Planning and Preparation: Reflection and Evidence
Planning as Inclusive Learning Design
Planning and preparation are central to my teaching practice because they determine how accessible, meaningful and coherent the learning experience will be for students. In my context, I work with adult learners who bring varied educational backgrounds, digital confidence, professional goals and life responsibilities. For this reason, I do not see planning as a technical checklist completed before teaching begins. I see it as an ethical and pedagogical process through which I anticipate learner diversity, remove barriers and design purposeful pathways into learning.
My planning begins with three guiding questions:
- Who are my learners?
- What do they need to be able to do?
- How can I design learning activities that support confidence, autonomy and progression?
This approach reflects my commitment to learner-centred teaching, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), constructive alignment and authentic assessment. It also reflects my own experience as an adult learner, where clarity, structure and encouragement played an important role in helping me build confidence and persist through challenge.
Designing Backwards from Learning Outcomes
When planning a module or learning activity, I begin by identifying the intended learning outcomes and the evidence that would demonstrate meaningful achievement. This backward design process (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005), combined with constructive alignment (Biggs and Tang, 2011), helps me ensure that activities, resources and assessments work together rather than existing as separate elements. In practice, this means that learners are not simply completing tasks, they are gradually developing the knowledge, skills and professional behaviours needed to meet the learning outcomes.
This is particularly important in creative and digital media education, where learners need to develop both technical competence and creative judgement. Planning must therefore support cognitive development, practical skill-building and affective growth, including confidence, persistence and professional identity.
Evidence of my course redesign and backward planning process can be viewed below.
Photoshop course Redesign and Backward planning process
Laurillard’s ABC learning design framework (2002) has also supported my planning by helping me consider a balance of learning types, including acquisition, practice, discussion, collaboration and production. This has encouraged me to move beyond content delivery and think more intentionally about how students interact with resources, with each other and with their own developing practice. Evidence of the ABC Learning Design strategy can be viewed in the following link: ABC Learning Design.
Planning for Digital Inclusion
Digital inclusion is one of the most important considerations in my planning. In online and blended learning environments, barriers can appear quickly when learners are unfamiliar with platforms, unsure about expectations, or lacking confidence with digital tools. To address this, I aim to design learning experiences that are structured, flexible and supportive from the beginning.
One example is a Project-Based Learning formative assessment that I designed in three stages. Students first engaged in a role-play activity where one acted as the client and another as the designer. This simulated an authentic design process, requiring learners to ask questions, interpret a brief, produce sketches and respond to feedback. The activity supported communication, problem-solving and peer learning while reducing the pressure of producing a final polished outcome too early.
Evidence of the lesson plan that supported this activity can be viewed below.
Lesson Plan
In the second stage, learners refined their original ideas or developed a new version connected to a topic that was meaningful to them. In the final stage, they shared work through Moodle forums, where peers and tutors could offer formative feedback before final submission. Reflection could be submitted through text, audio or video, and final artefacts could be presented in different formats such as Word, PDF, Adobe Portfolio or Creative Cloud links.
This flexibility was intentional. It aligned with UDL by offering multiple means of engagement and expression, while also reflecting real-world creative practice. The activity taught me that inclusion is strengthened when learners are given choice, structure and opportunities to revise. However, it also highlighted the need for clear scaffolding, especially around design principles such as hierarchy, alignment, spacing and colour. In future iterations, I would introduce these principles earlier and provide more guided exemplars to support learner confidence.
The following video provides an overview of the strategies employed to ensure an inclusive and accessible design approach.
Design for inclusion
Designing and Curating Learning Materials
My approach to teaching materials is based on a balance between curation and creation. I use Open Educational Resources where appropriate, particularly when they are high quality, accessible and aligned with the intended learning outcomes. Adobe Education Exchange has been particularly useful in creative education because it provides professionally relevant resources that can support learners in developing industry-based digital skills.
The following video provides a walkthrough of the resources I developed and used to support learning.
Use of resources
When selecting external materials, I consider relevance, credibility, accessibility and licensing. I also consider whether the resource supports the learning journey or creates unnecessary cognitive load. This reflective approach to curation helps me avoid overwhelming learners with too much content and instead provide resources that are purposeful and manageable.
An example of a Creative Commons licensed resource can be viewed below.
Creative Commons resources
Alongside curated resources, I design many of my own teaching materials. I aim to apply accessibility and multimedia learning principles by using clear headings, readable layouts, captioned media, visual examples and manageable segments of information. These decisions are important because accessible design benefits all learners, not only those with identified support needs.
The following PowerPoint presentation demonstrates my approach to designing engaging and visually effective learning materials.
PowerPoint Presentation
I also use generative AI tools selectively to support resource development. However, I do not treat AI-generated content as automatically reliable or pedagogically appropriate. Any AI-supported material is reviewed for accuracy, accessibility, bias and alignment with the learning outcomes. This allows me to model responsible and ethical digital practice while helping learners engage critically with emerging technologies.
Effective Digital Teaching
Effective digital teaching requires more than uploading content to a virtual learning environment. It requires clear structure, visible teacher presence, purposeful interaction and meaningful feedback. Using principles from frameworks such as Quality Matters and the Community of Inquiry model, I aim to create digital learning environments where learners understand what is expected, why activities matter and how each task supports their progression.
