Hello and welcome to today's panel discussion about the
role of the learning designer, the learning technologist and the
media coordinator and their support for academics in Australian Higher
Education institutions.
My name is Liisa
Uusimaki
I am a visiting scholar from the University of Gothenburg
or Göteborgs Universitet in Sweden, and I want to
take this opportunity to begin today with
Liisa Uusimaki:
So the purpose of my visit to Swinburne University
of Technology is to further develop my understanding how Australian
universities are organised to support new ways of technology in
teaching and learning.
In contrast to Sweden, it is Australia's long history of
distance education that has resulted in the solid organisation of
online teaching and learning found across all universities, the infrastructure
IT support as well as the teaching and learning support offered
to academics by the learning designer.
So today I want to welcome a team from Swinburne
University's Learning Transformations Unit.
Firstly, Antoinette Gwasira.
Gwasira
Thank you.
That's all right.
Who is the manager of learning design then we
have Natasha Hobbs or Tash, who has worked as a
learning designer for the past three years.
Hello.
Thank you.
And then we have on my left David Yammouni,
who is learning technologist and also in charge of media
coordination.
Welcome.
Thank you.
So I think one of the I mean, I just
love the idea of learning design and learning designers work.
And particularly, I want to hear a little bit more
about the Learning Transformations Unit.
Um, I understand it is an own apartment.
Maybe you can share some of what does the learning
transformations unit there?
That's right.
That's all right.
Thanks, Liisa, for having us.
Um, And I'm just gonna tell you a little bit
about the Learning Transformations Unit.
We are not
technically, a department if you think about it.
A department is normally part of a faculty or a
school. We're actually a service.
We provide a service for the institution.
Um, we are part of the EEE portfolio.
That's an acronym.
That is the Swinburne way.
EEE is Education, Experience and Employability. We're one of
five services as part of that, and Learning Transformations Unit
is one of the only ones that actually support staff.
So, really, our mandate is to support teachers and academic
staff in terms of not only creating but also designing
really great impactful learning experiences for students through great teaching
practice.
And we achieve this through amazing professional learning opportunities that
we have.
We have workshops and training sessions that we run.
We ensure that we have everything sort of
evidence based around a scholarship of teaching and learning.
We have teaching events such as seminars.
We have an annual learning and teaching conference as well,
so there are quite a number of events that we
have, but we also, and this is part of
what David's team comes into it.
We manage the learning technology ecosystem of the institution as
well. So the Learning Transformations Unit is made of quite
a few teams and so there's a learning technologies team
that David is a part of.
We have the learning design team that I lead and
Tash is one of the learning designers in than that team,
we also have an academic team that sort of looks
and takes care of the scholarship of teaching
and learning.
But as part of that as well, we support some
key strategic priorities for the institution and the two major
ones that currently are the digital blended learning as well
as digital literacies programme.
And so we have different people who come in and
out to support those, in particular for blended learning.
There's a separate a team of learning experience.
designers who support that as well.
But the teams work very closely and collaboratively together to
ensure that we actually achieve the mandate of the Learning
Transformations Unit.
Beautiful.
And you know, so and, you know, I was just
going to ask you before that who makes the decision
and what determines the support that is offered to lecturers
from LTU unit?
And how is the learning organised face to face or
online?
So the big boss is our DVC of
the EEE ortfolio.
And that's Professor Sarah Maddison.
And so our director of the Learning Transformations Unit, very
newly appointed director.
That's associate Professor Llew Mann that reports directly to her.
And so she makes those specific decisions.
Please could repeat your second question?
Yes.
So they are the ones who make the decision.
But are they also the ones who then decides what
is needed?
And because you also talk about the scholarship of teaching
and learning, and you have an academic team, and so
I'm curious.
So when you when you basically mentioned that I thought
Okay, so that means that they are support people for
also for learning designers in what are we going to
be focusing on?
But I just was curious that who decides that?
Okay, we're going to be focusing on blended learning.
Well, to be honest, that is not really we
do as experts in the field, speak to the
decisions that are made,
but it's really coming as a strategic priority
from the university.
