The Trust began to articulate a vision to substantially expand our online provision in 2018. Our aims were to offer online products in a variety of high demand specialisms for which the Trust is well known and by doing so, widen our reach to those who could benefit from the Trust's courses, expertise and learning model. We also felt that by expanding our provision beyond predominately face-to-face delivery, the Trust could reach a greater number of students both in the UK and internationally, as well as building our internal capacity and capabilities in online teaching pedagogies.
We therefore planned to develop a range of new educational products that reflected best practice principles in online learning design and met the needs of a wider group of learners by enabling more people to access the provision.
These strategic goals presented two immediate challenges:
- the internal challenge in terms of how we translated our face-to-face teaching and experiential learning model into an equally compelling online experience
- the external challenge of how we opened up our provision to reach a wider group of ‘non-traditional’ Tavistock students who may not know who we were or why they would want to learn with us.
Once we’d acknowledged that we would need the support and knowledge of an external partner to develop the compelling learning products we envisaged in a high-quality and timely manner, the key priority became finding the organisation that could bring the required level of experience, expertise and support.
This ultimately led to the Trust engaging in a partnership with Pearson to develop what came to be known as the Digital Academy.
As a leading clinical provider of mental health, gender and social welfare clinical services, the Trust believes that people learn differently when they live through and experience things for themselves. That kind of lived experience is a really critical element of our teaching (in addition to reading and lectures), so many of our courses have that experiential learning component in the teaching; in terms of group sessions and conferences where people come together to discuss elements of their experience and reflect on both their learning and their application of that learning through their lived experience.
Both our treatments and training are based on theoretical approaches that heavily influence our teaching and learning style. And this became an important influencing factor in our decision to partner with Pearson.
By coming in to support our clinician trainers in a carefully phased and inclusive way, Pearson adopted a consultative approach that enabled us to think about how we could apply aspects of our experiential learning model into a purpose built online learning design, which is the area we most needed support.
Although some colleagues had concerns about working with such a large corporate organisation, Pearson worked hard to learn about the Trust and demonstrate their understanding of our core values, which helped allay these fears. The consultation process was thoughtfully and sensitively managed from the start to ensure that the Trust’s values and teaching experience were reflected in the learning design, and strong, lasting relationships have been built with key Pearson personnel as a result.
The learning design workshops and proof of concept demonstration were very successful in illustrating Pearson’s expertise, collaborative working style and understanding of our vision. They also helped develop our awareness of the importance (and difference) of designing for online delivery compared to face-to-face course development and teaching, and are working collaboratively with us to train staff and develop our internal skills to future-proof our digital education strategy.
Our work with Pearson on the Digital Academy would also become the enabler for building our own internal knowledge and capacity in those teaching methods and pedagogical design. The Trust really benefited from Pearson's contribution to the user experience and accessibility of the course design and technical knowledge and support.
Together, we set out the learning design and created the learning platform for four short course products. Their learning design was developed to reflect key aspects of the Trust’s teaching model and learning experience, while creating a clear progression structure for students, and scalability in terms of student engagement and management.
Our four Digital Academy courses which launched in Autumn 2020 include:
- Mini Course – A 5-hour certificated subject introduction that can be completed at a time and pace convenient to the learner
- Short Course – A 20-hour certificated course taught through a bespoke virtual learning environment, with live tutor discussion
- Masterclass – A 1-hour live-streamed presentation, conversation or panel discussion, with moderated Q&A
- Trust Certificate – A year-long certificated course introducing key subject concepts to give learners the core knowledge for progression onto a higher-level qualification or new career.
We really wanted to develop products that would suit a range of learning needs, that would fit around people's lives and hopefully attract a new group of learners. For example, the Masterclasses give people a chance to engage live with a clinician on a topical issue or subject. They run throughout the year and once signed up, learners have access to a recording of the session afterwards. They are promoted a month or two in advance and students have really responded well to them, particularly the interactive element of the moderated Q&A discussion at the end.
The Mini Course is a fully self-directed course with five hours of learning. Students can register and start it at any time and take it at their own pace. These are proving to be popular with a broad range of learners interested in introductions to core mental health and wellbeing subjects.
The 20-hour Short Course starts to bring in a more experiential learning experience. These cohort-based short courses run every month throughout the year. Each five-hour topic is split over four weeks of learning, with a live tutor session delivered in week three of each month. A reflective group session element is facilitated by an asynchronous moderated forum in which students can hold discussions amongst themselves.
Similar to a foundation course, the year-long Trust Certificate has regular weekly group sessions and termly tutorials with one of the Trust’s clinician-educators. Trust Certificates were our most challenging online product to develop as we knew how much students value tutor contact on longer courses but we also wanted to be able to deliver at scale. We worked closely with Pearson and our faculty to balance these two needs in the learning design.
It’s early days but indications so far are that the course formats, content and delivery methods are being well received by students.
The Digital Academy has opened lots of doors for us and has demonstrated the importance of a longer-term vision about where we want to get to and what we want to achieve. We want to give students the opportunity to learn from clinical experts wherever they are, in a way that enables them to learn about themselves and progress careers, and we’re really excited to be on that journey with them.