Teacher presence is particularly important in self-paced and online learning contexts. I maintain this presence through announcements, live classes, forum engagement, feedback and practical guidance. These strategies help students feel that the course is supported by a real educator rather than a static collection of materials.
The following video provides a walkthrough of the application of the Quality Matters and Community of Inquiry frameworks to improve the design and delivery of learning experiences.
Effective Digital Teaching
Inclusive Digital Design
A key strength of my current planning practice is that accessibility and inclusion are considered from the beginning rather than added at the end. In Moodle, I use clear organisation, consistent headings, accessible resources, alternative formats and structured activities to support navigation and engagement. These design choices align with UDL and digital accessibility principles by making learning materials more perceivable, understandable and usable.
However, reflection on my practice has also helped me recognise limitations. Providing multiple formats and flexible submission options can support learner autonomy, but it also requires very clear assessment criteria to ensure fairness and consistency. Similarly, while forums can support peer feedback and collaboration, not all learners participate equally. Some learners are confident sharing work publicly, while others may need more structured prompts, smaller peer groups or alternative ways to engage.
This reflection has influenced how I plan future learning activities. I now see inclusion as a continuous process of design, observation, feedback and adjustment. My next step is to involve learners more directly in evaluating the accessibility and usability of course materials, so that improvements are informed not only by my intentions but by students’ lived experiences of the learning environment.
Using Digital Capability Evidence to Inform Planning
My engagement with the Jisc Discovery Tool helped me reflect on my own digital capacity, particularly in the area of assessment and feedback. The self-assessment placed me at a capable level, which reflects my confidence in designing digital assessment tasks and providing structured feedback. However, it also helped me identify areas for growth, including peer assessment, feedback timing and the use of multimodal feedback in online environments.
Jisc Report
This reflection has practical implications for my planning. In future course designs, I aim to scaffold feedback more explicitly by using staged submissions, clearer rubrics and opportunities for learners to act on feedback before final assessment. I also want to explore audio or video feedback, which may support learners who benefit from more personal and multimodal communication.
Reflection on digital assessment and feedback
Click the accordions below to expand/collapse the accordion content.
My self-assessment of digital capacity placed me at the “capable” level in the domain of assessment and feedback. While I feel confident designing digital assessments and giving timely written feedback, I recognise that supporting peer assessment, self-assessment and fairness in grading can be more complex in online learning environments.
Some learners engage actively in forums, sharing their work and commenting on peers’ projects, while others participate less visibly. This makes formative assessment more challenging and highlights the importance of structured prompts, supportive rubrics and clear expectations. My developmental goal is to strengthen assessment practices that support both creative expression and preparation for professional certification.
I also want to support learners’ understanding of plagiarism, academic integrity and ethical digital practice. Rather than treating these only as compliance issues, I aim to use them as opportunities to develop learners’ digital literacy and professional responsibility.
What I Have Learned About Planning
Through this work, I have learned that effective planning is not only about preparing resources or organising content. It is about designing conditions where learners can participate, practise, reflect and grow. The strongest learning experiences I have designed are those where students understand the purpose of the task, receive timely support, and have opportunities to revise their work through feedback.
I have also learned that the amount of evidence available is less important than the quality of reflection drawn from it. Moving forward, I want to adopt a more selective and analytical approach by identifying key themes from learner feedback and using those themes to inform design decisions. This will help me move from reporting what happened towards demonstrating how evidence shapes my practice.
Future Development
My future development in planning and preparation will focus on three areas. First, I want to strengthen the use of learner feedback to evaluate accessibility and usability. Second, I want to develop more structured peer feedback activities that help learners build feedback literacy. Third, I want to continue refining assessment design so that creative freedom is balanced with transparent criteria and fair evaluation.
These priorities reflect my wider teaching identity as a reflective, inclusive and digitally engaged educator. Planning is where these values become visible in practice.
References
Biggs, J. and Tang, C. (2011) Teaching for Quality Learning at University: What the Student Does. 4th edn. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education.
Bergmann, J. and Sams, A. (2012) Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day. Eugene, OR: ISTE.
Borgman, C. L. (2007) Scholarship in the Digital Age: Information, Infrastructure, and the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1961) ‘The act of discovery’, Harvard Educational Review, 31(1), pp. 21–32.
Burgstahler, S. (2015) Universal Design in Higher Education: From Principles to Practice. 2nd edn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
CAST (2024) Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. Available at: https://udlguidelines.cast.org (Accessed: 22 March 2026).
Herrington, J., Reeves, T. C. and Oliver, R. (2010) A Guide to Authentic e-Learning. New York: Routledge.
Kolb, D. A. (1984) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Laurillard, D. (2002) Rethinking University Teaching: A Conversational Framework for the Effective Use of Learning Technologies. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
Luckin, R., Holmes, W., Griffiths, M. and Forcier, L. B. (2023) Intelligence Unleashed: An Argument for AI in Education. London: Routledge.
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Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J. (2005) Understanding by Design. 2nd edn. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Wiley, D. (2014) ‘The access compromise and the 5th R of open’, Iterating Toward Openness. Available at: https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221.