USING VISUALISATION TO CAPTURE STUDENT RESPONSES 

 CHALLENGE 

 The challenge is capturing student experience of online teaching in order to inform our thinking   about blended ( physical and remote ) learning for the Autumn term . Due to the pandemic , my   University ( based in the UK ) has rushed to put all teaching on line and generally done a reasonable   job considering the very limited preparation time . However , I wanted to capture information from   students about how they managed the new asynchronous learning over the 5 week period after   Easter ( where they could meet for virtual live sessions as well as carry on working in blog and forum   environments ) . Autumn will demand a mix of remote and physical teaching as we will continue   social distancing measures . Rather than impose on the students our view of blended learning – I   want to take a much more co - creation approach by understanding their experience . This challenge   suited design thinking as it was human focused and was trying to capture an understanding of things   that were uncertain , difficult to pin down and about which there was little previous data ( specifically   from our students on this mode of teaching ) ; and I wanted to explore in order to find places of   agreement . 

 SELECTION 

 I chose visualisation as a method as it is a great way to capture a variety of responses and see if I   could spot patterns from the information . By opening up a creative area of the brain to address a   problem and moving away from text and language by using visual imagery ( in various forms from   drawings to photos ) it allows for new ways of looking at an issue . Using visualisation was helpful in   particular as it could be undertaken with a limited time frame as it could be a quick response . It also   was something I could plan for students to do it remotely and individually . I also wanted to move   students into a new arena to illustrate their thinking as I felt if they had been talking they might just   start complaining about remote teaching – which was an understandable reaction to the crisis but I   wanted to move them on from that and be more open minded to opportunity ; this way I could get   some really useful views from them and understand how they actually found working in this way . As   Angela Myer suggests , visualisation can be used in many ways , and there may be different   approaches at different stages in the process . I was at the beginning of the design thinking process ,   getting a better understanding of ‘ what is ’ in order to be ready to generate ideas for the next stage .   As Angela Myer says through visualisation ‘ the more likely you are to achieve a sense of agreement   and consensus with people ’ and ‘ the more you are likely to draw out conversation ’ , both of these   things were very much my aims for using visualisation . 

 APPLICATION 

 The students had initially been presented with a rough diagram of how a weekly pattern of teaching   might look : there were various elements students had to engage in during a given week – eg    independent targets for their assessments ,   discussions on specific weekly tasks in an online forum ,   preparing the activities for lessons , online meetings etc . This gave them some weekly structure to be   thinking about as we were teaching . At the end of the five weeks I gave them a task to draw out   their own view of their pattern of working through the week – at least in its ideal form . I called this   their weekly working rhythm to see if they could visualise how their weekly pattern of learning   would work . I reassured them brilliant design skills were not required – just hand drawn roughs they   could scan / photograph and send me . They could draw it out in any way they wanted : for example 

 using icons ( eg logos for attending lectures , or blog writing , or reading ) , or stick people to indicate   numbers of people , or bars and lines perhaps to indicated contact time vs independent time flowing   through the week , or drawing different locations to represent different activities .   It was a   reasonable application of the tool and was effective as I got 22 different visual representation of   learning rhythms over a week . The students really engaged with the process . 

 INSIGHT 

 Once these came in I was able to analyse them to look for the following things to identify insights :   what patterns emerged in terms of their weekly structures that they all did , what things seemed to   get mentioned more , what sort of deadlines they seemed to set for themselves , how they balanced   out their week of academic working . All this was part of my process to identify insights . I could see   for instance that there was not a great emphasis on discussion forums ( some raised them some   did n’t ) and so I would need to think more carefully about how to engage them in those , or if indeed   the students wanted them at all . As a way to capture information from students in terms of it as a   visual process , it was really helpful for seeing things from different angles . 

