Doctor of Clinical Dentistry

I was challenged to re/design the Melbourne Dental School's Doctor of Clinical Dentistry (DCD) program for Canvas.

Previously the online Canvas offerring had been neglected, and students were offered minimal or no LMS guidance about assessments in their subjects.

Working as a micro learning design team of one - focussed exclusively on the DCD, I developed strong professional relationships with senior stakeholders and clinical specialisation academics to develop:

• 8 DCD specialisations
• 22 DCD subjects
• 151 Assessments

In just six months, he has built 22 Doctor of Clinical Dentistry subjects and aligned and corrected 151 assessments within the program. This achievement is nothing short of remarkable, especially considering the scale of the task—it was initially deemed impossible.

MDS Redesign Manager
10 December 2024

Leigh is making excellent progress in the DCD space for 2025.
He is documenting current processes, organising materials, and creating learner-friendly course shells that ensure a consistent user experience.
This includes refining and creating assessment descriptors, instructions, and rubrics to enhance clarity and alignment.

MDS Redesign Manager
20 August 2024

A huge thank you on the exceptional work you have accomplished in the DCD space throughout 2024.

Your dedication and innovative approach to redesigning the course shells and streamlining the associated processes have set a remarkable standard for learner-centric design and scalability.

It’s truly inspiring to see the work you have done in a space that had very little to work with.

MDS Redesign Manager
10 December 2024

Leigh, your efforts are making a tangible difference in the DCD space and beyond. You’ve demonstrated resilience, creativity, and an unwavering commitment to excellence, even in the face of challenging tasks. Congratulations on these incredible achievements.

MDS Redesign Manager
10 December 2024

Information Technology portfolio

Creating better units and improving the student experience in the ITO portfolio was my main stretch goal that I delivered on for 2023, including Master of IT and Graduate Certificate of IT and Graduate Diploma of IT.

There are other vast improvements in the portfolio that outweigh statistics.

• With my leadership, the Monash Online LD team began approaching the builds differently
• My passion for designing and teaching this content well really lifted up the courses
• Integration of Ed STEM platform for most asynchronous discussions and educator interactions in all ITO subjects
• My collaboration with OES STEM specialist LD was a valuable partnership for the ITO portfolio

DATA

The SETUs have improved on average by slightly over the 0.5 metric that we set.

Your leadership in the ITO space is astonishing to see- when I first started in this team, the ITO units were reviled by the team but you have come in and made them better, and enjoyed working on them, even managed to get the rest of the team enjoying them a bit more. This is an enormous help to both me and the broader Monash LD team. Thank you.

OES Lead Learning Designer
February 2023

Leigh, thanks for supporting everyone with your expert Moodle knowledge, and for all your work across the ITO portfolio juggling multiple builds.

OES Lead Learning Designer
31 March 2023

You have changed the way the team think about ITO units and that’s refreshing.

OES Lead Learning Designer
July 2023

Educational Design Portfolio

By establishing the trust and support of the Monash Online Academic Unit Designers and the Online Unit Coordinator, I was able to implement my innovative refresh for the design and navigational architecture of each of the units in the Monash Online Grad Cert in Educational Design.

Demonstrated excellent stakeholder management in EDF.

OES Lead Learning Designer
February 2023

DATA

A 6% increased pass rate for the Grad Cert in Educational Design (91% - 97%) was recorded in the subsequent teaching periods.

LD Lounge (ITO4131 Java programming)

As Senior Learning Designer, I was tasked to invent a system to track changes to units that needed to cycle elements each time they would run for Monash Online. 

Rather than rely upon an external platform to hold this information, I developed the 'LD Lounge' in collaboration with our Learning Design Assistant (LDA); an area in Moodle, hidden from students, for LDs and LDAs to visit whenever the unit is rolled-over and various items need to be updated. The idea is similar to the 'OLA Lounge', a concept that OES uses for unit teaching teams.

In the case of ITO4131 Java programming, the assigned game that the students would build would be changed each teaching period, as would the quiz questions from the question bank. 

The LD lounge is the ideal place to note these changes because the data would carry over into the next teaching period with the rest of the unit.

The ITO4131 Java programming LD Lounge is going to be my one-stop-shop for what to update when I'm doing this rollover.
Lets put it into ITO4132 next!

OES Learning Design Assistant
23 October 2023

🏠 Stages Building (ITO5136 Software development)

I developed a 'stages' approach to LD building in which LDs are encouraged to build more efficiently by focussing on particular tasks in stages across a buld project.

You have a clear vision for your builds and bring people on board in a structured way

360° survey - co-worker feedback
February 2023

Yeah I love this Leigh. Keen to see you and the team try this out for ITO5136- perhaps tracking progress with these stages/items as subitems in Monday?

OES Lead Learning Designer
November 2023

Watch the following video in which Leigh and the team discuss the benefits and future developments of the stages building approach as implemented in the ITO5136 build. The video also illustrates how these stages have become incorporated as part of the team's Monday.com planning boards.

