PROBLEM
How do you create a more student-focused catalyst for learning? Textbooks are no longer effective and do not appeal to students’ engagement and learning. The overabundance of repeated information bogs down students’ exploration of the material and the rapidly increasing cost makes these resources inaccessible. Marshall University Advertising Professor Chris Ingersoll hired me, alongside public relations student Sydney Weir, to act as designers and student voices to guide the creation of this new learning experience.
Table of contents for the experience network
Individual pages within the network, more can be found by following the link to anexperiencenetwork.com
SOLUTION
Create an Experience Network, rather than a textbook, to explore different avenues of teaching and engaging students effectively.
An Experience Network utilizes a multimodal construction in concert with visual learning pathways to enable students’ exploration and application of the material all housed within an open-source license. The learning pathways allow students to see how all of these concepts connect with each other and allows users of various skill levels to jump in as necessary. The nodes within these pathways present small chunks of information so that the user can effectively consume and apply it before they move on to the next. A humanistic sans serif gives the brand an approachable and honest feel. The color shift from light to dark as the user journeys further into the network gives a sense of progression and accomplishment.
Fall 2021 Ingersoll, C., Sheret, L., May R., Gupta, M., Presentation, “Creating a Student Driven OER Digital Textbook” West Virginia Statewide Technology Conference, Virtual.
Spring 2020 Ingersoll, C., Sheret, L., May R., Wyer, S., Presentation, “Rethinking the Textbook from a Student’s Perspective,” Inquiring Pedagogies Regional Teaching Conference, Student Success: The Educational Imperative. Marshall University, Huntington, WV.