks about the value of the Library Information Literacy cards (developed by OU Library services with support from the OULDI team) which she has used in her work with academic module teams. Link: Library Services Pilot: Narrative 15
17. Senior manager perspectives on the OULDI approach to curriculum design
The project has conducted a number of interviews with senior managers who have their own stories to tell about the impact of the OULDI approach on processes and practices. Ian Campbell, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Student Experience and Staff Development at Brunel University explains why he became involved in the OULDI project and the impact the project has had “I would say that as a university there was a recognition that we needed to change and shift where we currently were otherwise we would just get left [behind]…and so the learning design part of that was being talked about … people started going
“actually that has all sorts of potential across the university” . Link: Brunel Pilot: Narrative 19
18. Cecilia Garrido (The Open University) on faculty level curriculum design processes
Cecilia Garrido is the Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching in her faculty. In this narrative report she explains why she feels her faculty’s engagement in the OULDI project has been so important, and the impact she hopes the project will have on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of curriculum design practices. Link: FELS PIlot: Narrative 16
19. Christina Randell (South African Institute for Distance Education) on an online OULDI-CarpeDeim design workshop
Christina Randell is an education consultant working for SAIDE (South African Institute for Distance Education). She works primarily on course design and materials development. In this narrative report she describes her participation in an online OULDI-CarpeDeim workshop developed by the University of Leicester, and talks about some of the tools and the impact they have had on her team’s design thinking “I think we made a big breakthrough. We have achieved the insight about the need to structure it as a course, an online course, and not just simply as a set of learning activities plus integrated resources.” Link: Leicester Pilot: Narrative 25