Background: The Module 6 project in How People Learn is an opportunity for HPL students to create a project that addresses an area of the educational field they personally care about. It is an exemplification of the theme of personalization at the core of HPL’s purpose, as well as an excellent way for students to demonstrate mastery at the end of the course. Furthermore, it is an opportunity to get highly sought feedback from an academic partner. This peer review aspect of the project has been rated one of the most popular experiences in the course.

Issues: Students identify the timing as an issue. The project is fully condensed into the final two weeks of the course, although students have the option to start brainstorming midway through the fifth module. Some students coming to the course from outside of the field identify the knowledge base as an issue, as they are essentially putting together an educational proposal for the first time. This has some overlap with international students who may not be as familiar with this type of project-based learning, and may also come from outside the field.

Start the conversation about the project earlier to accommodate more pre-ideation

In general, students seemed to feel that beginning to think about the Module 6 Design Project earlier would help them to enter the final design cycle more confidently. This takes advantage of students' higher energy levels and excitement towards the beginning of the course and ensures that they will be applying the content they learn throughout it to the project. It also keeps in mind that students may need to think about one or more ideas before arriving at their final design. Finally, this would serve to ensure instructions and expectations for the project are clear, as 31 students in the 2020 iteration of the course also identified that they needed clearer expectations about the project.

This process of "starting the conversation" might include sharing the requirements of the project but also offering previous examples of design proposals, creating concurrent discussion prompts which make space for students to begin brainstorming, and hosting events or interviews where alumni or TFs can share out more about the design proposal process. This could be done as implemented as early as Module 3. Students should be cautioned that they don't have to begin working on the project yet, but that thinking about it earlier pays dividends.

“I think starting to think about the problem of practice earlier would help - and pushing ourselves to think beyond the obvious options would also be helpful."

"Start the conversation early so there’s excitement and people are ready to start using what they’re learning in their proposal. Not in a way that’s very heavy, but [more like], “‘start relating this to a process you are thinking of.’”

Include more opportunities and resources for community-supported ideation and feedback

Many students mention the positive experience of working closely with a peer reviewer on their projects. Some students suggested that additional opportunities to interface with classmates to get feedback on their work and ideas would be beneficial. This may be particularly true for students who are coming to the project from outside the educational field.

“I wish that I had more connection with my peer reviewer; workshopping in small, synchronous breakout groups would be extremely helpful.”

“I thought it was a big lift for me because I had no clue about anything in education...and I was kind of shooting in the dark and not doing it really with a framework in mind, or with any background [in education].”

“It would be helpful if they had workshops for people who aren't educators with a lot of experience...it'd be helpful if we got more scaffolding on what are good formative and summative assessments and how to craft them in relation to your understanding goals.”

Major et al., in their scoping review of digital tools for classroom dialogue, point out that. "by opening up a ‘dialogic space’, ideas can be put forward, respected, scrutinised and challenged in a supportive discursive environment, thereby enhancing students’ confidence." By relying more on these "dialogic spaces", which could include asynchronous discussion prompts or more synchronous workshops, we can give students additional opportunities to improve their understanding and refine their work. Some students mentioned that small synchronous workshops on Zoom could be useful for shared ideation. These could be team-assigned, or this could be accomplished by encouraging students to find partners or groups for sharing via Slack.

Asynchronous spaces could also be drawn on to provide students with additional opportunities for feedback. For instance, the current pre-ideation assignment that falls amid module 5 could be replaced with a discussion prompt in Module 4 that asks students to state a broad draft idea for the project. Students could also do an assignment involving a design sketch or visualization. Responding students could share ideas, possible pros and cons of the direction, and relationship to their own projects and fields, centering the project around student experience and expertise. Maybe two Harmonize discussions could prompt this question, one at a large-group scale for cross-pollination of ideas, and one at a small (TF group) scale for refined feedback. However, it is important to remember that ideating conversations likely work better over synchronous mediums.