They decide exactly what the focus is going to be
in terms of what are the strategic priorities.
And then our team basically supports what comes down from
them.
So in terms of what's required, it's really
just seeing what the needs are currently not only in,
Swinburne University, but the rest of the country as
well, and determining that you know if blended
learning is the way that we're going,
And obviously, a little bit later, we'll talk about something
like hyflex and hybrid.
That's also an advancement that's happening within our field, and
it's only right that we're obviously supporting those major advancement
within our field.
So it certainly has outside forces and we come together
and ensure that we actually have the expertise and the
people.
We can actually support those specific strategic priorities, so those
decisions are kind of made outside of the unit.
But we do certainly inform what's happening through our own
experience and expertise as well.
And so it's very much about the real life.
So there's that connection.
And so when we talk about job readiness of students
and are particularly academics, that's one of our roles is
to make sure that we're with the times, and
of course this are fabulous.
Thank you for sharing that with us and and of course, and we're
going to come back to some of the topics or
that you brought up there.
But I think it's really important to do to understand
the role of the learning designer and do you want
to start?
And then we go into Tash.
Sure.
Yeah.
In terms of my own background, I can I
can just give a quick history.
So I consider myself a teacher by profession.
So I am educated as a teacher.
I taught in a middle and a high school before making
the decision to pursue my postgraduate studies.
And when I sort of did my investigations and trying
to find out what's available to specialise in, I came
across this very novel idea back in the day, it
was called computer integrated education, that shows my age.
In a sense, become technology enhanced learning.
And so I was just really fascinated about this area.
I was like, Oh, okay, um, it just seemed to
me it opens up so many more opportunities.
Whereas when I was a teacher I had a class of
about 30 students, it's very limited to the four walls
that I have the students within.
But when you talk about computer integrated education, it just
opens up the world so much more.
And I just I was just drawn to that.
And so I studied that I did my postgraduate,
studies around that and my first job after that
was as a curriculum development practitioner and there really I
started to work with academic staff within higher education context
and really just just about supporting staff, to realise and
fulfil that potential already as is.
I mean, they are the subject matter experts, but we
are sort of the teaching and learning experts and just
supporting them to ensure that they're actually applying the principles
that they're meant to.
There's an assumption that, you know, as a teacher, an
expert in a particular area, you should be able to
stand in front of the classroom and teach.
But that's not true.
You know, not everybody's natural teacher.
Not everybody knows the teaching and learning principles, and that's
where my role comes into it.
So I have that background of education.
You know, those fundamentals and foundation of learning and teaching.
And I work with experts within the field to
ensure that they're able to relay and communicate and articulate
what the subject's about in a way that is understandable
for different students.
So it's inclusive, it's accessible and really we're just going
kind of going back to the basics And so we
don't want academics to be, you know, kind of the
jack of all trades and know everything, but really the
role of the learning designers just to step in, its
to step in and then just say, no, this
is my area of expertise.
How can I support you?
You know you're already doing this.
How can we make that a little bit easier or
better for you and for your students as well?
So at the end of it, it's about the students.
So we always just go back to about students centred
learning.
What do you need to do to ensure that you
actually design a course and teach in a way that
really speaks to your students?
And that's pretty much for me what a learning designer
is.
And obviously I've I've kind of moved across from curriculum
development all the way to learning design, and now I
manage a learning design team.
But that's the core of it, working with staff supporting
them so that they can really fulfill their potential.
Wonderful and And just you know, when we talk about
what you read and you absolutely agree with you when
we talk about academics, and some are "We are experts
in our areas" but we may not have the pedagogical
skills or the ideas, and that's where you come in.
Is that correct?
That's exactly right, Natasha.
or Tash, can you tell us about your - how you see the
role of the learning designer and a little bit about
your background.
Okay, well, Antoinette covered really the role of the
learning designers so beautifully just then
but maybe if I go through what I do
in my day to day, so if I walk you
through the day of a learning designer and I'll think
about, some of the things that I've done in
the in the last few days.
