As LRNT 527 continues to move forward, we are now finishing up Activities 2 and 3, which focus on Empathy and methods on which we can gain it for our end users. This empathy will ultimately be used in creating my digital resource.
While reading Matthews, Williams, Yanchar and McDonald’s (2017) article on empathy in Distance Learning, I found myself agreeing to many of the statements they were making specifically the key tensions. One of the biggest challenges when considering gaining empathy for my end uses, is the variety seen within the end users themselves as well as different stakeholders. Matthews et al. (2017) discuss how “learners as well as other stakeholders can lead designers to contradictory or conflicting design requirements” (p. 490). Due to the variety of my learners age (16 – 45+), life experiences, educational experiences, and home lives, their needs and wants of vary so significantly, that attempting to empathize with them all would be conflicting.
For my design challenge, I am wanting to create a resource that will allow my learners to become more engaged with the content. I am also interested in giving them more choice, and giving the learner more power in how their learning will take place.
As well as the variety of end user, I am also facing the challenge of
- Time- this course is only 9 weeks and activities need to be completed quickly
- Date- we are at the end of the traditional school year, there are less staff around and less students work
- Workload balance- any additional work added needs to be able to be managed with my current workload.
- As well as other external pressures and practical barriers expected in public school.
To further gain empathy for my user, I am choosing to participate in Stanford University Institute of Design’s Bootcamp Bootleg’s Journey Map (2016). One of the reasons I choose to use the Journey map to gain Empathy, was the research ethics guidelines that stated I could not contact someone was under 18, part of a vulnerable population, or I had a position of power over. I could have contact past students who are older than 18, but due to the limit of 3 participants, and time, the experiences shared would not represent my whole student population.
By using the Journey Map, I plan on going through the start my course as if I was a student, and making notes on areas where I feel disengaged, bored, confused, or where there are options to add other material. I plan on only completing the first 2 – 3 lessons, which would only be about 2-3 days of class for the students. It has been a few years where I have intentionally gone through the course now with the eyes of a student and hopefully I will be able to learn more about the challenges they are facing within it.
I would love to hear if you have any ideas for me while I am creating my Journey Map. I will update my blog when it is done.
Amanda
References
Image “Empathy” (CC BY 2.0) by sinclair.sharon28
Matthews, M., Williams, G., Yanchar, S., & McDonald, J. (2017). Empathy in distance learning design practice. Tech Trends, 61(5), 486-493.
Stanford University Institute of Design. (2016). Bootcamp Bootleg. Retrieved from http://dschool-old.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/METHODCARDS-v3-slim.pdf
Hi Amanda,
This is an excellent idea and I have often wondered how it might be possible to make distance or on-line education more engaging. As you have outlined the many constraints to this project, one of the most important is the student perspective. I can understand why it is not possible for you to engage with a student, but I am wondering if it is possible to ask someone else to take on the roll of a student and to provide you with feedback. You are likely very familiar with the content, so perhaps someone that would not have experienced the lesson as presented before may be able to give you a different perspective. They may have an alternate perspective and be able to suggest different points to consider. Good luck with your project! I am looking forward to hearing about your solution.
Hi Tanya,
Thank you for the response. I agree, one of my challenges for this is taking a step back and not relying of my previous experience and knowledge. I love your idea of having someone else run through my course and give feedback. Due to the time of year, I would have a hard time finding someone who would be able to help. However, I will keep this in mind as I hopefully integrate the resource into my courses. Thanks for the idea though, I do think in different parameters it would have been a good route to take.
Amanda
Hi Amanda, your idea to go through part of your course as if you were a student is excellent. Hopefully, you will gain that student centred perspective you are after. One idea I had while I was reading your post is based on a team project my faculty team just finished. We had noticed that we each had different expectations on what we thought our students should do for activities of engagement in each of our courses. We ended up with some courses with a low credit total being very heavy on engagement activities compared to a course with a higher course credit. We came together and decided to create a template of activities and time spent, so we would have a formula when creating our online courses. It is our experience that students often become disengaged because they are overwhelmed with the work each course requires of them. Now we have a formula that allows us to create, for example, a two credit course with content equivalent to a two hour lecture. We are hoping that this will create more consistency within our program but also give students a more realistic study load and keep them more engaged with the content. Not certain this is at all helpful as you are moving through some parts of your course, but maybe it can provide some food for thought.
Hi Anita,
It sounds like you belong to a very collaborative faculty. It is great that you are all able to get together and make this cohesive between courses. I have done that with a few of my courses and a fellow teacher, so there are a few of our science programs that follow a certain pattern. One of the things that I struggle with is the expectation of prior knowledge on compounding courses. If we are taking a 12 course, that is built heavily on the 11, we will spend sometime reviewing, but it is limited. It is a struggle when students have not taken the 11 for years, or at all… Thanks for your comment Anita. It is something that I will keep in mind as I add this to my course if other may want to as well.
Amanda
Your resource sounds interesting Amanda. I think that adding more opportunities for choice and personalization in a class such a diverse age range is likely to be beneficial in increasing engagement. I think using the journey map and taking a fresh look at your course through the eyes of your students is a good way of dealing with the limitations of the research ethics. Given the diversity your students, I wonder if you see value in approaching different lessons from the viewpoints of different types of students in order to explore how students of different ages or backgrounds would view the course?
Hi Jessica,
Thanks for your comment. I for sure see the value in attempting to approach it from different perspectives. I am going to try to take notes when I use skills or experience based on my previous learning, digital skills, or outside experience. As all of my students have different levels of these, I am going to try to see where there should be more explanation to make up for a potential lack of experience.
Thanks, and hope you are having a great Canada Day!
Amanda
Hi Amanda,
Your design challenge really interests me especially since you want to create a resource that will give your students more choice in how their learning takes place. One of my colleagues learned about this the hard way. Without a brief introduction (since she was away), she asked her students to post a short video on their thoughts of a certain topic using Flipgrid. Instead of seeing videos, she received many emails which showed their displeasure in the use of this technology. Some students even stated that they were not comfortable with speaking in video and having their peers view it. It was a definite eye-opener for everyone.
I look forward to reading about your findings in using the Journey Map as well.
Cheers!
Hi Joyce,
Thanks for reading my blog. This is something that we deal with often. I teach an introductory online course on how to use Moodle ( very similar to what we all had to do actually). One of the activities is posting to a forum about a restaurant they enjoy. For many students, this slightly public post, even though we do not require any responses, is too much for them. I would love to use Flipgrid or something similar but it would have to be optional as it would be too much of a barrier. I can only imagine your colleagues inbox.
Hope you are doing well,
Amanda
Hello Amanda,
Thank you for continuing to take us on your design challenge journey. I like how it is becoming clearly from your 90 second video to possible ways of approaching your design challenge.
From what I read it seems like there is a strong emphasis around wanting the students to have more choice in how the learning will take place. Elevating your course to even be more student-centered gives opportunities for the learners to control the learning, feel empowered and further engaged in the process.
What I am curious about is when you say ‘how the learning takes place’, are you suggesting that they can advocate for different synchronous and asynchronous methods to connect to the content, instructor and peers or are you suggesting giving them choice on how they will meet the criteria’s and fulfill the learning outcomes of the course.
For instance if you were expecting by the end of the course … the learner be able to say ‘demonstrate X’ … would you be able to feel like that can be satisfied by however the learner may want to demonstrate X. If they wanted to post a video demonstrating, or if they wanted to create a physical artifact and share their steps or if they wanted to do a written assignment, would you find easy enough to assess they were able to demonstrate X?
Thank you.
Dorothy