Episode 10. Ceri Coulby & Laura Blundell

In this episode, we are joined by educational developers Ceridwen Coulby (@cericoulby)and Laura Blundell (@laurablundell) of the University of Liverpool’s Centre for Innovation in Education.

Information about their Peru project can be found on what'srel and on UNESCO's PMESUT pages. 

Resources:

L. Dee Fink, Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses

ABC Learning Design

Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe, ‘Backward Design’ in Understanding by Design

Kay Sampbell and Sally Brown, ‘Covid-19 Assessment Collection’

Twitter: Sally Brown; Phil Race; Virena Rossi

SEDA Network

Jisc Mailing List

LTHE Tweetchat on Twitter and collected here.

Association for Learning Technology (ALT)

Creative HE

University of Liverpool’s Spotlight Guides

Centre for Innovation in Education podcast

…including the series ‘Treasure Island Pedagogies’ by Dr. Tunde Varga-Atkins

Transcript

Ingeborg van Knippenberg (IvK): hello i'm Ingeborg van Knippenberg and welcome to conversations on online learning a podcast in which we discuss online learning and how to support it in each episode we'll ask our featured guests to relate their own particular area of expertise and experiences related to online learning and we'll discuss how this has informed their understanding of online learning we'll also ask our guests to share their advice for teaching and learning support staff who want to enhance and develop their own online learning support today we have two guests Ceri Coulby and Laura Blundell from Liverpool welcome Ceri and Laura. For starters can i ask you what you do and how did you come to do it? and let's start with Laura 

Laura Blundell (LB): yeah uh thank you very much for having us today so i started off um in more of a learning technology role um so i i made the move to hg quite a few years ago now um i started life as an i.t technician in a school and then yeah moved into some like technical roles um doing more of it support but with educational tools and i found out quite quickly that what i enjoyed the most really was kind of the training and the teaching people how to use those tools and what the benefit would be and then i started to do some teaching myself so i used to run um some beginners computers uh sessions and some basic ipad sessions in a local college and that kind of opened my eyes further into education so my current role i'm an educational developer and that's within the center for innovation in education at the university of liverpool so whilst we do still offer some support around educational tools and there's much more of a strong focus on curriculum design and supporting staff with learning and teaching so that's me  

IvK: excellent thank you and Ceri  

Ceri Coulby (CC): And thank you so much for having us um yeah so uh my own story's slightly different um i started off in uh educational development for the nhs a very long time ago which i'm not going to tell you how long and having done that for a while developing various courses mainly around leadership and management at that time i then moved into higher education through a practice project that was around using mobile learning with healthcare professionals so i kind of acted as a bridge i guess between um the people who were working in practice and the university itself and we developed some tools that all health professions could use amongst themselves around that i then moved into lecturing for a while i was a lecturer in medical education and that's what brought me to liverpool where i came to redesign the medical curriculum uh liverpool and i've now moved back into general educational development but my focus has always been on developing curricula really more so than anything else i was thinking about this before i came on today and i developed my first e-learning e-learning course in about 2007 which makes me feel quite old now looking back and i guess now i wouldn't see curriculum development as not including online learning i suppose that's the best way of putting it 

IvK: it's sort of inevitable now isn't it it's part and parcel of educating people absolutely one of the tools that we use so what is your particular expertise and from that what are currently the the key issues that you find um are coming to the forefront?  

CC: Laura do you want to go first or shall I? 

LB: i don't mind,  

CC: Go on, you go first  

LB: okay um so in terms of expertise around online learning um my previous role to this um was at the liverpool school of tropical medicine and we kind of started to to move courses um to online and that started really with um some cpd courses um as a way to kind of um i suppose have a go without it being too high stakes um because the the long-term goal was to look at masters programmes delivered online and and that was sort of pre-pandemic so this was kind of coming anyway and i think it's probably been rocketed um because of our current situation so i supported that as a learning technologist but also was able to run design workshops and help in terms of not just the technology but the curriculum design and how to offer that online learning and how to to sort of build it so that essentially we we got some repeat repeat custom um because this was aimed at healthcare professionals so we wanted something that was um i suppose engaging inclusive and made some impact so that was kind of my first introduction and then more recently um we've been working on an initiative which we've sort of branded under hybrid active learning where we're supporting staff at liverpool uh to try and deliver their curriculum in in the current circumstances so essentially it's still hybrid because there is some on-campus teaching happening um although that's dwindling um but obviously there are some courses where they've got to go ahead to do certain activity on campus but vast majority of stuff is now going out online so we very quickly had to develop some support materials around online learning and sort of helping staff to make the most if they did have that face-to-face time but also design a curricula to be delivered at a distance really and then i suppose the the third kind of interesting project is um we've been working alongside the british council uh with a number of peruvian universities and doing a very similar thing really to what we've been doing at liverpool so i suppose with the the added kind of challenge that we've been trying to develop a course for the peruvian academic staff to to go through and not many of us in the team are our spanish speaking so that that's been quite interesting so delivering um an asynchronous model to try and bring them up to speed with the sort of skills and design activity and how to approach that curriculum so yeah that's that's my area of i don't know whether you'd call it expertise but experience we learn as we go don't we  

