Production team:
Host : Maria Xenidou
Producer: Julie-Roxane Krikorian
Introduction Voice: David Bourne
Contact us:
impactlearningpodcast@gmail.com
Music credits:
Like Lee performed by The Mini Vandals
Transition sounds: Swamp Walks performed by Jingle Punks
Where to find Nikki James and Practera:
On LinkedIn
Practera
Mentioned in this episode:
Constructive Alignment Design Theory on Wikipedia
John Biggs, the lead thinker on this theory
Listen to this episode and explore:
Nikki’s childhood: studying ballet, giving to the community and staying focused on her education (3:33)
Getting a bachelor’s degree in health science (8:16)
Nikki’s first job as an outdoor educator (10:34)
Becoming a youth manager at a charity in Australia (11:30)
Building public-speaking skills and learning about social justice (12:50)
Setting-up a volunteering branch in China after the Sichuan Earthquake (15:52)
What Nikki learnt about herself in China (20:47)
Returning to Australia to develop volunteering programs for university students (22:00)
Her trip to Tanzania that changed everything (24:24)
Joining Practera as an Instructional Designer (28:30)
Practera: an experiential learning online platform (30:36)
Using collaborative project learning to scale experiential learning and help students develop 21st-century skills (32:34)
What goes into designing an experiential learning experience that creates the desired outcomes (36:14)
How Nikki leverages experts when designing an experiential learning experience (38:52)
The business model of Practera: who covers the cost of the programs (41:23)
How experiential programs work for the students (42:15)
How Practera matches the students with the industry professionals and their projects (43:29)
Creating an ecosystem where students, educators and industry professionals collaborate (45:03)
What the program managers’ role is at Practera (47:51)
How to get involved with Practera as an educator (48:58)
Who the mentors are and how they support students (51:26)
How Practera triggers reflective learning for the students (53:28)
Practera programs: a combination of online and in-person activities (55:43)
Nikki’s reflection on scaling the impact of her work while dreaming of making the Practera technology available in low-resource economies (57:29)
Nikki’s PhD in Education: aggregating learning data analytics and learning theories in the experiential learning field (59:34)
How Nikki sees the future of experiential learning (1:01:40)
