Progressing online asynchronous learning

I saw the question below a while ago on a call for blog posts to spark ideas for types of content to publish.  Inspired by this question, I thought I'd attempt to answer it and pull in a couple related pieces of work I am doing in this space.

"How do you structure an asynchronous learning session for your subject?"

Firstly, online asynchronous learning design is one of my specialist areas identified in my SCMALT and demonstrated further work through my SFHEA.  Also, in December 2021 I delivered a session ‘Creating and improving asynchronous learning opportunities’.

In brief, to get started on developing asynchronous learning, I prefer to have an initial conversation with Subject Matter Experts, in my context lecturers.  To explore what the learning objectives/outcomes are, what ideas they have they'd like to achieve, and then to discuss and recommend possible digital solutions, or no digital in some cases.

The following theories are what I often use to underpin conversations and inform the design of asynchronous online activities, to structure the material and present in an appropriate scaffolded format to encourage effective engagement.

• Forms of activity - Conole, G., Dyke, M., Oliver, M. and Seale, J. (2004) 'Mapping pedagogy and tools for effective learning design', Computers and Education, vol. 43, nos.1–2, pp.17–33.
• Synchronous online, synchronous offline, asynchronous online or asynchronous offline - Cornock, M (2020) Blended Hybrid Online Digital Dual Delivery Learning and Teaching – Will Students Get Lost in the Design? [online] Available at: https://mattcornock.co.uk/technology-enhanced-learning/blended-hybrid-online-digital-dual-delivery-learning-and-teaching-will-students-get-lost-in-the-design
• Learning types - Laurillard, D (2012) Teaching as a Design Science: Building Pedagogical Patterns for Learning and Technology. London: Routledge.
• Etivities invitation - Salmon, G (2013) E- Tivities: The Key to Active Online Learning. 2nd ed. Routledge.
• Five-Stage Model - Salmon, G (2011) E- Moderating: The Key to Online Teaching and Learning. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge.
• I have come to learn these other types of scaffolding to support online instruction, which I am in the process of developing my understanding and application of: procedural scaffolding; conceptual scaffolding; strategic scaffolding; metacognitive scaffolding. Jumaat, Nurul & Tasir, Zaidatun. (2014). Instructional Scaffolding in Online Learning Environment: A Meta-analysis. Proceedings of the IEEE. 74-77. 10.1109/LaTiCE.2014.22.

If there are interactive learning objects to be created as part of this type of learning experience.  Drawing on other literature such as instructional design for what I call 'wrap around instruction' and multimedia literature to support visual design production.  However, if the content is more complex and needs to be analysed at course/module level, then I would lean more towards a full learning design framework such as Laurillard's ABC framework, Salmon's Carpe Diem to be more effective to develop the bigger picture/vision.

A successful example

My objective for developing online asynchronous learning is well embedded into my Digital Learning Strategy.  To increase and improve the quality of our online asynchronous learning (and formative assessment) opportunities.  The following project presented an ideal opportunity to scale up this stream of work.  Which I viewed as ideal for a first iteration to create an exemplar us and lecturers to build on and develop through other modules.  And it did just that, spreading like wildfire across the department through showcasing of it - and this is just the start of more work on this objective.

A bit of background context.  In February 2024, two Senior Lecturers from nursing reached out to discuss and explore opportunities on how they could make a two hour in-person lecture for engaging.  I arranged an initial meeting on 29 February to discuss and understand the situation and what is required, and for the Digital Curriculum Team to inspire content redesign and digital practices via NOW learning room web pages and H5P objects, as well as other possible digital tools.  The main reasons for this lecture redesign is as follows.

Senior Lecturer - "The main reasons for adapting the Learning Strategies content was to make it more accessible to the students and also a more appropriate format for learning about learning.  I wanted to move it from a 2 hour lecture where I felt was a bit contradictory, if we are teaching people about learning strategies it should be more engaging and accessible.

Module specifications for Introduction to Nursing stated that there would be blended learning activities on the NOW learning room and that the Learning Strategies aligned more with that than with a lecture format - especially since the Introduction to Nursing module had no NOW learning room activities previous to this!"

In the meeting we confirmed the following where we would meet on 4 April 2024 to discuss progress and further actions.

1. Senior Lecturers to curate learning strategies content, to then start to translate into a kind of storyboard to map out the theoretical content and structure, and identify appropriate H5P content types.  The Microsoft PowerPoint provided the storyboard with the confirmed content.
2. Use of Padlet as a online social collaborative activity and/or students to produce an educational resource and then annotate with a justification of underpinning learning theories.  Potential for students to evaluate/reflect on this whole online learning experience and how it met their own preferred learning needs e.g. what learning types are present and how it effective it was to them as a mixture.
3. Use of Salmon’s E-tivity invitation framework to underpin the structure of this activity.
4. Consideration for communication strategy as some students won’t be used of this way of learning online – effective scaffolding.
5. Consideration for online learning principles.
6. Decide and agree milestones and next steps leading to the goal of launching for September 2024.

