Page 25 - Reimagining Higher Education : Case Studies On Designing For Inclusion, Equity, And Access In The Buka Project

H. Annala · Learning Design

Capacity Building Cases in Learning Design

Building sta capacity in LD can be accomplished in di erent ways, but it is often a

sensible approach to familiarise oneself with some practical examples to assess
whether they can be utilised in one’s own context. Tampere University of Applied

Sciences (TAMK), the coordinating institution in the BUKA project, has a long

history in sta capacity building, and they have, for example, o ered training and
support for educators wishing to start teaching online for at least the past 20 years.

In 2015, there was a strong need to develop a model at TAMK to better support the
implementation of high quality online teaching practices, and to tackle that

challenge the Digimentor Network was created. Later in 2019, the network was
extended to also cover Tampere University (Junes, 2020), with which TAMK

collaborates very closely. The Digimentors were selected from among educators

already working with the Tampere Universities Community who were enthusiastic
about digital and online teaching.

The Digimentors were selected so that there was at least one in each school

or faculty, and their tasks included o ering peer support in using digital tools
(both one-on-one help and team workshops), encouraging and empowering

educators to utilise digitalisation, and disseminating best practices within their
unit. Because no one knows everything, the Digimentor Network also acted as a

meta-level peer support network, with each member o ering support to all the
others according to their respective areas of expertise. It became clear very quickly

that the network was a beneficial initiative, and it is still operational in both

institutions. The network proved to be especially valuable at the outset of the
COVID-19 pandemic, as the Tampere Universities Community had an e cient

support network already in place, unlike many other organisations. The concept
was successful for two reasons: firstly, the Digimentors were educators, not IT

professionals, and therefore they had pedagogical understanding and could
e ectively help other educators; and secondly, they were trusted members of their

work communities, which made it easier for their colleagues to ask them for help.

Another very practical LD capacity building example from TAMK is a sta
training programme called How to Design an Online Course, which began as an

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