Page 26 - Reimagining Higher Education : Case Studies On Designing For Inclusion, Equity, And Access In The Buka Project

H. Annala · Learning Design

initiative for TAMK teachers in 2016 (Pihlajarinne, Haapakangas & Annala, 2017),
and later extended to cover Tampere University sta members as well. At times, it

was also o ered as a paid-for course for external participants from around the
world. The idea of the course is to capacitate educators to teach online through an

online programme that will support them step by step in the process of designing
their own online modules. At the same time, the programme o ers the participants

a hands-on example of what well-designed online learning is like. Everyone who

joins the programme has their own design ideas that they will work on as the
programme progresses. The programme has been run now altogether nine times,

and it has naturally evolved a great deal over the years based on the feedback and

experiences. Because of this evolution, the completion rate of the programme has,
for instance, risen from 31% to 91%, and the feedback has been very positive. The

main LD-related takeaways from running the programme are:

● Authenticity: A programme that focuses on designing online learning
should be an online programme itself, because it puts the participants in the

students’ shoes and it gives a practical example of what good online learning

could look like;
● Beginning: To facilitate student success, it is key to focus on the first few

weeks by establishing an active facilitator presence and a sense of
community through frequent interaction and collaboration;

● Collaboration: One of the fundamental concepts in successful online

learning, but requires careful planning because of di erent skill sets,
interests, and schedules;

● Flexibility: Educators are busy and it is hard to commit to a training course
that has a lot of deadlines and requires hard work. O ering flexibility within

the deadlines is therefore important;

● Incentive: Most educators have been eager to participate because they feel
the course is useful to them, but some educators might benefit from a more

top-down incentive (specifically allocated resources).

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