Description
Session Description
This session will take the form of an interactive co-design (participatory design) workshop where participants will be invited to learn practical co-design methods by taking a hands-on approach in evaluating paper and digital prototypes of the latest version of myPAL (My Personalised Adaptive Learning – a HEFCE-funded Technology Enhanced Learning Application) at Leeds Institute of Medical Education at the University of Leeds. This session relates to the theme of Collaboration for Learning Technology by showcasing practical techniques for co-designing and evaluating Technology Enhanced Learning solutions with students, staff and external stakeholders.
We will hold a modified version (to account for timing) of an actual co-design session we have run on multiple occasions with staff and students, while still providing an accurate representation of session activities.
5 minutes: Introduction and background on the project
5 minutes: Facilitator-led walkthrough of digital prototype
5 minutes: Independent exploration of paper and digital prototypes
15 minutes: Discussion and collation of participants’ ideas using visual Agile post-it wall. During this section, participants will be provided with paper and pens and encouraged to draw changes on the paper version of the prototype and to sketch out new ideas on seperate sheets of paper
The following questions will form the basis of the discussion section:
Do you feel you understand what this is showing you?
How would you use it? (What would stop you using it?)
If this was your student’s data, what prompting questions would you ask them as they looked at this?
Attendees will be able to apply the techniques learned in this session to design and evaluate their own technology-enhanced learning products within any academic subject. As well as this, they will gain insight into how co-design fits into an existing TEL project.
Session content: evaluation and reflection
This session is a shortened version of sessions held with staff, students and NHS clinicians in the second phase of myPAL, a HEFCE-funded research and development project within the University of Leeds. The aim of this project is to use a co-design approach and learning analytics to provide students with a system that can better support their self-regulated learning during workplace-based assessment.
We are doing this by:
-Co-designing with students their views onto their own feedback data in myPAL in order to prompt and support self-regulated learning
-Using learning analytics to identify patterns in students’ current behaviour related to self-regulated learning
-Exploring how this can be used to provide further personalised and adaptive support within the myPAL app.
This project is being evaluated through a series of iterative co-design sessions in which a wide range of stakeholders provide critical feedback on both the app and the project itself. Participants will be made aware this session is intended to garner their insights on the visualisation as well as to teach them the creative co-design methods we have employed.
Overall we found the co-design process to rich and flexible, allowing participants enough structure to feel safe to experiment whilst also enabling them to come up with creative solutions. Many sessions began with participants claiming that they were not creative but, almost without exception, every member of the workshop was able to contribute something of value in a medium that was entirely new to them. This also resulted in a high level of engagement with the project and feelings of ownership over the work by participants, evidenced by a high retention rate between phases (70% of students). There were however some challenges that came with a co-design approach. For example, it is resource-intensive and participants often suggested ideas that would not be possible to implement from a technical or institutional perspective. In addition, it is not yet known whether the positive feelings expressed by our participants would translate to the cohort as a whole as co-design involves a relatively small group of participants. When these ideas are implemented later this year, we will have a much clearer idea of the impact of this work. However over all, we have found the co-design process to be rewarding and incredibly productive.
References
myPAL@Leeds. 2018. myPAL@Leeds. [ONLINE] Available at: http://mypalinfo.leeds.ac.uk/. [Accessed 2 March 2018].
Piotrkowicz, A., Dimitrova, V., Treasure-Jones, T., Smithies, A., Harkin, P., Kirby, J., and Roberts, T. (2017). Quantified Self Analytics Tools for Self-regulated Learning with myPAL. [Online] TELeurope. Available at: http://www.teleurope.eu/pg/file/read/400500/quantified-self-analytics-tools-for-selfregulated-learning-with-mypal [Accessed 2 March 2018].
Treasure-Jones, Tamsin & Joynes, Viktoria. (2017). Co-design of technology-enhanced learning resources. The Clinical Teacher. 10.1111/tct.12733.
Resources for participants
In the session participants will use the following application to interact with the digital prototype.
https://marvelapp.com/pop/