I’m the Academic Lead for the course ‘Creativity, Problem Solving and Design Thinking’. The motivation for developing the course was based on my own observations that these skills are increasingly being called for in a wide range of sectors, not just the creative industries or design professions. 

The first step in the development process was submitting a course proposal for consideration by Cambridge Online Education. After some iteration, the course was approved for development and at that point the project team was formed, including a learning designer and visual designer, who were the team members I interacted with the most. 

Working with the learning designer was really great. Together we defined the overall learning outcomes for the course, and the more specific objectives for each of the six modules. I had already outlined the structure and content for the course, but together we converted this into a plan that was much more learner-centric, with active and social learning elements throughout. With the learning designer’s input, much of the written content was redefined as film scripts, podcasts, live session content and as activities that the learners would work on individually and in their groups. For all this, having expert guidance on pedagogy was invaluable, as this helped refine the plan for the learners’ progression through different concepts, methods and activities. 

Working with the visual designer was great too. The course is highly visual in nature, both in the way that information is presented, but also in the activities that the learners undertake. I sketched out the proposed diagrams for the course and identified the many photographic images that we would need to illustrate the concepts and examples. These were all then reworked by the visual designer, converting my rather ‘clinical’ drawings into a more fun and engaging graphical style that is consistent across the whole course. In many cases, the visual designer proposed alternative formats for the graphics, and we iterated these to arrive at improved ways of communicating the ideas. 

Other members of the team were involved in shooting video segments, clearing copyright for the required published materials, proofreading the copy, and building all the content into the online platform. As the Academic Lead, I was allowed to focus on the course content while the Cambridge Online Education team coordinated the daily management of the project. This balance enabled a smooth development process and one that I greatly enjoyed. 

We launched the course in January 2022, with a tutor managing the daily interactions with the learners and bringing his considerable experiences to the online discussions and assessments. We had a really diverse set of learners enrolled for the first course run: people from large established organisations, small consultancies and also those just participating for their own personal development; people from diverse sectors, ranging from the military to the arts, and everything in between. This is great for the social learning aspects because the learners benefit from each other’s knowledge as well as from the course content, and for that, diversity is key. Learner engagement was very high all the way through the six weeks, with lively participation in the discussion forums, the group exercises, the personal assignments, and in the weekly live sessions. It’s very rewarding to see the learners bringing the course to life with their contributions. They clearly enjoy the course, and they tell us so too, with clear plans for how they will apply the learnings in their work. 

I’ve had a very positive experience working with Cambridge Online Education. Developing the course was certainly a lot of work, but that work was spread over several months. It’s also work that is conducted through interactions with an expert and supportive team, where the roles are well defined. I’m proud of the course that we built together, and I look forward to applying what I learnt in my other teaching activities in and around the University. 

There were several discussions, ideas and iterations before we settled on what the final version of the course would look like. The development of the course framework really helped us to decide upon how the content was to be structured and the journey the learners would go on. Once we were past this, we launched into the actual development. The learning designers came on board early in the process to guide us through, which was useful, and we worked with the media team to develop ways for the content to be delivered. 

Our course has multiple academic leads running it but developing the course with others came naturally as we had been working together for a long time, so this simply built on existing working relationships. The Online Education team also helped to coordinate this.  

Our learning designer very quickly embedded herself into the course material. It went very well, partly due to our learning designer’s own drive and willingness to understand that this was a different type of course and the way in which we needed to deliver it was somewhat different to others. She advised on different modes of interaction with the learners and was very open to new ideas. It was obvious that she had a clear idea of how learners engage. 

The experience in creating this course has been enjoyable. It has certainly had its challenging and stressful moments due to the short timescales we had to create it but once the creation was done you do look back and think: ‘yes, that was worth it’. In the design stages, we did have to do things like talking into a camera for the course film and these activities don’t often come naturally but you do find a way to do it and have fun while at it. The end result is professional and informative. 

Teaching a course online at Cambridge Online Education is a different way of engagement and you need to be conscious of this. The nature of the setup affects how you engage with people and this setup means that people are encouraged to self-pace and self-learn which is quite different from other traditional contexts. 

This format is not unique but what makes it uniquely attractive is the Cambridge brand. The course itself is such a unique subject matter and there is a lot of value in it. The way we also deliver it is unique; these are subject matter experts with real industry experience. 

I know that myself and other colleagues are looking at more courses to launch so we hope to do more with Cambridge Online Education.