USING VISUALISATION TO CAPTURE STUDENT RESPONSES

CHALLENGE

The challenge is capturing student experience of online teaching in order to inform our thinking  about blended (physical and remote) learning for the Autumn term. Due to the pandemic, my  University (based in the UK) has rushed to put all teaching on line and generally done a reasonable  job considering the very limited preparation time. However, I wanted to capture information from  students about how they managed the new asynchronous learning over the 5 week period after  Easter (where they could meet for virtual live sessions as well as carry on working in blog and forum  environments). Autumn will demand a mix of remote and physical teaching as we will continue  social distancing measures. Rather than impose on the students our view of blended learning – I  want to take a much more co-creation approach by understanding their experience. This challenge  suited design thinking as it was human focused and was trying to capture an understanding of things  that were uncertain, difficult to pin down and about which there was little previous data (specifically  from our students on this mode of teaching); and I wanted to explore in order to find places of  agreement.

SELECTION

I chose visualisation as a method as it is a great way to capture a variety of responses and see if I  could spot patterns from the information. By opening up a creative area of the brain to address a  problem and moving away from text and language by using visual imagery (in various forms from  drawings to photos) it allows for new ways of looking at an issue. Using visualisation was helpful in  particular as it could be undertaken with a limited time frame as it could be a quick response. It also  was something I could plan for students to do it remotely and individually. I also wanted to move  students into a new arena to illustrate their thinking as I felt if they had been talking they might just  start complaining about remote teaching – which was an understandable reaction to the crisis but I  wanted to move them on from that and be more open minded to opportunity; this way I could get  some really useful views from them and understand how they actually found working in this way. As  Angela Myer suggests, visualisation can be used in many ways, and there may be different  approaches at different stages in the process. I was at the beginning of the design thinking process,  getting a better understanding of ‘what is’ in order to be ready to generate ideas for the next stage.  As Angela Myer says through visualisation ‘the more likely you are to achieve a sense of agreement  and consensus with people’ and ‘the more you are likely to draw out conversation’, both of these  things were very much my aims for using visualisation.

APPLICATION

The students had initially been presented with a rough diagram of how a weekly pattern of teaching  might look: there were various elements students had to engage in during a given week – eg   independent targets for their assessments,  discussions on specific weekly tasks in an online forum,  preparing the activities for lessons, online meetings etc. This gave them some weekly structure to be  thinking about as we were teaching. At the end of the five weeks I gave them a task to draw out  their own view of their pattern of working through the week – at least in its ideal form. I called this  their weekly working rhythm to see if they could visualise how their weekly pattern of learning  would work. I reassured them brilliant design skills were not required – just hand drawn roughs they  could scan/photograph and send me. They could draw it out in any way they wanted: for example

using icons (eg logos for attending lectures, or blog writing, or reading), or stick people to indicate  numbers of people, or bars and lines perhaps to indicated contact time vs independent time flowing  through the week, or drawing different locations to represent different activities.  It was a  reasonable application of the tool and was effective as I got 22 different visual representation of  learning rhythms over a week. The students really engaged with the process.

INSIGHT

Once these came in I was able to analyse them to look for the following things to identify insights :  what patterns emerged in terms of their weekly structures that they all did, what things seemed to  get mentioned more, what sort of deadlines they seemed to set for themselves, how they balanced  out their week of academic working. All this was part of my process to identify insights. I could see  for instance that there was not a great emphasis on discussion forums (some raised them some  didn’t) and so I would need to think more carefully about how to engage them in those, or if indeed  the students wanted them at all. As a way to capture information from students in terms of it as a  visual process, it was really helpful for seeing things from different angles.

Overall visualisation gave me a huge amount of information from many individuals in one very quick  way (quick for them to do and give me, and quick also for me to analyse). The creativity that  emerged was a wonderful side benefit too. What I particularly felt in terms of the design thinking  process was that this was only the very first step in a much bigger process – just as outlined by the  course in terms of the stages. Even within that stage of ‘what is’ I think I can do more to draw out  more understanding of the student’s working week. I see that further discussions with them could  segue into the ‘what if’ stage too as I could see them suggesting some ideas as discussions continue;  so, design thinking is a more seamless process I think in that sense.

APPROACH

I would definitely use this approach again for all sorts of feedback stages. I could brief it in a bit  differently – and open it up a bit more to capture different ideas; this was quite specific and  visualisation can work well if it is very open ended. I would draw it into a more comprehensive  approach to researching the ‘what is’. I also could add in something that makes them provide their  opinion a bit more in order to see what they would like in blended learning as much as what they are  doing now. I might need to tell them more about why visualisation can work in order to get them to  engage more fully (particularly those who were a bit reluctant to participate – whose views it may be  even more important to access as they may be less engaged). I want to build on this now to have a  discussion with them about what emerged from the visualisation to see if we could come up with an  ideal blended learning pattern.

There was an additional benefit which I had hoped would emerge. It allowed me to see how what  teaching worked in a digital environment but also empowered the students to feel engaged in the  teaching and learning process, and feel part of the course; they could see what the benefits were  through their own reflections so they could be maybe more positive about the experience and  ultimately I felt we engaged in a great stage in co-curriculum design between us,

In terms of final reflection on my own learning, by really thinking through the opportunities this tool  could provide I realised how powerful it could be. From the immense teaching challenges we have  just undergone I think I do approach this with a  learning mindset (doing this course has been an  important part of this for me) and I hope I have a reasonable repertoire (having done different sorts  of things before I came into academia in different sorts of publishing businesses). These are central  tenets to being open minded about opportunity as I employ design thinking approaches to  understand student experience and work on new approaches to teaching for the Autumn.