IvK: exactly i thought that's that's really interesting did you find that when you develop something for for peru for instance do you have to sort of really actively take into account who those people are what their background is what they're you know how much how much they are used already or not to doing things online is was there a stark difference? 

LB: absolutely yeah and the the british council kind of did some of that groundwork so they kind of established uh where they were at and i think probably in terms of comparison to the uk they're very they're sort of at the start of that journey whereas i think perhaps the uk we've had a little bit more experience in terms of offering certainly hybrid courses um and then also kind of the the different frameworks how the universities operate differently how they run their courses differently so we had to take that all into consideration um and even simple things like we were having a chat that this morning one of the things that um we struggled with was some of the translations so for example feed forward that's not a thing in peru and our poor colleagues um trying to translate that and and explain that concept so that it doesn't get lost so yeah there were a couple of challenges around that but it was really interesting and nice to get an insight as well to how a different sort of country different part of the world operates  

CC: i was just going to say i think what working on the um peruvian project with the ministry of education and british council has shown me is that well several things i mean firstly when you write a course that's going to be translated you have to use different language than you would normally because you have to try and think of succinct ways to put things so that when they're translated they make sense because especially pedagogy speak is it's not the easiest language for those people that aren't already in educational development to understand in the first place and then to try and take that to a different country is very difficult so we had to be really quite sparing in our use of jargon and try and convey topics as simply as we could so i mean that was one challenge but the other challenge that laura alluded to is that you know peru's a big place and across it some of the biggest issues are just to do with access: access to wi-fi, access to hardware, access to different types of software different tools and because the staff there haven't done online learning before you know there's there's a skills gap there first of all in getting them to a point where they could even consider using some of the technology competently and confidently but more important it's also a very different educational model so it's quite traditional and quite um information uh transfer orientated so actually we're not just having to try and help people to design online courses we're also having to help people try and understand different ways of teaching and that difference in power that facilitating learning and didactic teaching brings up um and in a country where the teacher is the font of all knowledge and is comfortable in that role that can be incredibly challenging um you know if we look back at how it was in the uk when we started implementing online learning it was difficult for us then to to get everybody on board with it um so to be doing that now under this kind of time pressure the peruvians it's just a huge ask for them so you know even accessing our course that we developed online was was a challenge for some of them so what i've learned from it is that when you work in international collaborations and everybody knows this in their heads but you really cannot make assumptions and take things for granted you have to know where people are starting from to design something that will work for them  

IvK: absolutely and that rings true for me in many ways i teach on a course abroad as well where for me that's been a learning trajectory to find out where they're at that their custom is very transmission based and that means a whole lot more that i need to explain before i can start where i thought i would start yeah absolutely that that really challenges your ideas of how much you can do with people in a certain time frame if your starting point is different i guess so yeah that's that's great um coming up from that what kind of advice would you would you give people who are in a similar situation um you already mentioned don't make assumptions but do you have other tips or suggestions for people who who are in a similar situation? 

CC: i think it's about being compassionate mainly in terms of listening and finding where people are at where they're starting from before you start making decisions about all the amazing things that you can do because innovation is different for everybody and each discipline so something that's considered incredibly innovative in one will be something that another profession's been doing for absolutely years so you have to be wary of what innovation means to the people that are coming to you for me personally i always think that keeping it as simple as you can is the best way forward you know using your synchronous time appropriately for discursive tasks you know for things that are collaborative um for answering questions you know using that flipped approach rather than giving them things that they can do on their own so that's one thing i guess is making good use of your time um both synchronously and asynchronously keeping it nice and simple because the problem is if teachers don't feel confident in delivering in a certain way then the teaching will not go well they can't be their usual enthusiastic selves and then the students don't get a good experience either and i think you know often we overlook student capability within this and think oh yes you know they're young and so they know how to use all this technology and you know year in year out we get shown that that's not the case and online there is so much of a sensory overload as well and a cognitive overload so i think for me my biggest tip is keeping it something that you can manage without panicking about but i know laura you've got a lot more to offer than that  

