James Mulkerrins, Wageningen University and Research CDI

1. Diving into the Diversity of High Quality
Landscape Education
Learning Cafe/Global Landscapes Forum 2019

2. Open Online Learning for
‘Landscape Professionals’
GLF Landscape Academy:
“Sustainable & Inclusive Landscapes”
EdX Professional Certificate Programme

3. GLF Partners

6. Sustainable & Inclusive Landscapes
• Competence based learning – knowledge, skills, attitude
• Tools, methods, core concepts and principles
Reach:
• Circa 4,000 learners across ‘our’ 3 courses
• In total – 80 paying learners
• Over 150 countries
• Roughly 50-50 gender balance (governance = f>m)
• Median age of 30/31
• Predominantly bachelor or master level education

7. Modular learning and personal reflection

8. MOOCs - Videos
• 3-4 minute knowledge clips (~20
per course)
• Longer tutorials, for example
Business Model Canvas
• Presentation format
• Less sentences > more
keywords
• Highly active slides
• Transcriptions / subtitles
• Recap questions
• Fully downloadable

9. MOOCs - Exams
• Closed questions
• MC, drag-drop etc.
• Per module, on module content
• Cases/scenarios > learning
through exam

10. MOOCs - Forums
• Learners share their reflective assignments in
interactive online forums
• Encouraged to give feedback and make connections
• Light-touch moderation (troubleshooting, good
behaviour, etc)

11. MOOCs – On-going assignment
• Describe and analyse your
own case
• Apply modular content to
case
• Progression towards post-
course ‘Action Plan’
• Share steps in forum for
peer feedback
• Final assignment is a peer-
graded synthesis (course
team supervision).

12. Key lessons learned
Insight Implication
1 Video/online learning is not innovative for
many, so what is and how to entice?
Engage GLF youth in course design
2 ‘High’ number of private sector learners Ensure courses/packages of learning are relevant for job
profiles of future
3 Shorter is better, even 8hrs is too long!! Learning on the go, notification, 2min videos. Reach the
busy people
4 Many learners skip the reflective on-going
assignment and thus don’t finish course
Don’t force people to select and focus on ‘their’ case
5 Lots of potential for enhanced learning in
forums that we miss out on
Ensure enough budget/availability for meaningful
engagement
6 The more we invest in interactivity, the higher
the completion rate
Make it fun, more quizzes/games/scenarios

13. I am inspired by the people taking this
class as much as those who are offering it.
I feel very engaged! I am also sharing what
I have learned
I love the resources we use, the videos
and movies that inspire us greatly.
I'm being inspired through so many
experiences around the world that
otherwise I couldn't have known and I'm
being lead to my own landscape
leadership process
REGISTER NOW
(or reach out and let’s develop together)