Promoting academic innovation by valuing and enabling disruptive design

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Promoting academic innovation by valuing and
enabling disruptive design

• Andrew Middleton
• Head of Innovation Professional Development

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Introductions

• Hello!
• Why are we interested in curriculum design?

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Session outline

• Introductions
• Curriculum Design _at_ SHU background
• Defining priorities for collaborative design
  teams
• Principle-based design and other approaches
• Designing a design lens
• Scenario-based design
• Building scenarios
• Devising and sharing other collaborative design
  methods
• Conclusions

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BackgroundThe Design Studio

• Our Challenge how to engage multiple
  stakeholders effectively in curriculum design
• Students and others not directly involved in
  teaching
• Why
• breadth of experience
• knowledge
• perspectives
• accommodate diverse stakeholder requirements
• How
• Two day design team immersive think tank
• Principle-based facilitation

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changes perceptions of design
accommodates multiple stakeholder perspectives
manages risks
tests different ideas safely
develops staff
disruptive design
suspends reality
encourages dialogue
generates alternatives
addresses intended outcomes
supports collaboration
develops stakeholder relationships
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Background Why Studio?

• Opportunity, space and structure
• Open and supportive
• Space time, people, place
• Contained activity
• Critical friendship
• Co-operation and collaboration
• Safe risked-based thinking
• Communal validation

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Defining priorities for collaborative design teams

• Analysing needs and identifying priorities
• Radar Discussion tool
• Alumni goldfish bowl - observed structured group
  discussion
• Student evaluations (surveys or video
  evaluations)
• NSS analysis
• What else?

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Principle-based design and other approaches
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Principle-based facilitation

• to focus useful conversation
• e.g. stakeholder participation
• e.g. graduate attributes
• often set out in literature
• what do the principles mean
• associated case studies
• associated toolkits

• Rhetorical resources Nicol (2012)
• High level educational aspiration
• Problem domain/area of concern
• Practice-orientated principles
• A compelling narrative
• Examples of application
• Research evidence

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Key Tools

• Screencasts
• Priority analysis tool
• Design lens based upon the Viewpoints (University
  of Ulster) method
• Set of cards, each addressing ideas supporting
  one principle
• Online resource-base (Toolkit)

Assessment feedback lens from University of
Ulster
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Designing the Design Lens

• Example Learner Engagement development workshops
  for staff and students

• Explored principles and frameworks found in
  academic literature on learner engagement
• Reflected on their experience and expectations
  and generated examples of engaging practice
• Generate new ideas using creativity methods (i.e.
  word association, photo elicitation, scenario
  writing)

Assessment Feedback lens from University of
Ulster
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Activity Principles of Digital Literacy

• Identify between 5 and 7 key ideas that together
  encapsulate what digital literacy means.

1. Ability to find, select, retrieve and use
digital information 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
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Scenario-Based Design
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About scenarios
a concrete description of activity that the user
engages in when performing a specific task,
description sufficiently detailed so that design
implications can be inferred and reasoned
about - Carroll (1995)

• Descriptions of the past, present or future
• Risk-free tools for imagining the future and for
  asking what-if..?
• Colourful narratives or process statements
• 'Good enough' representations of possibilities...
• ...or highly detailed
• Scenarios set the scene for discussion
• Scenarios can concretise ideas for development

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Why use scenarios for curriculum design?

• Scenarios,
• Use diverse kinds and amounts of detailing
• Present alternative consequences of action
• Can be abstracted and categorised
• Help designers to recognise, capture, modify and
  reuse generalisations or patterns
• Support reasoning
• Make design tasks accessible to diverse expert
  stakeholder groups

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Scenarios address 6 challenges

• Reflect on designs and processes
• Co-ordinate collaborative design action and
  reflection
• Manage risk by having something that appears
  concrete and remains flexible
• Manage the fluidity of design situations
• Consider multiple views of an interaction
• (Capture outputs of idea generation)

Designers have to continually make commitments
without making commitments! Designers say What
if
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4 ways to use scenarios to support curriculum
design

• Collaborative design teams can,
• Construct scenarios to work out and communicate
  their thinking
• Construct scenarios to capture and communicate
  their thinking
• Review or compare representations of existing
  pedagogy
• Review or compare representations of proposed
  pedagogy

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Forming successful scenarios - characteristics

• Goals, sub-goals or outcomes
• Settings
• Agents or actors playing primary or supporting
  roles (descriptions of who is involved, how and
  why)
• Plot - sequences of actions and events done by or
  to the actors or changes to the setting. Changes
  to events show how scenarios can be used
  dynamically to assess different decisions and
  outcomes.

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Presenting successful scenarios

• Scenarios use natural language query and are
  presented as short narratives and can use various
  media, e.g.
• Text
• Visualisations, diagrams, pictures, etc.
• Comic strips and storyboards
• Videos
• Multimedia
• Post-it notes

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Activity Facilitating the design of pedagogy to
promote learner

• Generate ideas for a New Staff Induction
  Programme using the Learner Engagement and
  Authentic Learning design lenses (or our Digital
  Literacy lens!).
• Focus on a small part of the Induction Course
  which will be run over 3 x 2 hour workshops and
  be supported by online resources.
• Work towards constructing a scenario statement
  to support the communication and evaluation of
  you idea

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Activity Build your scenarios!

• To capture and communicate your idea
• Agree media
• Include
• Goals, sub-goals or outcomes
• Settings
• Agents or actors playing primary or supporting
  roles (descriptions of who is involved, how and
  why)
• Plot - sequences of actions and events done by or
  to the actors or changes to the setting. Changes
  to events show how scenarios can be used
  dynamically to assess different decisions and
  outcomes.

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Activity other approaches

• Devise and share other collaborative design
  methods
• Analyse what is needed and identify priorities
• Design together
• Capture ideas and develop them further
• Evaluate approaches
• Breakout and feedback

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Conclusions

• Curriculum design activities and a key
  opportunity for promoting academic innovation
• Involving others early is useful, difficult
  but possible!
• Innovation is risky but risk can be managed
  through collaborative engagement and validation

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References

• Bryson, C., Hand, L. (2007). The role of
  engagement in inspiring teaching and learning.
  Innovations in Education and Teaching
  International, 44(4), pp.349362.
• Carroll, J.M. (2000). Five reasons for
  scenario-based design. Interacting with Computers
  13, pp.43 60.
• Fowler, C.J.H, van Helvert, J Gardner, M.G, and
  Scott, J.R. (2007). The use of scenarios in
  designing and delivering learning systems. In H.
  Beetham R. Sharpe, Rethinking Pedagogy in a
  Digital Age Designing and delivering e-learning.
  London Routledge
• Herrington, J. (2006). Authentic e-learning in
  higher education design principles for authentic
  learning environments and tasks. Online at
  http//researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/5247
• Nicol, D. (2012). Principles as discourse. JISC
  Webinar, 20th March 2012
• Nicol, D., Draper, S. (2009). A blueprint for
  transformational organisational change in
• higher education REAP as a case study. In
  Mayes, T., Morrison, D., Mellar, H., Bullen, P.
  Oliver, M., (eds) Transforming higher education
  through technology-enhanced learning. York
  Higher Education Academy.
• ODonnell, C., Masson, A., Harrison, J. (2011).
  Encouraging creativity and reflection in the
  curriculum. SEDA Spring Teaching Learning and
  Assessment Conference 2011, "Academics for the
  21st Century", 5th May 2011 - 06 May 2011,
  Holyrood Hotel, Edinburgh.