LB: so um i think well i definitely agree with what you said about being compassionate because i think it's um and it's it's that thing of not making assumptions so um whilst when we were on campus you could have you know 30 students for example in the same room those 30 students logging in for synchronous time you don't know kind of what's going on behind the scenes so there could be kind of people at home i mean how many pets have you seen on screen recently kids homeschooling you know dodgy broadband there's all this stuff so i think it's not putting too much pressure on any kind of one session or or one activity and i'm allowing students to sort of build up and work at their own pace and i think not being frightened to change things as well so i think we all sometimes particularly when you sort of looking at curriculum design i think sometimes there's a temptation to set in stone what you're going to do for the year i'm going to be planned i mean this is how we're going to deliver it and i think kind of the the last 12 months has shown us that it doesn't always work out that way does it um and particularly when you're trying something new that you're not used to your students perhaps aren't used to it there's no harm in giving something to go and rethinking maybe for the next session or the next week or we're going to try that a little bit differently don't have to necessarily change what you're covering so that can be prepared in advance but in terms of how stuff gets out there the activities that are undertaken i think yeah we all have to be a little bit fluid at the moment kind of go with it which isn't always ideal when you're trying to juggle stuff but  

IvK: i know and i think you know like what you're saying trying things out but that also includes you know showing that you're human right we don't have to deliver everything perfect and polished and slick um as long as i think you know you can make these connections with your students that they they feel that you're there for them um it's half the work of bringing people along to things  

CC: it's a great leveler i think actually um this this covert situation because because the staff are learning and the students are learning together you know staff are learning how to do these things the students are learning how to learn in a different way it has broken down some of the barriers that i think can you know exist in terms of perceived power differentials for example just one other thing that i think is really important to avoid is people always think that they can cover as much online in the same amount of time that they can in say a face-to-face seminar and that just is not the case because by the time you spend the first 15 to 20 minutes making sure everybody's managed to log on and they're in the right place depending on what you know software you're using or what communication tools you're using you've just got so little actual content and working time that you know planning on delivering 50% is probably a reasonable rule of thumb as to what you would normally do i think  

IvK: absolutely and i think i think that's where the design comes in to some extent isn't it that what are you going to do with the time that you have with people synchronously and what are you going to offer to them in a different asynchronous fashion uh and and that's where a lot of the thinking is required in the redesign  

LB: yeah i know Ceri and i had a conversation about um we were saying it's almost easy it would almost be easier to start from scratch delivering online than it would be to translate something that you would in face face-to-face to this kind of online scenario because i think there's there's a temptation isn't there to think well i used to do that in small groups so i can just bung them in breakout rooms that'll work and you really have to think through and it's all about like activity and task design isn't it in your sessions and um yeah quite a steep learning curve i think  

IvK: i think for some people that's really new and challenging that they have to sit and analyze and and plan what the students will be doing during this one hour time slot for instance  

LB: absolutely  

CC: and there's no time for busy work anymore you know when you used to have like a class and you might put them into small groups or pairs to discuss something as part of it because it seems like a nice thing to do because they're there and it will help them talk to each other and bond as a group but you know you've got to absolutely strip out everything that isn't necessary when you go online and you know so it's that thing of going back to your learning outcomes and looking at your content looking at your activities and thinking does this actually help achieve that because if it doesn't you need to take it out because there's just too many other things going on to be adding things that aren't necessary so  

IvK: absolutely excellent so i think we've asked you as well to um if you have any particular resources that you'd like to share with us um like podcasts or blogs or any kind of tool or resource that is of particular use to people in this area? 

CC:  yeah we talked about this didn't we Laura before we came on because it's interesting because we realized that pretty much everything we would recommend is not a book just because of the sheer pace of what is happening at the moment so reading something about you know i mean curriculum design will always stand you in good stead so you know i would always recommend things like Fink’s designing significant learning experiences as a curriculum book i think that's a great book um you know abc learning design model that that sort of thing um and backward design so curriculum design's always there but in terms of going forward i think probably the most useful things that i have found to keep me up to date during the pandemic and things that are happening have been some of the work that's come out from um kay sambell and sally brown on assessment in um at a time of emergency and the work that's come up from that i use twitter a lot to see what people are doing well i do follow sally sally brown (@profsallybrown) and i follow phil race (@racephil) which isn't difficult because they're obviously married but the virena rossi i find a really good person to follow and there's a couple of others which i'm sure i will remember once we finish talking the SEDA network is also a really great source of information for me because we're all talking about the challenges of curriculum design at the moment it's on the disc list that they have and so just talking to your peers um is just a brilliant way of getting through this time because everybody's sharing their experiences the challenges they're coming up against and the different things that they're trying laura i know you had some different ones didn't you  