So we, we hold workshops for teaching staff
to, to come and learn in different skills in,
Canvas in, authentic learning and also in
universal design for learning and those sorts of things and
enhancing enhancing content.
Basically, for learning. A bit about my background.
I came from a teaching background as well.
I taught for 10 years in higher ed at a
different institute.
Before I made the transition to to learning design.
I was at a bit of a crossroads because I was
teaching in higher ed with a Masters and looking at
perhaps pursuing a PhD to really become or
to pursue a career in teaching in higher ed.
But someone said to me, have a look at learning
design And I thought that I didn't even really realise
that that role existed as a teacher.
So that's, I think that's interesting as well that
a lot of teachers don't realise that there are learning
designers that can support.
They're teaching in the ways that Antoinette said that we
we do. (Liisa) - And you studied for it?
Yes, I did.
So I was actually the first cohort.
I believe that went through Deakin University, and I studied
digital learning
leadership is the name of the course, a graduate certificate
in digital learning leadership.
It does extend on to a masters as well,
but I got so much out of actually
studying what a learning designer does, and it's a really
interesting space because there is a lot of conversations about
what a learning designer is. You asked what
a learning designer is, so learning
designers work in so many different areas.
So when I had a look at, you know, Are
there going to be, I'm going to study this,
Are there going to be jobs out there?
There were jobs in hospitals.
There were jobs in, commercial enterprise, learning design enterprises
that work for universities.
There are, like, we're In house in a university.
There are learning designers across government.
And the names of what
the role is different across all of those as well.
So, for instance, even with our team, there are learning
designers and learning experience designers.
There are instructional designers that are very similar to
what we do.
There is crossover, um, and flexibility across all of those
all of those roles.
So I feel like I know a bit
about all of those things.
We work together and kind of interchangeable.
Wow, it is more complex than I would even imagine.
Just yesterday, I filled out a survey on exactly that.
Actually, there is a group of academics who are looking
at what the role of a learning designer is and
trying getting all these learning designers to say, what do
they do in their everyday in their everyday role.
So my everyday roll can consist of, sitting in
a drop in where teachers can come with, for
personalised support, which is technical support, which we often speak.
How are you using the technology as well as a
learning designer?
You know, how is that implemented?
Is that is that working for you and so forth
And also, having a look and sense checking
instructions for teachers as well.
What are their assessment instructions and even providing guidance on
the type of assessment and thinking about alternatives and digital
assessments as well.
Thank you.
So over to David.
Now, David, you can you talk about your role as
a learning technologist?
I think it's really fascinating word technologist, and I assume
that is different from IT support?
Very much so.
So for us when we talk about a learning technologist,
these are people that support the learning design team.
So we work hand in hand and together, often to
work through how to use technology effectively in teaching and
for me in particular, one of the things that I
believe a good learning technologists has as a skill as
a tool is the ability to translate difficult technology and
make it more human so that as a teacher they
don't they're not terrified by the technology.
Because you were saying yourself in the discussions we've had,
people are terrified of the technology.
They say, "Why would I use this?
I'm too busy teaching!". If you can make the technology
more approachable and supported in a way that's easy to
use and can integrate with how they design and develop
their teaching, the chances of success of using that technology
increase.
So we, certainly as a learning technologist.
we do much more than IT.
What IT do in terms of their support is what
we call break, fix.
You've got a broken computer, they will fix it.
But if you want to know how to use the
computer, they won't help you because they're focused on the
technology's function - black box.
Correct.
Whereas for us, we show you how to use the
black box and how to get the most out of
it and how to use it appropriately, what the best
practices are.
We look at research from around the world and we
take cues from our learning design colleagues, and we support
them with the technology.
So we'll say to them, Have you ever tried?
People will come to us with a problem and they'll
say, I want this and we'll say, "Well, okay,
Have you tried this connected with this and this tool
working with this tool?", and they say, "No, I never
thought of that before."
And so we provide a solution.
So we're looking at the user perspective, whereas IT really
looks at the technology itself.
And that's the difference between the two.
Thank you, David.
What a good answer.