ITO4001 Foundations of computing

I managed workloads for Monash Online’s ITO4001 Foundations of Computing unit build. I worked with the academic team at Monash University to develop suitable materials for online learning. 

With competing priorities, I managed the build time by building an initial module for other LDs to emulate and instructed my team to follow the design. 

I also worked with OES’ LD STEM specialist to develop and produce interactive activities.

You feel more confident in the area of workflow and allocating out work to the team.

OES Lead Learning Designer
July 26 2023

Graduate Diploma of Psychology units redesign

I led the design and development of units for Monash on-campus delivery for the Graduate Diploma of Psychology. 

Students had been struggling with the learning design of the on-campus Moodle offering, and so the Monash Online team at OES was offered the chance to revamp the course. 

The GDP Design workshop had been a valuable collaboration between GDP stakeholders and contributed greatly to the ultimate design of the GDP units.

The two units, PSY4111 and PSY4122 and a template to build more which my team delivered were designed to stretch the design and capbilities of Monash Moodle.

Awesome work with all the Shell design, Leigh Canny ⭐ I wouldn't even know where to start to get Moodle to look like that!! So cool seeing it in a different way.

OES Learning Designer
July 2023

[What helped was] All Leigh's Moodle/coding experience to bring together the design of the shell for PSY4111 and the critical thinking workbooks.

OES Learning Designer
August 2023

Watch the following video in which Leigh conducts a tour through many of the innovative design and navigation elements introduced into the GDP unitd to improve the student learning experience.

DATA

The unit obtained an overall student satisfaction score of 4.65/5.00, which is the highest rating the unit has received.

Thank you once again for all your efforts in putting together such a fabulous unit design and interactive module content! The quantitative student evaluations have been released and they are overwhelmingly positive.

Monash University
Assistant Coordinator, Graduate Diploma in Psychology
21 November 2023

Ed platform

For Monash Online's Information Technology portfolio of units, I redeveloped the use of the Ed STEM platform.

I developed a more efficient method for the creation of new Ed shells, improving Monash Online's rollover and set-up procedures.

I improved the messaging to students about the uses and functions of the Ed platform which appear in Module 0.

I developed the Monash Online code repository to include a section on Ed, so that LDs embarking on building any IT unit can utilise consistent resources.

Despite tricky IT builds, you find ways to make them accessible for the students and optimise their experience.

OES Learning Designer
July 2023

The following image captures the Ed Moodle page from the Monash Online Code repository.

Assessment scaffolding for ITO5205 Data in society

I led the learning design team in converting Monash's capstone ITO5205 from an on-campus delivery to online delivery for Monash Online.

The unit requires students to undertake assessments which are atypical in ITO units so, just as in the on-campus delivery, a lot of scaffolding was required to help students make the academic adjustment.

I developed the Grade Booster structure throughout the unit. Each Assessment Booster was a weekly deep dive into the assessment requirements for that week, giving students guided detail on the week's assessment requirements, including an analysis of the grading criteria.

ITO5205 was a good example of tying authentic assessment to the learning materials and a co-design approach with Monash academics and teaching staff to develop authentic assessment approaches.

it is looking good - many thanks for everyone's hard work.

Monash univeristy - Academic Unit Designer
December 2022

The following image captures the Assessment Booster page dedicated Assessment 2: Privacy impact assessment.

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Another assessment scaffolding structure I developed for this unit was the Research Resource block. Blocks appeared throughout the unit's learning materials. Each block highlighted a resource which students may opt to use for their final Ethical design report assessment

 

Pass-rate data indicated that the scaffolding structures in place in the unit were effective in allowing students to successfully tackle the unfamiliar assessment types.

DATA

Pass rate TP1-23: Pass rate = 100%

Moodle pages presented with permission from OES and Monash Online.

The following image captures the Research Resource block on the 'Scenario 1: The company want my data' page in the Digital Health case study.

Teaching & Learning Innovations in Engineering & IT

I worked in partnership with a multi-disciplinary team of Engineering academics to develop Teaching & Learning Innovations in Engineering & IT.

The SharePoint site shares stories of teaching innovations from across Melbourne School of Engineering & IT. The site launched during 2020's COVID19 lock-down and so the focus became sharing innovations in remote and online teaching and learning. Regular focus topics included digital assessment, synchronous and asynchronous learning activities, remote management of groupwork and alternatives to specialist learning activities like laboratory classes.

The site enabled teachers to learn from colleagues successes and encouraged isolated teachers to attempt new innovations in their subjects.

Melbourne University Sharepoint allows external visitors with Microsoft accounts (ie hotmail, outlook, etc)
Teaching & Learning Innovations in Engineering & IT

Thank you for setting up the ground work for a new TLU. The SharePoint site and the materials you continue to churn out, are of excellent standard. Well done

Operations Manager of Electrical, Mechanical and Infrastructure Engineering (EMI)
2020

Sharepoint pages reproduced with permission from Melbourne University Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

Arts Teaching & Learning Portfolio

In 2018, I led a redevelopment of the Arts Faculty Teaching and Learning Portfolio intranet website.

