Adventures in Learning Design
Conversations exploring ideas, principles, research and practice in learning design. Join the LearnJam team and guests as they explore how to make learning more effective and inclusive, whether it’s in the workplace, in school, university or at home. Hosted by LearnJam team members Laurie Harrison and Laura Patsko.
Season 2
05 | ILXD Dimensions – Interactions
In this final episode of Season 2, special guest Martin Bloomfield joins us again for yet another fascinating foray into neurodiversity and learning design. We discuss the differences between learning ‘input’ and what ‘output’ is expected from learners, why it’s so important to identify neurodivergence early in a learner’s life, and who’s responsible for ensuring learning is more inclusive. Martin also introduces us to a new acronym – PERDISOMOLO – and invites us to imagine we were wombats! (Stick with it – he’s making a very important point!)
You can download a copy of the ILXD Dimensions, mentioned in this episode and explored throughout Season 2, at learnjam.com/resources
04 | ILXD Dimensions – The Materials
In this episode, special guest Michelle Mangal talks to LearnJam about why representation matters in learning resources, how to do justice to learners’ complex identities, and how good teachers can make learning materials interesting and relevant to young people.
You can download a copy of the ILXD Dimensions, mentioned in this episode and explored throughout Season 2, at learnjam.com/resources
03 | ILXD Dimensions – The Environment
In this episode, we explore the second of the four dimensions of inclusive learning design (ILXD) – the learner’s environment.
- the need to adapt techniques and approaches for learners in different contexts
- the risk of making assumptions about learners’ knowledge of digital technologies
- how teachers and learners can thrive even in particularly challenging environments.
Runna also mentions the Hands Up Project – find out more at https://www.handsupproject.org/
You can download a copy of the ILXD Dimensions, mentioned in this episode and explored throughout Season 2, at learnjam.com/resources
Please note that any views/opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and not official views/opinions of the British Council.
02 | ILXD Dimensions – The Learner
In this episode, we explore the first of the four dimensions of inclusive learning design (ILXD) – the learners themselves.
Special guest Martin Bloomfield talks to us about the unspoken norms and assumptions that influence how we conceptualize learning, why assessment fails to capture what all learners can really do, and how someone’s early experiences of school can affect their sense of self-efficacy and motivation to learn throughout their life.
Download a copy of the ILXD Dimensions, mentioned in this episode and explored throughout Season 2, at learnjam.com/resources
01 | Welcome to Season 2!
In the first episode of Season 2, we reflect on some highlights from the first year of the Adventures in Learning Design podcast. We also look ahead to what’s coming up in our first-ever themed mini-series – on the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion in learning design!
Plus, Tim has a special announcement to make…
Download a copy of the ILXD Dimensions, mentioned in this episode and explored throughout Season 2, at learnjam.com/resources
Season 1
14 | Learning through text messages
In this episode we have a scintillating conversation with Rachel Nemeth, CEO of a New York-based startup called Opus. Opus is a digital platform that delivers text message courses for deskless workers, and LearnJam has been working with them recently develop the learning design and content for some of those courses.
We talked about where the inspiration for Opus came from, what exactly it is and how it works. We also hear Rachel’s take on what makes for effective SMS-based learning and why she thinks it’s so valuable and important for deskless or frontline workers.
13 | Storyboarding courses
One of the key tools we use to design online courses is storyboarding. It involves getting all of the people who are involved in the development of the online course together to create a visual map of the flow of a course. We use this storyboard to identify gaps, opportunities to do interesting things, and to make sure the whole thing is actually helping learners to achieve their goals.
In this episode, Tim and Laurie speak to Lucy Williams from the LearnJam team about how we use this process and why it works so well. We also share some tips and ideas for how to storyboard remotely.
If you like this episode, check out our detailed step-by-step guide on how to storyboard a course.
12 | Inclusive learning design
Tim and Laurie talk to fellow LearnJammers Laura Patsko and Lucy Williams about an Innovate UK project we are working on to develop and share best practices in inclusive online learning.
In our conversation, we covered:
- How the rush to online learning in response to the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing exclusion issues.
- How we’ve developed our understanding of what exclusion means.
- Our approach to developing a framework and set of tools to help raise awareness of inclusive learning design.
- How the project has had an impact on LearnJam as an organisation.
11 | Agile
Link:
- The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time – Jeff Sutherland
In this episode, Tim and Laurie speak to Jo Sayers, fellow co-founder of LearnJam, about how (and why) he uses Agile product development methodologies to develop digital learning products and solutions.
