Designing better learning: What structures do students prefer?

Before colleges can meet students’ needs, they need models or systems that enable them to listen to what students want.

Michaela Munoz and Vicki Hutton from the Australian College of Applied Psychology trawled through previous responses in student satisfaction surveys and developed their own model to analyse what “blended” students (undertaking a mix of online and face-to-face learning) wanted.

They found that students had different expectations from the two real-time components (i.e., workshops and live online sessions). For many students, the two-day workshops were an integral part of their learning experience.

Michaela and Vicki dove in to look at what exactly contributed to their higher satisfaction regarding workshops: What is it about workshops that made the students more satisfied? And what about other aspects of their learning?

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Recommendations

What do these elements translate to in terms of learning design?

  1. Develop innovative teaching methods that link technology and pedagogy in order to enhance student engagement.
  2. Ensure that students understand their role in blended delivery, which is to actively engage in all components of the course rather than to passively participate.
  3. Continually revisit the course components to maintain consistency, conhesiveness and currency.
  4. Support teachers to remain up-to-date with course components and technology through regular professional development.
  5. Regularly assess whether technologies are matching the evolving course requirements and student needs.

Piqued your interest? Dive deeper into Michaela and Vicki’s research and findings in the video below, recorded at the NPI Conference in Melbourne in November 2016 or contact them at Michaela.Munoz@acap.edu.au and Vicki.Hutton@acap.edu.au.