Assign peer reviewers earlier in the process

Because the peer reviewer process is widely considered to be so positive, it is important to ask what already works well. By working with a peer reviewer, students have their first experience in the course of collaborating closely with a colleague. However, the time frame within which those students work - just two days were given for turnaround of the peer review in the previous iteration - is highly truncated. Students expressed that building rapport, as well as a shared knowledge base for the project, would be easier if they could begin a dialogue with peer reviewers earlier in the ideation process.

"Since we are working on problems of vastly different contexts, it would be helpful if the peer-reviewers can get to know our respective contexts through discussions and exchanging ideas early on in the project.”

Potentially lighten other workload closer to the time of the project

Students expressed that overall, the project is a significantly heavy lift. In the 2020 iteration of the course, it was estimated that students should budget 2 hours to do the design proposal outline, 2 hours to complete the peer review, and 4 hours to complete the proposal - 8 hours in all. In contrast, outgoing data showed that a majority of students spent over 20 hours on Module 6, and this may be undercounted. It has been suggested by students that the workload or timeline in other parts of the course could be altered to carve out more space for project-focused work.

“I think I would have liked more time to build out that project. Maybe [there could be] one fewer problem of practice, or [a week] where [you] start developing your own problem of practice for your design proposal.”

“I'm remembering now...that rushed feeling...I think it came from having to finish the modules’ content, and also be working on the design proposal at the same time. And that last module was so important that I wish we had finished that or had wrapped it up a little bit sooner so that I wasn't rushing through [it].”

Start and foster an enduring conversation about student work and ideas

Ultimately, the Module 6 Design Project is an exciting capstone of a whirlwind course in which many students will be vastly expanding or challenging their abilities. Many educational facets of the community converge during this project. It is also a time that students make the exciting graduation from primarily being mentored to being able to offer their own mentorship. By creating enduring virtual spaces or event series for students to exhibit their work and share their experience, we can harness the excitement and elevate the conversation about the projects in a meaningful way. This could take the form of story-sharing content such as interviews or guest posts. Students are more likely to feel their work is worthwhile and appreciated if community members have the opportunity to showcase what they've done.

Additionally, students in future iterations of the course would benefit from reading the experiences of earlier students and seeing what they were able to accomplish. In the HPL 2020 Findings document, one idea that was suggested was "providing success stories from various student types that highlight strategies and support learners in anticipating challenges", and this could certainly fulfill that role. Students' work could also be recorded in a general archival way by topic or subject with an accompanying abstract, so that future students could see what had already been created. If alumni also left their contact information, this archive could potentially act as a network for students to draw on when ideating about their project.

“Don’t just make it an assignment, [or] you will be driving people to do it for the sake of ticking things off their list. "

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Below, see a potential timeline for the Module 6 project alongside the timeline of its previous 2020 iteration.

Final Recommendations

Start the conversation about the project earlier (Low-lift)

• Begin talking about the project in Module 3 - sharing requirements of the project

• Offer previous examples of design proposals

Include more opportunities for community-supported ideation and feedback (Med-High Lift)

• Create concurrent asynchronous discussion prompts which make space for students to begin brainstorming

• Hosting events or interview series where alumni or TFs can share out more about the design proposal process

• Offer synchronous workshops for students to talk about the project. Try to ensure every student has an opportunity to get feedback on their ideas before they begin the formal outline process

Assign peer reviewers earlier in the process (Low-lift)

• Assign peer reviewers at the beginning of Module 6.

• Set expectations that peer reviewers assist their partners throughout the entire creation of the process.

Lighten other parts of the workload around the time of the project (Med-High lift)

• Potentially remove or lighten the load for one problem of practice, or replace it with students' problem of practice

Start and foster an enduring conversation about student work and ideas (Med-High lift)

• Create enduring spaces that showcase students' work and growth in working on the proposal, particularly if they go on to implement or improve the project

  • A course blog that documents the type of projects engaged in each year of HPL

  • Blog posts or interviews that capture students' experiences

  • An "archival" space where students could access a more complete listing of previous projects and potentially network with alumni

  • An in-person event series throughout the year showcasing students learned in the project process

Citations:

Major, L., Warwick, P., Rasmussen, I., Ludvigsen, S. & Cook, V. (2018). Classroom dialogue and digital technologies: A scoping review. Education and Information Technologies 23, 1995–2028. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-018-9701-y