Some feedback on the outcomes of this:

Senior Lecturer - "I want the learning strategies session to be quite comprehensive, and because we are using more and more learning technology now I think this would be a really important/useful thing to include in the content for sure!"

Me - "...what I talked through yesterday regarding the asynch approach, does it sound suitable/appropriate for you?"

Senior Lecturer - "It honestly sounds really good!  And definitely what we need in the module!!"

My colleague and I went away and analysed the Microsoft PowerPoint material and during this process I developed a 'Asynchronous learning specification and action plan'.  Highlighting what content and interactive activities are going on which designated web pages.  With the following milestones:

• Set up NOW Unit and web page structure – by mid-May
• Write draft activity instructions and redevelop/Build all content including H5P parts – by end of June
• Including any required collaboration with Senior Lecturers
• Digital Curriculum Team mid-review/reality check
• Communicate mock-up of the structure and content, with opportunity to give feedback, early July
• Review/reality check whole content – by early August 

This provided a structure and action plan for redesigning the lecturer material into a timebound and sequenced online asynchronous activity.  I took lead on developing the scaffold and structure of the whole activity and writing interactive activities using the existing content, proactively redesigning the material from wat was quite passive to more interactive.  My colleague created the learning room web pages based on my outlined structure and created the identified H5P activities, and prettied up the web pages using styling and attributes (icons) and a progress bar to make it more readable and visually engaging.

Time passed and we met our milestones and had a final review on 11 July 2024.  What we produced was a unit of learning that had sub web pages of scaffolded online learning material including formative assessment H5P activities and opportunities for students to share responses to support knowledge development.  Minor changes were made and a short video from one of the Senior Lecturers was produced to introduce the series of activities, the benefits, required engagement and links to the main module were explained.  We concluded by transferring the content to the live learning room and inducted the new Lecturer implementing this, on how they should introduce and facilitate it.  Students are yet to complete this and therefore no feedback obtained yet.

This approach worked well as it utilises existing content, not requiring the lecturer to create new content, and bundles up other resources in a web page that might otherwise have been uploaded as 'static files' - which is still commonplace and much variety is still desired.  Though using web pages is generally more accessible for students as they access NOW via their mobile devices and renders nice, plus web pages have unique URLs to signpost students to.  Showcasing this as an exemplar throughout the department, it spurred on other similar projects such as:

• Senior Lecturer nursing - redesigning PDF-based workbooks into a series of online asynchronous activities.
• Senior Lecturer Paramedicine - redesigning of external speaker content in the above format.
• Senior Lecturer Paramedicine - redesign of apprenticeship bridging module as per above, with another Lecturer requesting the web page templates to redesign some of their content.
• Senior Lecturer - online immersive decision-making H5P Branching Scenarios in the format above.
• Senior Lecturer - asynchronous learning materials to support achieving clinical proficiencies.

I know that many of our other lecturers are already taking this approach.  However, when showcasing this many lecturers have not seen this and are therefore impressed by it.  Even those that are from the same team as those already doing it.  As I oversee digital practices across the department, this tells me that sharing digital practice is not as common as I thought.  So that will be something I will try to facilitate in our management committee meetings.

The success of this collaboration also led to an invitation to the PG Cert Clinical Education committee meetings to improve the online teaching and learning experience to address recent student feedback of wanting more interactivity in their online teaching sessions.

With all of this occurring, I set myself a new appraisal objective, below that aligns to the Digital Learning Strategy objectives in continuing this work for this forthcoming year.

• Utilising the exemplar model developed last year, continue to promote the affordances online asynchronous learning to increase uptake in course and module content.  To better deliver self-directed learning, meet wider learning needs of students and offer variety in content and delivery modality.  Developing more examples to implement, evaluate and gradually scale up.
• Implement and evaluate the learning strategies material with students and module leads.
• Develop further exemplars through the PG Certificate in Clinical Education committee feedback.
• Develop change in lecturer perception of online teaching via Teams, by exploring the exemplar approach above and with current, new and future digital technologies. Aligning these tools and methods with our learning objectives and curriculum. Fostering a culture of innovation, encouraging course teams to continuously learn and experiment.
• Identify how this can be achieved and modelled as good practice within course teams. I.e. as I do currently working with or developing ‘champions’, updating in new governance structure, discussing with Deputy Head to help promote, sharing via professional development café etc.
• Links to Digital Curriculum Support and Developer appraisal outcomes on modelling H5P healthcare exemplars. I.e. the work with learning disabilities and paramedic apprenticeship content.
• Links to outcomes of a H5P content type creation report on our department.
• Plan and distribute a second digital curriculum questionnaire for June/July 2025. To determine how far changes have gone – have we moved massively since last report.