This article presents 10 Aula Learning Design principles, which summarise best practice when creating a Learning Experience in Aula.
Our CUOL learning designers and Academic Enhancement and Professional Development (AEPD) team created these principles to support module teams with developing their Aula module spaces.
Following these principles is key to managing the cognitive load of your students, creating, and curating a successful learning experience for them
- Use a consistent Learning Design approach when creating your Aula spaces across all modules within courses to ensure a consistent experience for students. Start with a learning outcome or clearly defined goal, then work backwards to design a learning experience that helps fulfil it. Every element should earn its place.
- Use an Active, Applied, Inclusive and Social learning approach in your Aula space and align what happens asynchronously with the synchronous activity that takes place in the physical or live session environment.
- Use Aula as an extension to your structured teaching and learning hours. Create a clear student journey and clarify how you expect students to engage with AULA resources and their participation in live sessions.
- Speak to your students directly using a conversational tone of voice and plain English for all student facing text and information in your Aula spaces. Your Aula space should represent diverse learning needs, lived experiences, and expectations.
- Put the student at the centre of the Aula design process. Empathise with your student’s needs, motivations and constraints and consider their existing knowledge. Reflect on the questions your students might have and use clear instructions to guide them through complex concepts or new topics.
- All content should be credible, relevant and appropriate. Align your content to the module expectations (i.e., Learning Outcomes, Graduate Attributes and Student Journey). Support your content with a variety of relevant, up-to-date correctly references sources that are copyright compliant.
- Ensure your content is accessible for all students. Make sure that any materials relating to live sessions (slide decks and session handouts for example) are made available to your students in a timely manner, in advance of synchronous activities.
- Ensure your module team collaborate effectively to manage a community space. Regularly post relevant updates and information, at course and module level.
- Structure the learning journey clearly in Aula. Divide your content into distinct chunks, add helpful signposts, and guide your students through a clear beginning, middle, and end. Bridge the gaps between topics to help create a sense of clear and meaningful progression and make use of interleaving to strengthen recall.
- Increase the readability of your AULA pages by effective use of whitespace. Reduce cognitive overload by chunking up the content on your pages, using a clear visual hierarchy and being mindful of how and where you are using images or videos.
