Grace is 21. She lives in shared student accommodation in a large, bustling city with easy access to transportation. She has completed part of a university degree program. However, she decided to change to another degree in theology and religious studies as she discovered that her passion relates to her faith. She plans to work with Barnabas Aid, an international aid agency supporting Christian communities, churches, and individuals globally facing persecution and discrimination because of their faith. She is a confident user of both synchronous and asynchronous technologies. Grace has taken on a part-time job to help pay her tuition fees, which means that she cannot attend some in-person classes. She is highly motivated and prefers asynchronous learning platforms.

Persona B

John is 37 years old. He is married with two young children and a busy home life. He completed his first degree in engineering in his early 20s and has been working in engineering for over 15 years. He now wants to pursue a theology degree for personal reasons to explore and seek a deeper understanding of his Christian faith. John has little experience using synchronous or multiflex technologies such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom, although he is generally a confident technology user.

Persona C

Peter is a 67-year-old retired medical doctor with three grown-up children who fled the family home. His wife is still working as a community nurse. Peter has taken a more active role in his local church and has been invited to lead the service regularly. However, Peter wants to broaden his theological knowledge to help him step more confidently into this role. Peter is fully conversant with multiflex technologies such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom and works well independently. He has a flexible timetable and can easily accommodate his HE commitments around his schedule.

I would run an initial session for John, covering synchronous or multiflex technologies such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. I would schedule the class to suit personas A and B, as persona C has a flexible timetable. Asynchronous learning would be most beneficial for the above personas due to personas A and B's busy work/life schedule and their confidence and preference toward Asynchronous platforms. I would schedule in-person classes with the option for online attendance, recording classes, and uploading recordings to the preferred asynchronous platform. I would introduce essay questions at the beginning of the course so the students can begin reflecting on the essay questions and relate them to the course content, which I'd encourage students to discuss on the college asynchronous platform.

Because Ana isn’t very familiar with synchronous or multiplex delivery and make sure that the initial class session included quite a bit of VLE instruction and technical setup.  Going forward, I’d try and make the learning material more case study based rather than strict textbook reading, since people with varied backgrounds may be able to absorb the information better in this prose.

Persona B:

For Matt I’d try and include all reading materials in English and Spanish.  This way, he can brush up on his translation skills without missing out on crucial information.

Persona C:

Arthur may require for lectures to be recorded and posted on Moodle given his caring responsibilities.  I’d also hope that like Matt, he’d benefit from having reading materials be in English and Spanish.

To do so, I will ensure usability and accessibility of all course materials for all students by

1. spending time at the start of the course to train students in the use of all platforms or directing them to access training and verifying that learning has taken place by asking them to log into teams, use the chat, share their screen etc.

2. Providing recorded sessions with edited captions for synchronous and asynchronous sessions. This will enhance the learning experience of all 3 students especially Arthur who can access the classes at his convenience. For Matt and Ana the recorded sessions with captions will help reinforce their listening and reading skills.

Active learning can be encouraged using flipped learning. For instance, to meet the explain authentic written, audio and audio visual Spanish learning outcome, a variety of written, audio and audio-visual excerpts in Spanish can be provided and learners asked to individually identify the most authentic for each format.

Following this, peer review of the answers with explanations from the reviewer on why they agree or disagree with their peers can be requested before the correct answers are revealed.

Then the students can be asked to design an authentic online Spanish business in keeping with outcomes 3, 4 and 5. This will foster collaboration and play to the strengths of Matt who has the background knowledge of Spanish economics hence can take the lead on that task while supporting his colleagues to integrate and develop the concept.

Authur, a competent speaker and listener, can pitch the business while Ana acts as the investor who asks questions.

The Facilitator can assess the group based on the theories of Spanish business culture and practices thatformed their decisions, pitch and investor questions.

The assessments can thus be written and audio-visual encouraging learners to produce an original work collaboratively hence achieving the highest level of Bloom's taxonomy - synthesis.

Written Assessment

A big write that could either be

1. Case-based analysis of how a Spanish business establish on or before the 1960s has evolved and thrived e.g. El Corte Ingles established in 1934.

Or

2. a generalised analysis of the 1960s to the 2020s Spanish business era - economic, social and political.

Audio-visual Assessment

The presentation of the group work on a business - online or offline.

Matt- introduces the company and why they think it will thrive

Authur - presents the pitch

Ana - asks questions about the viability of the business acting as the investor.

During the group work, learners would have benefited from Matt's subject knowledge; Ana's technological competence that can be utilised to prepare and/or edit the infographics that will be used for the pitch and Andrew's Spanish spoken and listening communication capabilities for presentation while affording all of them the aability to extend their knowledge of the subject area by having to synthesis their own viable online Spanish business.

Reshma is well-placed to benefit from learning technologies in various ways. Her accessibility issues could be somewhat mitigated by using asynchronous online tools such as Moodle, which means that she does not necessarily need to attend class-based synchronous activities (e.g. she could watch lectures in her own time). She could also use Teams to remotely access synchronous learning. This option will also allow her to schedule her learning in a way that best suits her, including around her hospital appointments. The use of discussion forums on Moodle could be a particularly effective way of enabling her to engage with group activities give her language concerns, allowing her to take her time in making her contributions. Padlet could be similarly useful. Language tools (such as translation software) could potentially be beneficial given Reshma’s language needs. Given her lack of experience and confidence in using learning technology tools, she could also call on the university’s Educational Excellence website and wider IT support where needed.