TLTS highlights by Nicole Marcisz

I attended the Teaching and Learning Symposium at Metro State on October 7, 2016, and I would like to share some highlights. https://www.msudenver.edu/tlts/

One session in particular really stood out for me as being quite thought provoking that I want to share highlights of for you.
User Experience (UX), Learner Experience (LX) and Usability in the Online Classroom
Presenters: Baye Herald and Jennifer Panko

Baye and Jennifer started out with a discussion to define both user experience and learner experience and then compared the two.

There's brief video with Don Norman that explains the definition of User Experience (UX) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BdtGjoIN4E
Basically, it is the person's experience with a "product," not only focused on start to finish and everything in between, but the experience before and after as well.

When we talk about learner experience (LX) this could be focused on our learners and their experience with a single course. And as mentioned above, this would include the learners experience before the course, starting the course, during the course and then after the course is over. Learner experience is different from user experience in that there are more pieces to the equation that just the person and the "product".  For example, with user experience, you are one person, that say, buys a new iPhone. You might be really excited and willing to wait in line to be one of the first customers to get the latest and greatest. Even the experience of opening the package and the ease of setting the phone up is essential. You go on for next weeks, months and years, having the user experience with that phone. With learner experience, let's use a Regis student who enrolls in an online course as an example. This student makes a choice about taking the course, but it could be a required course that they are not looking forward to taking for whatever reason. They have stress coming in. They begin to log on and explore the course. Is it friendly and inviting? Do they know where to go first? Is it well organized? Are they feeling welcomed by the instructor? etc. In the learner experience there are other players involved that will affect their experience; ie. the instructor, and other students. Was the course designed for successful engagement and interaction with instructor, content and other students? Another factor is that the students have invested quite a bit of money in their education so this can impact commitment to making it work and general motivation to do well.

The presenters invited us to consider on a course level the learner experience. They did some research on learner experience by having some students do narrated "think-a-louds." For example, the student will narrate a screen recording of the first exposure of the course in the LMS and talk about what they are seeing, where and why will they click on things, do they know where to begin, what makes sense, where might there be some confusion. They gathered this data to make changes and inform the overall design of the course.

Some simple tips that the students in their research indicated that were very helpful in making the learner experience great include the following:

• Instructor to send out early communication (before course start)
• Include welcome letter/message as student enter course (perhaps on course home page with announcement tool)
• Create a positive tone and line of support
• Provide communication avenues and choices to contact instructor 
• Create a getting started video
• Include avenues for students to provide learner experience feedback- by way of simple surveys (after first week and midway) 

And lastly, during the presentation we considered one more experience to add to the mix, "Learning" experience. So with learner experience, the focus is on the student (the learner) and how they experience the design of the course and the people they interact with during the course. Learning experience might focus more on the content, outcomes and learning journey. How does the learner engage with the content to learn new skills, change behavior and successfully meet outcomes?
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/learning-experience-design-the-most-valuable-lessons

Something to think about and be conscious of as we design and teach courses.

(Reminder: I would encourage you to make an appointment for consultation with your friendly instructional designer to discuss your learners and learning experiences.

Nicole