Learning Experience Design at Shillington

This section explores my work redesigning Shillington’s learning experience, moving the course from a fast-paced face-to-face environment to a fully online platform during a period of major change.

What follows is a series of case studies and examples that sit at the intersection of education, UX, and systems thinking. These projects reflect my role not just as a teacher, but as a designer of the learning journey itself. I built platforms, reworked feedback systems, and created tools that helped students and teachers adapt and thrive in a new digital classroom.

Each piece shows how I approached the challenges of digital education with the same mindset I bring to creative direction: thoughtful structure, clear communication, and human-centred design.

Building Confidence Through Access:
Shillopedia

A searchable Q&A database built from real student questions, designed to reduce confusion, improve independent learning, and support quieter voices in the online classroom.

  • In online classrooms, students were asking fewer questions. Small issues were going unaddressed and snowballing into larger problems.

  • Reduced contact hours and the public nature of asking questions online made quieter students less likely to speak up. The chat feature we built wasn’t being used, and many students turned to external tutorials that promoted poor practices. This eroded both skill development and the perceived value of the course compared to in-person teaching.

  • I used Loom and Notion to record, store, and categorise student questions and answers, building a searchable knowledge base. This gave students 24/7 access to reliable, Shillington-approved information and reduced their reliance on outside sources.

  • In check-ins, quieter students shared that the database helped them feel more confident and supported. It also reduced the teaching load and gave the curriculum team insight into recurring knowledge gaps, allowing us to improve the course content based on real student needs.

Designing a Better Critique Loop

A visual review system that helped students give and receive better feedback in less time, while giving teachers clearer insights into classroom trends and design thinking.

  • Teachers were expected to give feedback to 22 students in a 10-minute window during class exercises or demos. This led to rushed, uneven feedback and created a reliance on teacher input. Students weren’t developing their own critique skills, and teachers couldn’t get a full picture of the class’s progress.

  • If students performed structured critiques on each other’s work, they would develop stronger analytical thinking while still receiving feedback. If the critique process was visual and trackable, teachers could also identify broader patterns in student understanding and focus their feedback more effectively.

  • I created a graphic review system that asked students to place each piece of work on a visual spectrum (e.g. clarity, hierarchy, originality). This took just three minutes, yet surfaced patterns in how students perceived design — and revealed blind spots. With this input, teachers could spend the remaining seven minutes asking better questions and giving more targeted, meaningful feedback.

    • Students began having deeper design conversations earlier in the course

    • Teachers avoided making incorrect assumptions about student intent

    • Critique time became more balanced, effective, and outcome-driven

    • The system improved both student learning and teacher insight, without adding time pressure

Reverse Learning for More Teaching Time

A restructured lecture model that flipped the traditional learning sequence, giving students more time for making, feedback, and deep engagement. Giving teachers more room to teach, not just talk.

  • In the original Shillington model, lectures were delivered live at the start of class. This often consumed a large portion of studio time, leaving less room for meaningful feedback, collaboration, or practice. Teachers frequently repeated the same content across cohorts and answered similar questions mid-project, which led to inefficiencies and inconsistencies in how knowledge was delivered.

  • If students could engage with lecture content before class, they would arrive better prepared, with questions already forming. Class time could then be used for critique, application, and coaching — the parts of the learning experience that benefit most from real-time teaching and group discussion. This “reverse learning” model would also reduce repetition for teachers and allow the curriculum to scale with more consistency.

    • I implemented a reverse learning structure across multiple modules by:

    • Pre-recording core lectures using Loom

    Hosting all lesson content in a central Notion hub, structured by week, topic, and file type

    • Designing modular, media-rich lessons with video, text, and downloadable assets

    • Introducing guided prompts to help students reflect on lecture content before class

    • Training teachers to treat class time as a space for reinforcement, not delivery

    Students were expected to watch lectures and complete prep tasks before class. In-class time shifted to include design critiques, hands-on activities, group discussion, and 1:1 feedback.

    • Teachers spent up to 40% more time on feedback, not delivery

    • Students arrived more prepared and confident, with specific questions

    • Peer learning improved, as everyone entered the room with a shared foundation

    • The system reduced teacher burnout by eliminating lecture repetition

    • Lessons became easier to update, improving curriculum agility

    • Students reported higher satisfaction with class time, describing it as more “useful” and “engaging”

Designing Against Bias in Online Teaching

In an online classroom, it’s easy to misread silence as understanding or confidence as clarity. This case study explores how a simple check-in system helped teachers move beyond assumptions, track student sentiment in real time, and create space for more honest, human-centred teaching.

  • In face-to-face classrooms, teachers often rely on body language, tone, and subtle cues to understand how students are tracking. But in an online environment, those signals become harder to read — especially with cameras off or limited interaction. We found that teachers were sometimes projecting assumptions onto students. Quiet students were seen as disengaged. Confident students were assumed to be coping. This made it difficult to identify who was actually struggling, and when.

  • If we created a space for students to reflect on their progress and tell us how they were feeling before class started, we could replace guesswork with insight. Teachers would enter the room with clearer context. Bias could be reduced, and feedback could be better aligned with what students actually needed — not what we assumed.

  • I designed a weekly pre-class check-in form that asked students three key things:

    1. How are you feeling this week?

    2. How confident are you with the last assignment or topic?

    3. Is there anything you’d like us to know before class?

    These responses were automatically sorted and fed into Notion. Teachers reviewed the data before class, allowing them to identify:

    • Who needed support

    • What topics were causing confusion

    • Where patterns of uncertainty were emerging

    This also gave the curriculum team real-time insight into student pain points, making it easier to spot systemic issues in the course content.

    • Teachers entered class with context, reducing the risk of bias-driven decisions

    • Quieter students felt more supported and seen

    • Conversations became more relevant, focused, and empathetic

    • The curriculum team used form data to flag and improve content areas that caused repeat confusion

    • Students felt more comfortable sharing their struggles, even outside live class time

Designing Global Teaching Partnerships

When Shillington moved online, it opened up the opportunity to rethink how teaching teams were formed. Without the need for teachers to be in the same physical location, I started pairing teaching partners based on personality traits, feedback styles, and complementary strengths. This led to more balanced, effective classrooms and stronger student outcomes.

  • In the face-to-face model, teaching partnerships were based on who was available on the same campus. Some teams worked well, others had tension or imbalance. This affected classroom dynamics and created inconsistencies in the student experience. Once classes moved online, we were no longer restricted by location.

  • If I could pair teachers based on how they taught and how they communicated, I could create stronger and more compatible teams. Some teachers were structured and technical. Others were intuitive and conceptual. Some gave tough critique, while others offered emotional support. The best teams were not identical in style but complementary in approach.

  • I mapped each teacher’s working style using informal observations, feedback, and personality traits. I looked at how they communicated, how they managed critique, and what kind of energy they brought to the class. I then built a simple pairing matrix to match teachers with complementary strengths.

    This allowed me to create teams across time zones and campuses. For example, I could pair a teacher in Melbourne with one in São Paulo or New York. With shared systems in place (Slack, Notion, Google Drive), the partnerships worked smoothly, even if they were not working side by side.

    • Students received more balanced support and feedback

    • Teachers reported better team dynamics and fewer conflicts

    • Time zone differences created natural rhythms for lesson prep and feedback

    • Teacher pairings became intentional, not based on convenience

    • Classrooms felt more consistent, supportive, and collaborative