Teaching Website Design
As second semester 2004 is drawing to a close, I find myself experiencing (yet again) the frustration of “last-minute learning” in my Web Design class - and I want to do something about it for next semester.
The problem
The more I think about it, the complete process of designing and implementing a website for a client is really only learned during the last few weeks as the students race to get their Client site finished before the end of semester. It’s during these weeks that the first real Client Documentation is prepared, Information Architectures are designed for the first real situation, MS Project Plans are created for the first real project etc. I think this is due to the linear fashion with which we currently teach all the material (with practical assignments and workshops along the way of course!), until towards the end of the semester when students focus primarily on their client projects. But I’m wondering whether a more iterative learning cycle would be more effective and perhaps more student-centred… for example…
Gene, who teaches parts of the course with Jude and me, came up with the great idea at the end of last semester of using some of the modules that she facilitates (Instructional Design / communications) as a “mini” client project, giving students a small taste of the whole project cycle before their major assessment - their real client project. We tried this approach this semester and I think it worked well for the scope that we gave it: students got a taste of a mock client interview and both Gene and I were able to assess most students on their HTML/CSS/Instructional design skills early in the semester. Yet I think I missed the opportunity to use this mini project as an introduction to the complete web design lifecycle (for example, I could have also introduced information architecture, documenting the design, performance testing, accessibility testing etc.)
The idea
Jude and I had a chat the other day about the possibility of a more iterative (or cyclic?) learning process for the students, where they go through the complete lifecycle two or three times during the semester (this was probably Gene’s original idea!). For example,
- during the first 2-3 weeks while learning the fundamentals of XHTML and CSS, we could begin the first mini project: planning, designing and implementing our own website. This mini project would include everything from a small MS Project plan, a (brief) information architecture, design, documentation, implementation, performance and accessibility testing.
- During the implementation phase of the first mini project, we could begin the planning and interviews for the second mini project: the instructional design site. Again going through the complete lifecycle (perhaps in more depth or with more restrictions on accessibility/performance?)
- During the implementation phase of the second mini project, students could begin the planning/interviews for their actual client project - again going through the whole lifecycle (but this time, hopefully on their own).
Of course, as new skills are learned, students would be (hopefully) updating and maintaining their own websites.
But that’s too much work!
… I hear you saying! And perhaps it is impossible to do this without packing more work into an already bulging course - which I want to avoid at all costs. But perhaps it is possible to do without increasing the workload. For example, we could provide strong scaffolding (in the form of templates) for the documentation, project plan and testing cycle for the first mini project, so really students would be filling in the blanks while learning the ropes. Some of the scaffolding could then be removed for the second mini project and finally taken down completely for the final client project. Similarly, the first mini-project would just introduce many of the techniques/skills without going into much depth, the second could build on those and introduce more depth, while the client project would ideally contain little new learning (probably impossible in practice).
I think this structure would enable us to continue developing the self-paced learning strategies that we’ve used this semester and may even enable further flexibility in terms of blended delivery (once the scaffolding/templates and other resources for the mini-projects have been created/updated).
Any comments or criticisms? Can you see any other ways that this might be helpful or unhelpful for the modules that you teach? Or, if you are a student, does the problem description above fairly describe the situation you are now in and do you think this iterative structure would have been helpful or unhelpful for your learning?
Thanks in advance for any feedback!
Genie Melone Said,
November 24, 2004 @ 4:13 pm
Thanks Mike for all of that input into the Web course. I like the idea of building up to the client project in a more systematic way, and not just once but a couple of times. It also provides us with more scope to emphasise the importance of the whole process and all the little bits it entails.
By the way what is an iterative approach? I got the gist of what you are proposing….which of course would need a really good structure- as you indicated. I think it would be good for us to all prepare templates, “scaffolding” for each of our areas and then come together to discuss and share what we have- I for one, am pretty ignorant of the entire process. I can guess what is going on from what the students are doing, but I do not know the relevant bits and how they all fit together.
I also hate how everything is crammed into the last few weeks. There must be a way of pacing things out so that everyone is doing everything at the last minute. Hardly conducive to learning really [though I must admit I have been guilty of the same thing in my day]. Perhaps we could release things a bit at a time- like you said. I also like your idea of giving the whole process in the beginning with assistance- model gant charts, model documentation, model css etc, and then pulling it out bit by bit, so that they are not reliant on the structures and templates at the end.