 Overall visualisation gave me a huge amount of information from many individuals in one very quick   way ( quick for them to do and give me , and quick also for me to analyse ) . The creativity that   emerged was a wonderful side benefit too . What I particularly felt in terms of the design thinking   process was that this was only the very first step in a much bigger process – just as outlined by the   course in terms of the stages . Even within that stage of ‘ what is ’ I think I can do more to draw out   more understanding of the student ’s working week . I see that further discussions with them could   segue into the ‘ what if ’ stage too as I could see them suggesting some ideas as discussions continue ;   so , design thinking is a more seamless process I think in that sense . 

 APPROACH 

 I would definitely use this approach again for all sorts of feedback stages . I could brief it in a bit   differently – and open it up a bit more to capture different ideas ; this was quite specific and   visualisation can work well if it is very open ended . I would draw it into a more comprehensive   approach to researching the ‘ what is ’ . I also could add in something that makes them provide their   opinion a bit more in order to see what they would like in blended learning as much as what they are   doing now . I might need to tell them more about why visualisation can work in order to get them to   engage more fully ( particularly those who were a bit reluctant to participate – whose views it may be   even more important to access as they may be less engaged ) . I want to build on this now to have a   discussion with them about what emerged from the visualisation to see if we could come up with an   ideal blended learning pattern . 

 There was an additional benefit which I had hoped would emerge . It allowed me to see how what   teaching worked in a digital environment but also empowered the students to feel engaged in the   teaching and learning process , and feel part of the course ; they could see what the benefits were   through their own reflections so they could be maybe more positive about the experience and   ultimately I felt we engaged in a great stage in co - curriculum design between us , 

 In terms of final reflection on my own learning , by really thinking through the opportunities this tool   could provide I realised how powerful it could be . From the immense teaching challenges we have   just undergone I think I do approach this with a   learning mindset ( doing this course has been an   important part of this for me ) and I hope I have a reasonable repertoire ( having done different sorts   of things before I came into academia in different sorts of publishing businesses ) . These are central   tenets to being open minded about opportunity as I employ design thinking approaches to   understand student experience and work on new approaches to teaching for the Autumn . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: USING VISUALISATION TO CAPTURE STUDENT RESPONSES 

 CHALLENGE 

 The challenge is capturing student experience of online teaching in order to inform our thinking   about blended ( physical and remote ) learning for the Autumn term . Due to the pandemic , my   University ( based in the UK ) has rushed to put all teaching on line and generally done a reasonable   job considering the very limited preparation time . However , I wanted to capture information from   students about how they managed the new asynchronous learning over the 5 week period after   Easter ( where they could meet for virtual live sessions as well as carry on working in blog and forum   environments ) . Autumn will demand a mix of remote and physical teaching as we will continue   social distancing measures . Rather than impose on the students our view of blended learning – I   want to take a much more co - creation approach by understanding their experience . This challenge   suited design thinking as it was human focused and was trying to capture an understanding of things   that were uncertain , difficult to pin down and about which there was little previous data ( specifically   from our students on this mode of teaching ) ; and I wanted to explore in order to find places of   agreement . 

 SELECTION 

 I chose visualisation as a method as it is a great way to capture a variety of responses and see if I   could spot patterns from the information . By opening up a creative area of the brain to address a   problem and moving away from text and language by using visual imagery ( in various forms from   drawings to photos ) it allows for new ways of looking at an issue . Using visualisation was helpful in   particular as it could be undertaken with a limited time frame as it could be a quick response . It also   was something I could plan for students to do it remotely and individually . I also wanted to move   students into a new arena to illustrate their thinking as I felt if they had been talking they might just   start complaining about remote teaching – which was an understandable reaction to the crisis but I   wanted to move them on from that and be more open minded to opportunity ; this way I could get   some really useful views from them and understand how they actually found working in this way . As   Angela Myer suggests , visualisation can be used in many ways , and there may be different   approaches at different stages in the process . I was at the beginning of the design thinking process ,   getting a better understanding of ‘ what is ’ in order to be ready to generate ideas for the next stage .   As Angela Myer says through visualisation ‘ the more likely you are to achieve a sense of agreement   and consensus with people ’ and ‘ the more you are likely to draw out conversation ’ , both of these   things were very much my aims for using visualisation . 

