The LX.lab Design team are a group of Learning Design and Technology Specialists supporting academics at UTS. Recently they had an opportunity to work with work placement interns from the UTS Graduate Certificate in Learning Design.

This internship-like opportunity is linked to the subject Work: Learning Design Project, and saw the students collaborating with the LX.lab team on diverse projects. We hear from three of these students: Anisha Sharma, Jess Kollias and Alanna Kochetkova.

Anisha – designing a fully online model 

“My Project entailed working with the LX team to design and develop the one-week fully online ‘Education’ module of the Advanced Professional Practice (APP) course for the clinical learners. It was a tightly scheduled project that required close collaboration and strong research skills to achieve the desired content level.”

“Being a learning designer is a new learning every day. Some days you are a collaborator and researcher, some days it’s all about technology. As a learning designer, it’s essential that you have strong knowledge about the learning and design theories. But it’s equally important to have strong collaboration skills, and a flair to learn and adapt to the latest technological tools and research in a constantly evolving field.”

Jess – researching Portfolium and drafting a rubric

“UTS has recently launched an ePortfolio platform called Portfolium and it’s currently accessible to all students. I worked with a team at the LX.lab to investigate how building a portfolio with Portfolium can become more integrated with a student’s journey at UTS. This involved researching the background and history of ePortfolios and constructing a draft rubric that could be used across UTS for portfolio-based assessment.”

“The biggest lesson I learnt was around staying focused to the original scope of the project. While there is a number of different directions you can take with a project, you ultimately have to remain focused upon the outcomes you’re trying to achieve and not get distracted by other avenues of thought that might not necessarily be constructive.”

Alanna – developing videos for international students

“The Offshore Learning Experience Program aims to support and provide an accessible and equitable UTS student experience to international students learning overseas. The project I worked on within this program aimed to develop educational videos to create a sense of belonging for students by introducing the teacher and course, as well as targeted videos for offshore students. There was also preparation for training workshops on the media tool Kaltura.” 

“My internship was compatible to my background in ESL teaching so I could apply my job experience to the project which I found empowering. Feeling confident in my ability built upon my knowledge and skills is a personal lesson which I hope to take into my future career. After this experience I feel more assured that I can provide unique and valuable contributions to my colleagues and benefit my workplace.”

Advice for future interns 

My advice is to be open about the learning as the domain is evolving fast and don’t be afraid to share your viewpoint.

Anisha Sharma

Have fun with it and enjoy the experience! It’s a great opportunity for development and feedback.

Jess Kollias

I would advise interns to make use of their time on their internship experience. Seek any way to contribute as it is an opportunity for you to practice your learned knowledge or gain new skills and insights.

Alanna Kochetkova

These projects contributed to the students’ presentations to their peers. They described their project brief, how it connected to their understanding of learning design, and what they learned. At the same time, the students brought a wealth of knowledge and perspective to the projects they collaborated on. The LX.lab team valued the opportunity to work with some of tomorrow’s learning designers – thank you to our work placement interns and we wish you all the very best in your future endeavours! 

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