Back in November last year, we were musing about how we could improve the Web Design course for next semester. Well, now it’s Week 5 of that next semester, so I thought it might be a good time for us all to reflect a bit on how things have been going and get some feedback from all of us – participants and facilitators – on how the course is progressing.
Perceived Problems
First, just to recap what the perceived problems were. One of the issues highlighted through the feedback Genie collected last year was that participants thought the course was delivered either too fast or too slow (corresponding to too little or too much content).
The other main issue that we facilitators identified was that, although students were learning the material throughout the 18 weeks, the last 3-4 weeks was the only time that it was all put into practise as a cohesive whole. This left some participants coming away having completed their client project successfully, but not feeling confident that they could do it again without the classroom support.
The new course…
This semester, we’ve tried to address these issues as well as improve the flexibility of the delivery in a number of ways.
Course and Student Blogs
The central point of contact online has been moved from a password-protected Learning Management System to the much simpler free blogger website: Tafe Web Developer – learning technologies together (note that this provides a point of contact, not a repository of resources that could potentially infringe copyright!). More importantly, participants in the class have been encouraged to create and use their own blog as a means of processing their own learning, communicating their own thoughts to the world and building their technical currency. The participant controls their own learning space beyond the boundaries of the formal course, providing a repository of much (but not all) the learning that they have processed as well as links to the online resources which they have found worthwhile.
I’m also hoping that as we progress through the semester the participant blogs will become a source of information for each other as we develop a learning community – each of us filtering relevant news and information for each other from the Web simply by our common interest.
Self-paced delivery
The participant blogs also provide a way for students to communicate their learning and reflections in their own time. Often in Adult Education the ability to attend the classroom activity varies according to other commitments (work or otherwise). The online learning spaces (blogs) go a small way towards enabling participants to interact with each other’s learning even when they are not physically in the classroom.
More importantly, participants are able to work through the learning at their own pace. Some students may demonstrate competence for a few modules in the first week, while others might want to set some extra time aside to work through unfamiliar material more thoroughly. This has been made possible by agreeing on individual learning contracts where desired and providing a number of self-paced mini-projects for students to learn the required competencies.
The mini-projects
The primary aim of the mini-projects is to provide a way for participants to learn the skills of website design holistically. In the past, each individual module/competency has been taught (usually one after the other) and then participants had to gel all of these together in their client project. What we are trying to do is introduce all topics in some small way in the first mini-project, then build on these from one project to the next.
For example, the first mini-project follows closely from Elizabeth Castro’s excellent new book, Creating a Web Page in HTML, ensuring that all participants learn HTML/CSS the right way from the start. But we also begin learning about client documentation, project management, information architecture, accessibility etc., during this first project so that we have a foundation to build upon for the second mini-project.
The focus of the second project shifts slightly to emphasise more communication skills such as client interviews, project management skills, further documentation, while giving participants an opportunity to practise their HTML/CSS skills as they implement the client requirements.
We will possibly begin a third project concurrently, a real client project from the community. This mini-project will not require handing-in on behalf of the participants, but rather should provide a platform for real learning where we can continue building on our foundation of project management, communication and technical skills by applying ourselves as a team to a real project in the classroom. This project may not be completed by the one class but may rollover into the next semester.
The aim of these mini-projects is that when participants begin their own client projects they will feel confident within themselves to implement the whole project with minimal help from the facilitators – from project planning right through to testing and sign-off. This will provide valid evidence for us facilitators to use for assessment and will hopefully leave successful participants feeling ready to continue implementing web-design projects beyond the boundaries of the course. Again, I’m also hoping that participants will continue to support each other after the course by contributing to each others’ learning on their blogs.
Reflections so far…
This is where I want to hand over to anyone and everyone. Whether you’re a facilitator of the course, or a participant, or someone who just happened to read this, I’m sure you’ve got some constructive criticism or feedback. Some people have already expressed some frustration at constantly updating their blog, others have been thankful for the flexibility that the course structure offers, so whatever you think, you probably won’t be alone! I’ll be adding my own comments expressing both the good and the bad
Coming in this semester has been a joy. The time I have to spend on this course is one of continued frustration, but now that you guys have set up this on-line system…..It’s fantastic.