I was also thinking that I would like them to take a tape recorder into their interviews with their “real” clients and assess them on how they conduct the interview. I could make the client interview be in three parts- interview 1- for first project- where they have to make an improvement on their interview techniques for interview 2 [based on my/ our feedback ] and the same for interview 2 [feedback, and improvement for the real client interview].
I have been doing this in my CIV in Assessment and Workplace Training [they train 3 times and have to incorporate improvements each time into their next lesson] and it works a treat because it makes them actually take in the feedback and make an action on it. We could possibly do this in other areas too [css, html, design, graphics etc etc].
I am more than willing to spend time developing something that we/you could trial for next time.
I love it that you are always thinking of ways to improve the situation.
Cheers
Genie
Genie Melone Said,
November 24, 2004 @ 4:16 pm
I said this in my comment :I also hate how everything is crammed into the last few weeks. There must be a way of pacing things out so that everyone is doing everything at the last minute. Hardly conducive to learning really [though I must admit I have been guilty of the same thing in my day].
And I meant to say :I also hate how everything is crammed into the last few weeks. There must be a way of pacing things out so that everyone is NOT doing everything at the last minute. Hardly conducive to learning really [though I must admit I have been guilty of the same thing in my day].
Michael Said,
November 24, 2004 @ 7:26 pm
Hey Genie, thanks for your comments! Yeah, I think your idea for the interviews is definately one that we could extend to the other skills (HTML, CSS etc), so that learners are able to build up the skills progressively through each project. (BTW: by iterative, i just meant that learners would cycle through the project lifecycle learning more through each cycle… and with your idea - adding the feedback from the previous cycle
botts Said,
February 22, 2005 @ 7:33 pm
i like the idea of the cyclic nature of things, but could you not teach the process in a linear fashion using two streams of teaching. i see you teaching project management whilst the students begin to manage the project they have to put in place, and then teach interviewing whilst having them do the interviews, and then teach the coding stuff again whilst they perform those tasks. at the end of the semester they will have completed the project with no end of semester rush as you would be controlling the pace of the learning and delivery. the whole semester then becomes one long project, rather than a series of shorter ones. i reckon too that students are perhaps more capable of learning high level concepts than we give them credit for. could you not also point them to resources that would enable them to have a degree of self paced learning and would therefore release you from some of the encumbrances of having to teach every little detail of the course.
hmmmmmmmm
have a great day
botts
Michael Said,
February 23, 2005 @ 9:54 am
Yeah, it’s definitely possible (to have one long project) - but i reckon it’d introduce assessment difficulties. I mean, if the students are learning the skills/techniques/processes while doing their main assessment spread out through the semester - the client project - then it makes it very difficult for me to check the boxes saying that I am convinced (and have evidence to show) that this student is competent to do this on their own (ie. is the assessment valid?)
The other problem that I see with one long project is that it doesn’t provide an opportunity to introduce concepts slowly. For example, with technical stuff, when students start implementing their sites, they’ve got to learn the basics of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, then more advanced versions of those (in terms of standards compliance, coding best-practices etc), as well as server side programming etc. etc. Maybe there’s another way around these issues that you can think of? Any ideas?
I probably didn’t explain that clearly in the post above, but one of the main reasons for having the mini-projects is to provide an environment where students can build up their skills within their own zone of proximal development (ok, i just wanted to use that term to sound like I know what i’m talking about… i don’t! I’m still learning!
, until they get to the point where (theoretically) they can plan, manage and implement a client project on their own. That would provide valid evidence for assessment.
Let me know what you think! (if you have time!)
Michael Said,
February 23, 2005 @ 10:02 am
Oh, and as for high-level learning, i agree totally! The current students are able to work at their own pace and can jump in the deep end as quickly as they like! We try to provide very current resources through a blog, which you can see at: http://designwebsites.blogspot.com/. You’ll see that the students also have their own blogs - we’re trying to use them like learning journals, but it’s up to the student as they obviously control their own blog.