LB: yeah although kind of of the same vein so um the LTHE chat um is a good one i think um so they sort of pose questions every i think it's every wednesday evening and it's a hashtag an account that you can follow but there's some really interesting conversations that happen there um and i get a lot of good stuff um i rarely do it live but i tend to follow up the next day um and also the the alt community as it's the association for learning technology that's been a another great one um i've just been lucky enough to join creative hg as well um and they have some brilliant events uh particularly so that it's creativity in higher education and so kind of how people are approaching and teaching and learning but there's been a focus on sort of how to get that creative kind of approach to stuff um in an online environment as well um so some great ideas and they've got a great blog um and then i suppose a shameless plug we we as a department um have got a lot of guides that we've written so sort of um we call them spotlight guides and they might be around um i suppose sort of educational theory or an approach and we tried to do sort of a two-sided pdf guide of the the key kind of information that you'd need the challenges around perhaps implementing that approach the positives and then links to further reading and they're all available under creative commons and we also do have our own podcast as well super i might have to get you guys on return the favor yeah  

IvK: absolutely that would be great wouldn't it  

CC: yeah i'm sure what's the name of your podcast?  

LB: i think it's just called the cie podcast  

CC: it is but our colleague tunde has been doing a really interesting series on it called treasure island pedagogies where she talks to different academics from across the university different disciplines and they all talk about the pedagogy that they would you know always keep over anything else and it's really very interesting um so yeah she's doing a series of those so that's that's worth a look at  

IvK: we will link all your resources and plugs and tips in our show notes  

CC: thank you and look at the authors of the ones i've forgotten  

IvK: absolutely so before we finish i wanted to ask is there anything you wanted to share with us that and you haven't addressed yet any any little gems of of your learning? 

CC: i think if i was gonna give someone some advice who was you know just starting out with online learning i would say to them just have a go you don't have to be frightened about it if it's not perfect it doesn't matter you know the wonderful opportunity that covid has given us which is perhaps the only good thing to come out of it is that it's now allowed to make mistakes because we're in this age where life is not perfect and we're all making big changes and nobody knows what they're doing really so from that point of view i think it's a really good time to give something a go i would always advise people to start small talk to other people um around them that have done this sort of thing before for advice and help you know because that having that personal contact with people that have done it before is perhaps the most important aspect i think of trying to develop something like this yourself and talking through your ideas with other colleagues and even your students to see if you think that they will work before you try them um that's what i would give to people as advice  

IvK: that sounds like very solid advice  

LB: yeah i'd agree with that um and i think what i've noticed is that students are very forgiving i think there's a this sort of um an understanding that we're all in this together and we're all trying to do the best that we can in a difficult situation and there's not many people that kind of don't appreciate that also i think try not to be bogged down or bamboozled by the tech start with like harry said earlier you're learning outcomes what is it that you want to achieve and don't even think about the technology before you kind of think about what it is that needs to be covered what it is you want the students to do and then the tech is there to support that it's not the other way around um yeah so don't be bamboozled by the technology um the suite of tools is there to support you you don't have to use them all it's more important to get the pedagogical underpinning first and find the tool to support what you want to do rather than the technology driving even though we are all online at the minute that i think that would be my advice  

IvK: absolutely i think tech is wonderful but it should just be used to serve our purpose not to define our purpose  

LB: exactly  

CC: yeah absolutely and i guess if we've got anybody listening which we probably don't but anyone listening that um really can't imagine doing online learning other than you know coming on and synchronously providing a lecture what i would say to them is even if you only make yourself available for like an hour so a week on a drop-in basis just to talk to your students via zoom or via teams or whatever platform you're using that contact is so important at the moment students want to hear our voices they want to see us they want to feel connected to the world in the same way that we're all missing our friends and missing uh personal connections so even that i think is a good step forward if you're not doing anything else  

IvK: absolutely and that's i guess you know to to bring it back to the human factor the thing that is missing now that we do everything through our screens um is the the emphasis on the person to come first that's really and that's what you said earlier about being compassionate as well bringing in the human factor um i think what a lovely way uh to end there i think so thank you both very much for having a chat with us i have greatly enjoyed this um i hope our listeners will as well we will put all your suggestions in in the show notes so that people will also find their way to your podcasts hopefully um and i look forward to seeing you again in future  

CC: well thanks so much for having us it's been lovely  

LB: thank you very much