Rethinking Learning Activities - Practicing Research-Based Design

Abstract

This session coordinates with the Rethinking Learning Activities: Taking Action on User Research session in which attendees were introduced to the concept of user personas. In this hands-on workshop, small groups of attendees will be provided a user persona that has been drawn from recent research in which eight Sakai institutions interviewed 30 instructors, students and staff about learning activities for their courses.

What was learned from the interviews was distilled into 12 persona, or user archetypes, representing different roles, disciplines, attitudes and motivations. The personas represent Sakai users; for example, one persona is a tenure-track faculty member, another is an online student who works full-time and has a family. Personas and scenarios will be provided.

The goal of each group will be to stand in the shoes of the persona and imagine how that user would best accomplish his or her teaching and learning goals within the scenario. From there, the group will create design sketches that will effectively and easily accomplish the persona's goals. This will require thinking outside the normal Sakai tool silos and re-imagining how faculty and student tasks can be accomplished within the vision of Sakai 3. All Sakai users are welcome! We need a variety of experience and skills.

Goals of workshop:
?    awareness of the process & importance of aspects of the process
?    why scenarios are so important and how they make design fit in context or REAL work
?    importance of understanding pedagogical needs and work-flows in relation to design and development

Information Sheets

These documents will be provided at the workshop.  They focus on the hows and whys of personas and scenarios which are 2 tools we've used to make sense of all that research findings.  We will be providing workshop participants with some completed personas and  scenarios from this project to use during the workshop.  These information sheets are meant to guide in creating your own.

What are Personas.pdf 

Creating Personas.pdf 

Scenarios.pdf 

Four breakout groups

The handout Scenarios.pdf described scenarios of three instructors who were receiving student work and how they gave feedback.

Participants in the session were divided into four groups and were assigned a persona. Using Post-It notes and poster paper, each group brainstormed a set of possible workflows. The PDFs below provide pictures from the workshop groups as they worked and the "wireframes" they created. (NOTE: If you were a participant and are not listed in your group, please email Salwa Khan with your name, institution and group information.  Thanks!)

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