I sought stakeholder input from Educational Design team leadership to better understand the intended functions of the site and its redevelopment. Consideration of user experience evidence and analysis of similar teaching & learning resources (especially in consultation with the Educational Innovation Community of Practice) enabled me to develop working models (such as the 2017 Mock Arts Teaching and Learning site) to illustrate how increased usage could be achieved by better connecting users to more engaging and relevant content.  I was able to communicate with internal administrators and external contractors to negotiate technical requirements of the Wordpress redesign.

This project demonstrates my collaboration with the Educational Design team, but also how I have helped share better understanding of educational methodologies and technology issues facing the wider Arts faculty teaching community.

Arts Teaching & Learning Portfolio

Wordpress pages reproduced with permission from Monash University: Faculty of Arts

Designing Learning for the Digital Environment

• The Designing Learning for the Digital Environment project required my investigative, conceptual and analytical problem-solving skills to provide a best-practice model for academic online teaching. 
• Through an audit of online units, I helped identify the deficiencies in the Arts Faculty’s offerings in the areas of web content design, inclusion of support resources, engagement and interaction, online assessment, and learning pathways instructions. 
•  My leadership consolidated the Educational Design team’s analysis of online learning best practice, online student cohorts, academic priorities, and available technology and I developed a set of Digital Learning Guidelines to guide teachers in preparation of their own Moodle sites. 
• I recommended several innovative ways to in which to communicate the guidelines, and implemented a best-practice model online unit which presents the guidelines as embedded meta-content explaining the pedagogy of each e-learning aspect. This solution benefitted from my ability to clarify many complex issues to produce a straightforward support resource for teaching staff. 

Designing Learning for the Digital Environment

Reproduced with permission from Monash University Faculty of Arts

Thank you to everyone for contributing to this resource, especially Leigh who managed to bring all our thinking together - which was completely divergent at times. It's a huge achievement!Thanks again

Monash University Faculty of Arts
Senior Educational Designer
2018

2013- 2015: Swinburne University of Technology: Master of Multimedia: Multimedia Project Group Supervisor

Swinburne University of Technology Master of Multimedia: Multimedia Project Group Supervisor: Faculty of Health, Arts and Design

• Provide advice to student groups about how to successfully complete the multimedia project through:
  • Project management and system development methodologies
  • Effective communication with industry clients and focus on user requirements
  • Operate in a team environment and with limited resources
• Assessment and cross marking of written submissions and oral presentations
• Projects:
  • 2016: It's a Dog's Life website
  • 2016: Getting Over It website
  • 2015: Donor Tissue Bank of Victoria public awareness animation
  • 2015: Artist portfolio website
  • 2014: Kinnov eBusiness Solutions Posski marketing campaign
  • 2014: South Melbourne Life Saving Club website redesign
  • 2014: Learning iPad app for Swinburne Baby Labs
  • 2013: Learning Game App for Hearing impaired children

VU Collaborate Staff Help Site

My support role at VU includes the establishment and maintenance of help websites including VU Collaborate Instructor Help using Joomla CMS.

• adapted my CSS skills to make use of Joomla’s LESS styling language and Joomla’s compiling system
• developed the tag-cloud tool for improved navigation
• upgraded search functionality
• conducted staff and student user experience reviews
• started a feedback forum to gather instructor feedback on help-site content
• comply with the University's accessibility policies
• collaborate with University central web-design & marketing teams to ensure consistent user experience

Reproduced with permission from Learning Environments Team, Centre for Collaborative Teaching and Learning, Victoria University

VU Collaborate Student Help Site

My support role at VU includes the establishment and maintenance of help websites including VU Collaborate Student Help using Joomla CMS.

• adapted my CSS skills to make use of Joomla’s LESS styling language and Joomla’s compiling system
• developed the tag-cloud tool for improved navigation
• upgraded search functionality
• conducted staff and student user experience reviews
• started a feedback forum to gather instructor feedback on help-site content
• comply with the University's accessibility policies
• collaborate with University central web-design & marketing teams to ensure consistent user experience

Reproduced with permission from Learning Environments Team, Centre for Collaborative Teaching and Learning, Victoria University

Exerscape

3D Virtual World created with VastPark software platform, 2011. Envisioned to be a virtual world for a future exercise game development. Developed as part of Swinburne University of Technology Masters in Multimedia subject Multimedia Project Development. I project managed and produced 100% of the creative work on this project for my client organisation VastPark.

More of Leigh's student projects

Melbourne Meccano Exhibition 2011

I produced "Melbourne Meccano Exhibition 2011", a documentary film, recording the Melbourne Meccano Club's 2011 Exhibition.

I planned and story-boarded the idea, interviewed subjects, managed camera crew for location filming and edited the finished film.

More of Leigh's student projects