 APPLICATION 

 The students had initially been presented with a rough diagram of how a weekly pattern of teaching   might look : there were various elements students had to engage in during a given week – eg    independent targets for their assessments ,   discussions on specific weekly tasks in an online forum ,   preparing the activities for lessons , online meetings etc . This gave them some weekly structure to be   thinking about as we were teaching . At the end of the five weeks I gave them a task to draw out   their own view of their pattern of working through the week – at least in its ideal form . I called this   their weekly working rhythm to see if they could visualise how their weekly pattern of learning   would work . I reassured them brilliant design skills were not required – just hand drawn roughs they   could scan / photograph and send me . They could draw it out in any way they wanted : for example 

 using icons ( eg logos for attending lectures , or blog writing , or reading ) , or stick people to indicate   numbers of people , or bars and lines perhaps to indicated contact time vs independent time flowing   through the week , or drawing different locations to represent different activities .   It was a   reasonable application of the tool and was effective as I got 22 different visual representation of   learning rhythms over a week . The students really engaged with the process . 

 INSIGHT 

 Once these came in I was able to analyse them to look for the following things to identify insights :   what patterns emerged in terms of their weekly structures that they all did , what things seemed to   get mentioned more , what sort of deadlines they seemed to set for themselves , how they balanced   out their week of academic working . All this was part of my process to identify insights . I could see   for instance that there was not a great emphasis on discussion forums ( some raised them some   did n’t ) and so I would need to think more carefully about how to engage them in those , or if indeed   the students wanted them at all . As a way to capture information from students in terms of it as a   visual process , it was really helpful for seeing things from different angles . 

 Overall visualisation gave me a huge amount of information from many individuals in one very quick   way ( quick for them to do and give me , and quick also for me to analyse ) . The creativity that   emerged was a wonderful side benefit too . What I particularly felt in terms of the design thinking   process was that this was only the very first step in a much bigger process – just as outlined by the   course in terms of the stages . Even within that stage of ‘ what is ’ I think I can do more to draw out   more understanding of the student ’s working week . I see that further discussions with them could   segue into the ‘ what if ’ stage too as I could see them suggesting some ideas as discussions continue ;   so , design thinking is a more seamless process I think in that sense . 

 APPROACH 

 I would definitely use this approach again for all sorts of feedback stages . I could brief it in a bit   differently – and open it up a bit more to capture different ideas ; this was quite specific and   visualisation can work well if it is very open ended . I would draw it into a more comprehensive   approach to researching the ‘ what is ’ . I also could add in something that makes them provide their   opinion a bit more in order to see what they would like in blended learning as much as what they are   doing now . I might need to tell them more about why visualisation can work in order to get them to   engage more fully ( particularly those who were a bit reluctant to participate – whose views it may be   even more important to access as they may be less engaged ) . I want to build on this now to have a   discussion with them about what emerged from the visualisation to see if we could come up with an   ideal blended learning pattern . 

 There was an additional benefit which I had hoped would emerge . It allowed me to see how what   teaching worked in a digital environment but also empowered the students to feel engaged in the   teaching and learning process , and feel part of the course ; they could see what the benefits were   through their own reflections so they could be maybe more positive about the experience and   ultimately I felt we engaged in a great stage in co - curriculum design between us , 

 In terms of final reflection on my own learning , by really thinking through the opportunities this tool   could provide I realised how powerful it could be . From the immense teaching challenges we have   just undergone I think I do approach this with a   learning mindset ( doing this course has been an   important part of this for me ) and I hope I have a reasonable repertoire ( having done different sorts   of things before I came into academia in different sorts of publishing businesses ) . These are central   tenets to being open minded about opportunity as I employ design thinking approaches to   understand student experience and work on new approaches to teaching for the Autumn .
### Output: 