EMPOWER offers

Our team of experts offer experience and know-how in curriculum development and course design for teachers, instructional designers/learning designers and educational technologists working in online or blended environments. The expertise we offer in this area is focused on processes, methodologies and resources to “empower” educators and learners to participate in design discourse and practices in technology-enhanced learning. 

In our approach, the role of technology is to support the implementation of new modes of teaching and learning experiences and to enrich existing learning scenarios. We also aim to help teachers to experiment, to innovate and to be reflective practitioners in these new educational scenarios supported by ICT. 

We take a broad definition of curriculum development and course design to include:

• Programme modularity and design-based competence;
• Knowledge about the influence of advanced technologies, team-based design, and management skills;
• Basic domain of educational design foundations, as well as planning and analysis, design and development, and implementation and management skills (learning design models for online and blended scenarios);
• The design of synchronous and asynchronous activities (face-to-face, online, both);
• Educational approach (self-study and self-paced, resource-based learning; supported by tutors, activity-based learning, collaborative learning…);
• Learning activities (PBL, CBL, RP, GBL, …) and assessment (formative and summative) supported by ICT;
• Roles of teachers, tutors and mentors;
• Personalisation and flexibility;
• Interactivity and provision of feedback;
• Course materials and educational resources (learning materials, OER, tailored…);
• Scaling (from the course to the program, a large number of students);
• From informal to formal learning;
• The course delivery, technical infrastructure and virtual learning environment;
• The coherence between assessment methods (online and blended) and learning outcomes;
• Academic community development (communication, research involvement, link to the professional world…);
• Knowledge and skills (transferable skills, professional and vocational…);
• Evaluation (course design process and course impact) .

We also promote the use of learning analytics to enable us to use data to improve the design process for teachers and learning designers. Learning analytics does this by informing learning designers and teachers of common misconceptions and of what works well and what doesn’t.