We thought it’d be great to have a chat with Jo to find out a bit more about his approach and to see what advice he has for anyone looking to learn more about Agile and how it can be put into practice.
In our conversation, we covered:
- What Agile actually is and what an Agile project looks like.
- How to manage a backlog and why it’s important.
- What makes a good user story and how to write one.
- Why we use Agile in our Learning Design projects
- The challenges of applying Agile, and some pro tips.
10 | Research
In this episode Tim and Laurie talk to Laura Patsko about how she carried out the research that led to the creation of our evidence-informed learning design principles.
Laura is a language and pedagogy consultant and an exceptional researcher. In our conversation, we covered:
- Laura’s circuitous route to became a learning experience designer.
- How we worked together in 2019 to share our understanding and unearth questions about what really works in learning; and how Laura used that as a launchpad to dive into an ocean of learning science research, with the goal of helping us to identify and synthesise practical insights that could inform the work we do as learning designers.
- Laura’s specific process for working through mountains of research in a way that’s both effective and manageable.
- How Laura is able to maintain energy and stay productive while doing research work.
- How bringing in external reviewers took the process to the next level, and uncovered a major gap in our thinking about how learning works.
- How we can apply the insights from the research in practical ways on learning projects.
- How we see our learning design principles evolving over time.
09 | Motivation
Tim, Laurie and Katy talk about motivation – one of the most important aspects of learning, but also one of the most difficult to design for. We discuss some of the theories of motivation and share examples of how they can be put into practice – including recent learning experiences we’ve taken part in which succeeded in motivating us.
08 | Innovation
In this episode Tim and Laurie speak to fellow LearnJam co-founder, Nick Robinson. As well as his LearnJam work, Nick does a lot of executive coaching and training with a focus on innovation and creativity. We discuss whether people can be trained to be innovative and what an innovative organisation looks like.
07 | Dyslexia and learning design
Links:
- Martin Bloomfield on LinkedIn: https://tinyurl.com/y3dhzftp
- Dyslexia Bytes: http://www.dyslexiabytes.org/
- YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/yyz3rl2g
- Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/y6aqelml
- Dyslexic Advantage
- https://www.madebydyslexia.org/
- https://www.nessy.com/uk/
- https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/
- https://dyslexiaida.org/
In this episode we talk to Martin Bloomfield. Martin is a trainer at York Associates where he helps people develop skills to improve communication across cultures. He has visiting lecturer positions in colleges and Higher Education institutions across Europe and is the author of Dyslexia Bytes, which won a special commendation for equality, diversity and inclusion at the 2020 ELTon award.
In our fascinating conversation with Martin we find out that dyslexia is not what we thought it was. We learn that people with dyslexia can experience time in a different way and what that means for us as Learning Designers. Martin also explains how literacy can sometimes be a major impediment to learning, whether you experience dyslexia or not. If that wasn’t enough, we discover that we actually have more than five senses.
06 | Our learning design process
In this episode we unpack the stages we go through in our Learning Design process, we confront our lack of building expertise, and Laurie coins the phrase “cathedral of learning”.
05 | Positive framing in Learning Design
In this episode, we chat to LearnJam’s Learning Designer, Katy Asbury. Katy tells us the story of a particularly horrendous hike that she did in New Zealand and how, subsequently, she was able to reframe that from a really negative experience to one of the absolute highlights of her year. She shares her thinking and reading around what positive framing might mean for Learning Design.
Check out Katy’s blogpost The power of positive framing in learning design
04 | Design thinking
Links:
- Laurie refers to a LearnJam blogpost on how to understand your learners more deeply
- Tim refers to this article on Harvard Business Review by Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg.
- You can download a copy of our Powerful Questions here.
In this episode, we talk about design thinking; what it is, how it works, and how we use it in our own projects, including how we applied it to develop a prototype of a chatbot that the world wasn’t ready for. We also talk about how Tim had to go back to school to learn empathy and how mirrors can solve the problem of slow elevators.
03 | Our learning design principles
In this episode we talk about our three research-based Learning Design principles, Laurie shares a recent confrontation with an enraged optometrist around a less than optimal digital learning experience, and we uncover a couple of areas in which we realise we could have done better.
02 | What does a learning designer do?
In this episode, we talk about how you need to tell your clients they’re wrong sometimes, and we somehow managed to compare a Learning Designer to a film director.
01 | What is learning design?
In this episode, we talk about the futility of asking people what they want, and we somehow managed to clumsily compare Learning Design to both music and medicine.
