Planning and teaching for effective learning (A1, A2, V3)
Contextual Background
In collaboration with a team of academic staff from LCC, I am designing a series of 30-credit online units as part of a MA in Graphic Communication. This set of units will form part of a larger suite of online courses created by UAL Online.
Evaluation
A concern raised by LCC academic staff around the design of the course is the lack of the ‘studio’ and how we might replicate a studio environment online. They also raised concerns about creating a sense of community and trust online.
I want to ensure that we build in opportunities to develop trust amongst students which will encourage authentic collaboration. I want to incorporate social pedagogies of belonging into the course. (Hill and Bunting, 2024) by creating learning experiences that prioritise collaboration and interpersonal connections.
Moving Forwards
This can be achieved by implementing strategies for community building and trust within the teaching and learning approach.
Community Building
It’s important that students are encouraged to collaborate to improve social presence in the course (Garrison, 2000). They should view the online learning space as a risk-free environment where they can express themselves freely. To achieve this, I will incorporate activities that allow students to bring their own real-world experience into the course. For instance, designing a simple activity that asks students to share their reasons for taking a particular unit will help to create a feeling of shared endeavour.
Acknowledging student contribution ensures that students feel that they matter. I want to build in opportunities in the taught curriculum that make students feel heard and valued (Hill and Bunting, 2024). I can build in regular opportunities for tutors to acknowledge individual student contributions throughout each unit. One way to do this is to ask tutors to provide short video feedback on students’ work in progress, either individually or as a group. This approach facilitates feedback and recognition, ensuring that students’ efforts are appreciated by the tutor.
Trust
Building feelings of psychological safety and trust will help to ‘foster a learning environment that supports participants in the challenging work of authentic engagement with regard to issues of identity, oppression, power, and privilege’. (Arao and Clemens, 2021). This can be established through a few simple strategies to start with, such as using clear and accessible English and avoiding the use of jargon as it can be marginalising. I can use the Glossary Tool in Moodle to create an area where unit and discipline-specific key words are defined for students.
I can integrate trust-building activities such as “Tiny Demons: Drawing Monsters” from OneHE. Activities like this can foster self-expression but also mutual understanding and empathy among students, reinforcing the online learning space as a supportive environment where vulnerabilities can be shared without fear, deepening trust within the community.
By prioritising community building and trust during the course design process, I can help the LCC course team by taking the best parts of the in-person studio environment and replicating these online. This approach ensures that each student feels valued and will also help support the LCC academic staff when they deliver the units online.
(516 words)
References
Arao, B. and Clemens, K. (2013) ‘From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces: A New Way to Frame Dialogue Around Diversity and Social Justice’, in The Art of Effective Facilitation: Reflections From Social Justice Educators,. Virginia: Stylus, pp. 135–150.
Bunting, L. and Hill, V. (2024) Belonging Through Compassion. Available at: https://belongingthroughcompassion.myblog.arts.ac.uk/teaching/.
Garrison, D.Randy., Anderson, T. and Archer, W. (2000) ‘Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education’, The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), pp. 87–105. Available at: https://auspace.athabascau.ca/bitstream/handle/2149/739/?sequence=1.