Resource Rich
Course design should take due consideration of the specialist resources required to enable students to fully engage with learning materials, activities (both scheduled and within their personal study time), and assessment tasks. In particular, course teams ensure that:
- Students are able to employ tools and equipment that are contemporary and enables skill development that is suited to current industry or commercial operations where pertinent
- Students are able to access resources in support of assessment completion without unreasonable restriction.
- Sufficient specialist resources are available in suitable learning spaces to facilitate planned scheduled teaching and practice sessions.
- Students are equipped within the curriculum to make safe and effective use of specialist resources needed to complete the course.
Instructional Design
If you are an experienced teacher or lecturer, you will undoubtedly be familiar with many of the pedagogical and andragogical principles which underpin successful education. As you turn your attention towards delivering ABL, you will be entering the field of instructional design.
Instructional design is where those educational theories and principles meet the technology. It seeks to answer the question:
How well do you think you have incorporated technology into your learning? So far, has it just been something that you’ve felt obliged to ‘bolt on’ to your work? Or has it become something that’s changed what it’s possible for you and your students to do?
The SAMR model is a way of reflecting on the extent to which technology has either enhanced or transformed your teaching.
Access DigiPath 1 in Brightspace to understand more about using Instructional Design to improve your ABL delivery
Inclusive Learning, Teaching and Assessment Practice
Where courses require students to access specialist facilities, resources and external locations, course teams should make explicit arrangements that will be / are in place to ensure equality of access for students. Clearly. this may involve enabling disabled students accessing or using resources, but it may also involve considering other barriers to access such as caring commitments limiting the ability of students to make out-of-hours visits, or personal situations limiting the financial resources available for engagement with trips or the purchase of specialist software.
Course materials can be presented in a variety of formats and forms. To encourage active engagement and higher order thinking, the provision of different types of media, often associated with tasks through which the students will engage with these in a particular fashion, will require students to look at content from a variety of angles, points of view, or levels of application. This will have the double impact of enriching the understanding of some students, whilst enabling those who struggle with particular concepts or ideas to access them multiple times each in a different manner.
Presenting course content
Allowing students to access or review materials as suits their personal or professional context or situation is also a powerful contributor to students' leaning. For example, providing content that can be reviewed in small chunks (as podcasts or designed for exploration on a mobile device) can allow students to fit learning activity into the small spaces or gaps in their daily lives, or to reference and reflect on materials while in placement or work-based settings.
Inclusive Learning, Teaching and Assessment Practice
One of the fundamental principles of the Universal Design for Learning is the provision of multiple means of representation, allowing students to explore the same basic course content through a variety of means and formats, and to engage with the content in different ways. The carefully planned provision of multiple means of representation will meet the needs of most students with specific learning needs, whilst also enabling all students to better access and learn the course content.
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Enabling students to use 'bite size chunks' of learning can allow those students who personal situations limit the time they have available to focus on learning to employ short gaps in their schedules (such as coffee breaks) or times when they are completing routine tasks or activities (commuting to/from University, washing up) for their learning. While it may not be practical to chunk up whole lecture's materials, the creation of a number of short videos or podcasts providing summaries of key aspects of a lecture's content, or perhaps exploring related case studies or research paper summaries, would provide meaningful learning activity for such students to consume when they get a moment. Such provision will benefit all students in providing alternative access to content, and enabling them to tailor their learning to their needs and preferences.
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to enable all students to relate to course content, it is important that the presentation makes use of case studies and examples that reflect the backgrounds and contexts of students.