For me, using this method of teaching, I feel part of the class, even though I am hardly ever here. The blogs have been confronting for me, but that’s my own ‘stuff’. I am gradually getting used to them, and being able to learn from other students is invaluable. It also makes me write my thoughts down more, which is a good way for me to learn.
You three are champions………
There can be no doubt that the current, blog, approach is much better than the previous system in terms of student access particularly off-campus. I must say the idea of the mini-projects and what I’ve seen of its implementation does appear to handle the different speeds of various students. Having been through the pre-moodle period, and then the moodle period, and now trying the blog period, I feel the blog approach is effective in addressing the problem of individual attention when having students at different points of their study programs.
For me learning to manage a mini project from the basic principles of HTML using CSS and at the same time being introduced to communication with prospective clients and project management will assist me to complete a whole project with some confidence in the future. When I have learned all the major steps to be taken in obtaining and then achieving a completed project, I will certainly feel more certain about being able to manage a mini project with minimum support from a facilitator. I find a holisitic approach must more rewarding.
Having participated in the bulk of this course last semester I can see the changes highligted and agree fully with their reasons for implamentation. So far I feel that the learning time is being used alot more efficiently and I feel that the step by step approach to using the book in the first project will help the students to see very early on just how a site can be put together, therefore helping the information to sink in without to much effort. Also what I have noticed is that there are some students who already have some background in html and would not benefit from the way in which the course started out last semester.
The online learning environment and flexibility of the student blog makes this course managable as it would be difficult to attend full time. I think it is actually benifical that a web design course has a large emphassis on electronic communication and interaction. I think it is also great that the course is now structured less linearly with students able to progress down and develop their own path of learning as each student comes with their own strengths, weaknesses and ambitions in regards to web development.
[...] It’s been a crazy first week back in class, with over 20 of us starting out in the Web Design course! It’s got me thinking about better ways to facilitate our individual learning when there’s so many of us… and I’d love to have some feedback! Just over a year ago, Genie, Jude and I did a lot of thinking about the Web Design course after going through participant feedback. To summarise, the biggest issue was that the lock-step approach (”this week we’re all learning PHP”) didn’t suit most people – for some the learning was too fast, for others too slow. So we worked pretty hard to build a learning environment where we can all learn at an individual pace that keeps us challenged but not overwhelmed, and yet still learn from each other as a social group. While there’s heaps of room for improvement, the feedback was generally good. [...]
Thanks for your wonderful article! I teach a web standards focused Web Design course at TAFE and all the things you talked about are familure and very helpful! Thanks!
Thanks for dropping in Marcus… nice to know people are finding some of this stuff helpful :)
[...] One thought I’ve been mulling over the past few days is to start a client project with those learners who are ready, but with a lot more “scaffolding” to guide learners step-by-step through the complete process (we have been scaffolding projects to some degree after reflecting on our web design course last year, but I guess I’m thinking about a step-by-step process through the first client project). This would allow those learners who are keen to develop a real client project to do exactly that, while ensuring that a whole web design process is experienced. At the same time, it will require a commitment from learners to completing all the details (such as client surveys, user testing etc) and not just doing the coding! [...]
[...] I don’t know about you, but I’m constantly hearing that I need to be working on my own professional development and my technical currency – providing evidence to be signed off that I’m participating in professional development activities. Why not have fun while doing so and extend your audience of 1 (your “line-manager”) to anyone else out there who’s keen to learn with you? (for e.g., see Teaching Web Design Part II) [...]
[...] See Teaching Web Design Part 2 from March 05 for more detail. [...]
[...] The biggest problem that we’re facing is how to provide a schedule of learning activities that caters for the ranging needs of learners and addresses the required skills. We tried to implement the idea of a succession of mini-projects where each project builds on the last project and integrates more skills, together with individual learning contracts with individual deadlines (see Teaching Web Design Part II for more details). In practice, we’ve only had time to create individual learning contracts with the flexible students (leaving full-time students who learn at their own pace without any schedule or timeline) and the mini-projects were too difficult to develop without time put aside to do so. In addition to this, quite a few students had something better to work on which demanded their time: real client projects. [...]