I’m at the tail end of my Masters of Professional Practice (Digital Learning), whereby I now only have to successfully complete 10 credentials. I’ve submitted the first batch of five to be assessed and have recently been advised that “the credential assessors have determined that you have satisfied the criteria for your Digital learning – discipline specialisation credential”, which is awesome. Four credentials down, one to go (in this batch).

 

Feedback from the Assessors

Assessor 1 feedback

“Congratulations Rowan! Your submission meets the requirements for this credential for digital learning at a discipline specialisation expert level. Thank you for introducing yourself and providing a brief overview of your role as a learning designer and for curating an impressive range of written and uploaded evidence. You articulated clearly how people who work with you agree you hold a multifaceted and deep understanding of the platforms, technologies, how learning takes place, and how best to foster that as a change agent in terms of teaching and learning practice as an digital learning/educational designer. It is clear from your examples that colleagues such as Craig Hassed, Richard Chambers, Dr Debbie Ling value and trust your digital learning expertise, and the MOOC reviews are greatly encouraging. Monash Mindfulness MOOC evidenced the breadth of your digital learning professional expertise in identifying and applying appropriate global trends and developments in best practice in an area of digital learning practice. With so many forays into MOOCS being talking heads, you demonstrated solid learning design and robust educational pedagogy to the digital learning environments. Your core focus and a point of differentiation was to create personalised feedback at scale and to also create a sense of community – something that can be quite challenging to achieve in the MOOC environment. Compassion Training for Health Care Workers evidenced the breadth of your digital learning expertise in providing significant contribution to the substantial improvement in digital learning outcomes. I can tell you are particularly proud of your work on these MOOCS, and that these were significant projects for your organisation to initiate. I am glad to hear you are considering further study and that completing these Deakin PPCs has given you an opportunity to reflect on the great work you do but do not always get a chance to capture or celebrate. I think as an education designer/learning/digital designer, it is easy to be the ‘meat in the sandwich’ squished between the technology choices you’re not allowed to make or have significant input into and the organisations executive, strategies and pet-projects. I’ve seen this a lot as an LD myself. I heartily encourage you to continue to gather evidence, ask colleagues to write a letter detailing how you assisted them, and study. Most of all, know that your work counts. Well done, Rowan!”

Assessor 2 feedback

“Dear Rowan – You have submitted strong evidence to support your leadership with digital learning. As a Digital Advisor, Learning and Teaching, you apply digital learning skills and knowledge. Both examples provide evidence of your ability to partner with subject matter experts and you have structured your responses to the criteria very well. In your first example, you show how you used your skills to support a partnership with FutureLearn to boost your university’s digital education strategy. Your role as an educational designer had responsibility for the design, development and ongoing delivery of a series of MOOCs. Your work demonstrated the feasibility of creating an experiential and personal learning experience for everyone, everywhere, at scale. Both MOOC’s, MIND and MINDLIFE continue to run in the “always on” format. Your second example shows how you supported the scaling of a compassion training program into an online environment to meet increased demand. Your goal was to design a learning experience providing consumable tools and techniques to practice and apply. As an educational designer you were responsible for scoping and scheduling the design and development of a four-week course for healthcare workers. Your success is evidenced by the award of the 2022 MNHS Dean’s Awards for Excellence in Education. In both examples, you have shown your leadership and have used a range of digital learning technologies and techniques to develop engaging learning environments I like your reflections that further study would enhance your skills through the creation of space to allow you to take time to reflect on your experiences and provide great personal benefit.– Well done.”