The DES team were recently inspired by a webinar delivered by the Technology Enhanced Learning team (TELT), which shared ideas and insights from the TEL Student Ambassadors to help staff design better QMplus pages. To highlight the work the TEL Student Ambassadors are doing, we caught up with student ambassador Ahrebah Ahmed to learn how they are helping other students have a better experience with QMplus. Ahrebah also shared her tips for student-centred design approaches for module pages.
TEL Student Ambassadors are part of the Technology Enhanced Learning Team and are there to embed the student voice throughout the university’s use of learning technology.
One of the key achievements of the TEL Ambassadors is their new approach to student inductions. The inductions are now designed for students, by students. As Ahrebah noted:
“When I started university, I had no idea how to use QMplus because I never had an induction for it, so I was learning as I went along. So, as a student, it’s been really rewarding to give back to students by sharing my experiences and offering tips on how to make the most of the online learning experience.”
The induction includes a QMplus page that TEL Ambassadors designed and created, as well as an interactive in-person session in which students can explore and practice using QMPlus.
Within the induction, the TEL Ambassadors have highlighted five key areas that students need to get to grips with:
Having this insight from our students on what they find important in QMplus gives us a great opportunity to think about how we are supporting students in these areas.
During our interview, Ahrebah shared some tips on what works well in QMplus from a student perspective.
One of the key tips was ensuring learning materials are laid out in clear sections. This included a dedicated area for assessment information as well as clear weekly sections for learning materials. Doing this comes with a number of benefits, as Ahrebah noted: it helps students to “understand the flow of information” but also to organise their studies as “it helps [students] separate what [they] need to know now from what [they] just need to focus on later”.
Within each block, it’s also important to order your learning materials logically:
“Organising module content in a way that mimics a clear thought process, where you can see how information builds on what’s been covered before, is really beneficial. I really like when I can visually see how the information builds on each other as I scroll from Week 1 at the top of the module page all the way down to Week 12. It helps guide students through the material step-by-step rather than overwhelming them with disconnected information.”
This kind of organisation is also vital when it comes to the exam period:
“It's very easy to get kind of lost when the semester is over and you're reviewing all the materials. Labelling everything properly, such as having a title on what week 1 was about etc, helps avoid getting lost and saves time. That way, you don’t have to open up every file to find what you need.”
As you can see the organisation of your pages is really important from a student's point of view – this importance is underlined by the inclusion of questions on the NSS relating to organisation.
Alongside the organisational aspects, Ahrebah also mentioned the ability to check off work as it’s completed as a valuable feature to help students track their progress through a module:
“I believe it’s a small but significant feature that really motivates students to complete their work. The ability to track completion status adds a gamification aspect, making the learning process feel more engaging and rewarding.”
Having activities to complete in QMplus was something that Ahrebah really valued and during our interview, she shared some great examples of interactive books built in H5P and quizzes from her modules.
One key tip that she highlighted was the customisation of feedback within quizzes. In QMplus it’s possible to give different feedback based on the answer a student has selected, this gives you an opportunity to speak to the students and explain what they got wrong or why their answer was correct. Not only does this help with learning but also the sense of connection between the student and lecturer, as Ahrebah noted:
“Where the lecturer put these explanations, it felt like a nice back and forth between you and the lecturer, even though they're not literally there.”
If you want to learn more about the TEL Student Ambassadors you can follow them on social media as they run the TEL Social Media Accounts or you can keep an eye on the TEL Team’s Blog that contains details of events and news such as this article welcoming this year’s new ambassadors.