Knowledge Creation in a Participatory Design Context

Webinars through empathetic participatory design, are very powerful, yet less used strategies for building the capacity of teachers to improve their pedagogical and andragogical practice, let alone to be used by teachers to offer education to their learners. The classroom learning environment has evolved to meet the needs of today and tomorrow by providing students with access to technology and online resources that support instruction especially during times when face-to-face interactions are impossible. A case in point is the recent lock-down of schools and other academic institutions due to COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly all students of all categories were ordered to receive instruction online from their teachers, while at home. Most schools and teachers were ill prepared for this type of education instruction and needed capacity and online coaching to effect such a directive, yet at the same time were compelled to observe social distancing as a standard operating guideline compliance. This book chapter offers research and practical based experience framework solution for effectively applying webinar through integrative tools as a framework for coaching educationists to promote active learning in blended environments. The methodology of the chapter is through empathetic participatory design corroborated with an online survey coupled with desk review for generating lessons learned for sufficient framework design. The unit of analysis were co-design team members (tutors and lecturers) from Uganda Christian University and University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Using situation awareness theoretical model, three factors are revealed as support for effective webinar integration in blended learning in an empathetic participatory learning manner: perception, comprehension and projection of a given teaching-learning situation. For effective coaching of teachers through webinars, this chapter proposes an implementation framework based on a situation awareness model within empathetic participatory design principles especially when face-to-face preparations are inappropriate. This model results into empowering and motivational outcomes for the instructors to extend the application of the use of the webinar tools among their fellow instructors.