Month: February 2024

Congratulations to the team on winning Best Learning Experience Design in the OpenLearning Global Awards 2023 for the Path to Net Zero microcredential. As an individual or part of a business, learners can contribute to a more sustainable future while also unlocking new opportunities for innovation, cost savings and growth through important principles including Net Zero and Green Supply Chains. The Path to Net Zero microcredential offers practical strategies to reduce carbon emissions, conserve resources and promote responsible production and consumption practices.

The course is designed using storytelling and immersive activities to engage and challenge learners in authentic work-place relevant scenarios. We believe that education is not just about delivering facts; it is about making learning memorable and relevant. That is where storytelling shines. It takes abstract concepts and weaves them into relatable narratives, helping learners grasp complex ideas. Storytelling encourages active participation and critical thinking and is a powerful tool for nurturing empathy by showing different perspectives.

Using immersive VR scenarios, learners have agency to choose their own adventure in what they want to explore in the course. The scenarios can be replayed to reinforce concepts and support reflective practice by learners. There are cognitive benefits for learners when they participate in immersive VR scenarios. Rather than being passive in their learning, learners are active and more likely to construct new knowledge, and apply it in real-life workplace situations. Immersive learning further enables learners to experience concepts first-hand to enhance their understanding and problem-solving skills.

Industry-expert interviews provide the voice of the expert and practitioner for learners to deepen their understanding of the industry. Industry experts provide real-world experience and insights into the challenges and opportunities of implementing sustainable business practices by sharing their experiences and provide practical advice on best practices. By providing examples of how other businesses have implemented sustainable practices and the benefits they have achieved, learners can inform their future practices.

The Path to Net Zero course has been intentionally designed with a style and visual aesthetic that creates a beautiful learning experience, and provides clear sign-posting for learners as they progress. The intentional graphic and learner experience design approach is significant as more than 50% of learners’ feedback about their course relate to their positive and engaging learning experience.

Education is the key that unlocks the door to endless possibilities and opportunities. Keep up the hard work, stay motivated, trust in your potential to achieve your goals, and know that the Western Sydney University team is here to assist you.

Check out some of our latest microcredentials on OpenLearning.

Western Sydney University was the only Australian University to pilot GenAI educator tools developed by OpenLearning. Our pilot demonstrated productivity efficiencies of 20% in course design, content production, and pedagogically sound learning activities.

Our objectives were to assess and evaluate how we could develop a skills-based course with interactive activities based on a social-constructivist pedagogy, where learners get to apply and learn through interacting with real-life scenarios and their peers. Using the AI educator tools we explored the development of learning outcomes, curriculum structure, module content and thumbnail images in the design of online courses. Using GenAI to draft learning outcomes and a curriculum structure for the online course enabled educators and designers to focus their efforts on refining the learning experience. Using GenAI for imagery also added design enhancements to the course within a few simple steps which further increased our productivity to focus on creating innovative and engaging learning activities and assessments. OpenLearning’s AI educator tool also suggested different types of assessments, such as quizzes, performance tasks, rubrics, and self-assessments, that suited the topic and level of the course.

We found that OpenLearning’s AI educator tools can speed up course creation for users who are familiar with OpenLearning’s existing activity templates, have a clear plan for their course, are well-versed in creating online experiences, and have experience in AI prompting. The results of the pilot also show that OpenLearning’s AI educator tools can be successfully applied to develop social-constructivist online learning experiences, with productivity gains reported for facilitators’ development time. The GenAI tools can also help educators with limited to no online learning design experience to create a well-structured social-constructivist online course.

An additional outcome from the pilot was revealed as developing the AI literacy and fluency of facilitators. By using GenAI, facilitators can generate content, constructively aligned learning activities and assessment, and free up time for them to focus on building better communities of learners and stronger learner relationships to create a sense of belonging.