I’ve had my share of educational resource development experiences, from unexciting click-through content dumps to innovative tech wizardry and triumphs of creative pedagogy. Along the way, I’ve noticed that the most professionally satisfying aspects of learning design come from opportunities to work on a particularly complex project, ideally as part of a cohesive and functional team. Even better when the team creates socially beneficial learning resources and other outcomes.
This was exactly the kind of project featured in a recent UTS Learning Design Meetup, ‘Designing in complex contexts – a case study’. I usually love a bit of complexity, so the title of the session appealed immediately, with the project showcasing tangible deliverables that responded to a complex clinical need. Just as valuable as the output, however, was the team sharing how they got to those deliverables – especially complexities around the content development, learning design and other interactions between the team members.
Working with complex content and nuanced learning outcomes for multiple audiences and stakeholders is rarely straightforward. Such projects usually require sensible planning within the parameters of time, budget and resourcing, but what holds the project together is something much less tangible – the ‘sparkle’ of good collaboration. This often comes from the trust, respect, collegiality and shared vision between team members, where almost all of the ‘process’ and experience is rendered invisible with, instead, a focus on the final deliverable.
The design challenge: building clinical confidence
The session focussed on the design and development of a learning resource for NSW Health clinicians. Whilst the end products looked relatively simple (a set of ‘conversation cards’ and a companion guide), the process illustrated not only a complex subject matter (clinical practice with young children who have displayed problematic and harmful sexual behaviours), but layers of complexity in the design context, purpose and learner requirements.
Allison Franks (project manager, NSW Health Education Centre Against Violence) introduced the historical context and purpose of the learning resources, which were developed in response to the 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. You can hear more about the background to the project in the recording below. After a good deal of research and consultation, the design challenge came into view:
The lack of confidence in this area was clear in the survey responses [with clinicians and practitioners]. Problematic, harmful sexual behaviour was so complex, it diminished their confidence; so it was really important that we create resources and support that dealt with this confidence.
Allison Franks
Designing for difficult conversations
Here’s where the multidisciplinary team steps up. Allison was supported on the project by Lucy Blakemore (researcher, writer and learning designer on the project), Elham Hafiz (digital accessibility consultant), Kelly Morrison, a complex trauma specialist and social worker, and graphic designer Rebecca Campbell. You can see already how important that ‘team sparkle’ would be, knitting together multiple skill sets and knowledge from different sectors.
The team took the brief and looked beyond what was needed on paper, noting that whilst clinicians understood the theory, they struggled to translate it into practice.
Really experienced clinicians who work in difficult topics all the time were saying again and again that they feel stuck or frozen when it comes to doing this work, and they just needed a starting point. What they struggled with with opening the conversation and getting into this difficult topic.
Lucy Blakemore
Within this nuance and complexity, Lucy outlined a range of broad design intentions to address the needs of the learners:
- Minimise clutter – leave certain content out of the resource and keep things clear to support learners’ confidence
- Maximise access – use plain language that feels friendly, supportive and accessible to support learners from a wide range of backgrounds and communities
- Support conversations – push beyond simply providing information and give therapists support to start conversations and apply their expertise
- Choice and agency – give families a choice in how they engage with the resource, so a therapist could more easily build comfort, safety and trust to set a foundation for more difficult aspects of therapy
Open communication and iteration
We did consultations around early prototypes, the content, tone and style of all the writing drafts, the design. Without constant engagement with the stakeholders, we would not have actually been able to get to where we got to.
Allison Franks
Design intentions are an important foundation to effective learning design. It is, however, often the project processes (e.g. communication, collaboration with stakeholders, milestones, sign-off) that ensure the development of resources that meet the intended design and are fit-for-purpose. This project took an iterative design process, including development of resources from rough prototypes to finished designs. Complexity seemed to define several aspects of this project: content and context, stakeholders and end-users. The team dynamics and interactions as the project developed over time offer additional complexity.
Significant to the culture and expectations of the broader project team, Lucy clarified that “the people we are working with don’t normally go through processes like this” (that is, reviewing design mock-ups and discussing design processes). The team’s open communication ensured that the various stakeholders were well-supported through unfamiliar processes, making sure they were clarifying expectations, allowing additional time and other strategies.
In such systems, an appropriate solution might not be conceived and specified in the initial brief; it emerges through the interaction, conversations, collaborations and iterations. Considered project processes – iterations, opportunities for creative adjustment, clear milestones with input, guidance and sign-off from key stakeholders (in this case, healthcare professionals) – offer reliable mechanisms that encourage quality design.
The team acknowledged that they had learned from each other in the process of collaborating on a project in territory as complex as human trauma. The responses (to the delivered resources) from clinicians and other stakeholders in the field was positive.
This presentation highlighted the value of collaboration and codesign while working within complex territory. The project had a focus on behavioural change, but also incorporated a range of complex aspects, informed by trauma, culturally safety and accessibility.
Final reflections: tackling complexity as a team
The aspect I most enjoyed about this session was hearing about clear and functional team dynamics when working with complex content and other complex project requirements. I encourage you, Learning-Designer/Reader, to gently place some attention to your own ‘educational resource development’ team dynamics, especially the project expectations and interactions between the SMEs, content, stakeholders and milestones.
Consider, also, how these link to the various roles of the people within your team. By using effective communication and identifying the ‘human elements’, you’ll be sure to gain valuable insights about the team, their strengths and their preferred working style. Apart from simply identifying the tasks and matching these to people, you’ll ideally build some project sparkle and create a valuable foundation of trust and shared vision required to approach a learning design project of any complexity.