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Course Design Blueprint

Foundations of Learning and Teaching

The foundations of course design are shaped by our Learning and Teaching Strategy, our pedagogy, and our principles for delivery. 

Our strategy

Our Learning and Teaching strategy sets out our commitment to: 

  • Personalised, active and independent experiences for all learners, 
  • Research informed and employer engaged learning and teaching, 
  • Inclusive and collaborative curriculum and delivery,
  • Digitally enabled education and 
  • Championing teaching excellence. 

Click to read our learning and teaching strategy

Click the image to read our Learning and Teaching strategy

Our pedagogy: Block and Blend

Our Block and Blend design puts our students at the heart of a compassionate and empowering academic experience. Many of our courses use a model of 4 plus 1 where the module content is learned through four weeks of teaching, while a fifth week is used for any final assessment, and preparation for the next block. 

Where courses include theory and practice, a double block model may be used where module content is learned over 8 weeks, with final weeks used for assessment and preparation for the next block

Myth busting and principles

When designing or redesigning courses for block and blend, it is helpful to keep these principles in mind:

  1. Block does not include fewer teaching hours - the amount of tutor structured  learning should be the same as a traditional semesterised module.
  2. Blend does not just mean online. Blend is about a blend of the right activities, delivered at the right time, in the right way to support students in achieving learning outcomes. 
  3. Block and Blend modules may need to include content in a different order, and delivered in different ways to be effective. 

Our section Design Process provides more information on designing for block and the structuring of activities. 

Principles for Delivery

Our principles for delivery make clear the ways in which learning and teaching will be delivered for our students. 

  1. All of our taught sessions, including any lectures, will be delivered on campus, and all students are expected to attend in person (unless there are extenuating circumstances or reasonable adjustments in place. Digital Registers must be taken for each live-taught learning session. 
  2. Where appropriate, taught sessions will be "captured" using the Panopto Platform, and released to the class post live delivery. 
  3. All courses should use the Brightspace templates which are made available by the Learning Design team. These are designed to ensure that you and your students have a consistent experience and approach in the use of the OLE.
  4. All courses should make full use of Brightspace to connect learning. This includes the use of rich media resources, for synchronous and asynchronous activities which may take place on or off campus. 

Progressive Learning and Teaching

Our approach to learning and teaching is progressive, through which we support our students to develop confidence and ability in relation to a range of skills, behaviours and knowledge as appropriate for their course. This also relates to the Graduate Attributes and underpinning skills we support all of our students to achieve.

Understanding how confident a student is feeling, and what might help them to develop further will often take place during Personal Academic Coaching.