Every member of the UBC community is at one point or another a learner, and at the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology, we continue to develop resources that can support you achieving your learning goals. You can find information about online learning resources, approaches and tools, undergraduate research, and professional development opportunities at UBC and beyond.
In collaboration with various units across the university, CTLT supports the development of learning resources through the innovative applications of technology and learning design services. For example, students who need academic support can visit the UBC Learning Commons or find more information on online identity through Digital Tattoo. Faculty members and instructors can learn about teaching in blended and online learning environments through the Teaching in a Blended Learning Environment (T-BLE) program.
Learning resources for students
- UBC’s Learning Commons: a web portal for academic support, developed with students, for students.
- Digital Tattoo: the goal of the Digital Tattoo project is to raise questions and provide resources encouraging you to think about your presence, identity, rights, and responsibilities as a digital citizen.
- Student Toolkits: how-to pages and other support for student projects using digital resources—blogs, wikis, audio, and video. Other resources on the UBC Wiki include pages on mind mapping, social web tools, professional networking, and online tutoring.
- Why Should You Care About Copyright?: this page will answer that question, and many more. If you’re more interested in working with multimedia, have a look at this page on finding Creative Commons media, or this one on how to properly cite images.
Learning resources for faculty
- Online Teaching Modules: the UBC Wiki offers insights on a variety of topics, including supporting critical thinking online, teaching challenges, creating an online environment and cultural issues.
- SECTIONS model (PDF): a great tool for assessing technology for learning.
- New Faculty Resource Guide (2010) (PDF): even though it was written in 2010, this document is still full of teaching strategies, resources, and support services.
- Copyright at UBC: UBC’s comprehensive copyright website should be able to answer any questions you have about what material you can and can’t use, as well as how you can use it.
Learning resources for everyone
- UBC Wiki: If you can’t find what you’re looking for, why not create it? Review some tips for getting started on the Wiki.
- Fairness and Decision-Making Resources for Faculty and Staff: well-supported decision makers and clear, consistent, accessible policies and procedures are important to student success. Have a look at the linked page for some resources developed by the Office of the Ombudsperson for Students, for faculty and staff who deal with and make decisions that affect students.
Learning resource design
What is learning design?
Learning design, simply put, is the design of a learning experience. The purpose may be to support a learning goal or to address an expressed or defined challenge or problem in the learning environment. At its core is a consideration of the actions that learners may take in order to learn, and design decisions are based on current knowledge about how people learn.
Effective learning design is the result of a productive collaboration between content experts, learners and learning practitioners. Learning designers are familiar with promising practices related to course and resource design and the technologies that support it, including the creative use of open educational practices.
Consultations are available by request:
Process and consultations
The context of your request will determine the process to a large extent. You may just want to talk about a challenge you are having in your course or learning environment. Or you may have an idea in mind to develop a new course, learning activity or learning resource.
What you can expect from a consultation:
- A conversation about your project, your learners and the goals or challenges you are working with.
- Identifying the problem or learning design challenge you are trying to address. This involves a discussion and decisions about focus and scope of the project.
- Determining a range of possible ways to address the learning design challenge – review examples where possible.
The design process extends to the following activities:
- Implementing a possible solution.
- Designing a feedback process
- Iterating initial ideas/ implementation based on feedback
Learning design principles
Learning design consultations and projects are guided by a few principles:
- Respect. The goal is to honor your intentions, expertise and experience and help you to achieve your goals by leveraging our resources.
- Iteration. Small step development and frequent, early feedback helps ensure that the design supports the goals.
- Collaboration. Clear roles, decision making principles, documentation and process flows support collaboration.
- Efficiency and effectiveness. No project is perfect. Energy and resources can be focused to develop a usable resource as quickly as possible in order to learn from, build and revise over time.
- Sustainability. Considerations include sustainability of the project over time.
