Oxnard Union High School District Case Study
CONSTRUCT K12 CASE STUDY
Partnership Length:
June 2019 -Present
OUHSD Headquarters:
Oxnard, California
Number of Students:
17,000+
About Oxnard Union High School District
Oxnard Union High School District is a large district located in Southern
California. OUHSD serves 11 different high schools and reaches a student
population of approximately 17,000 learners. Ensuring that every student has
endless access to equitable support and opportunities for success in postsecondary education is OUHSD’s driving mission. Before partnering with Construct, Oxnard was already supplying online learning to their students via a third party. However, OUHSD felt that working with Construct would allow them to build their courses and design customized content to suit their students’ and teachers’ specific needs while avoiding the large costs associated with doing it themselves.
Challenges
Serving students located near many of the fires in California, OUHSD realized that several students had to miss class anywhere from 1-2 weeks due to the fires. As Oxnard had witnessed that Canvas was being used to supplement that missed time by many schools worldwide, they decided to explore working with Canvas in partnership with Construct. Oxnard realized that moving courses to Canvas with Construct’s production, technology, and learning design would allow them to effectively address a credit recovery model, replace subscription services, and provide more customized courses to better suit the flexibility needed to ensure that students have the resources in order become college-ready.
10
COURSES ALREADY CREATED
5
COURSES IN-PROGRESS
3
COURSES SLATED TO BE MADE
Construct enabled us to activate a team that could take a school’s message and deliver it.
—Aaron Ferguson
EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY DESIGN COACH
OXNARD UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
Partnering with Construct
When Oxnard Union High School District realized that they needed to find a more reliable option for making courses accessible to their students online, they knew Canvas was the route they wanted to take. OUHSD expressed that Canvas is a great product but they knew their teachers needed extra support in creating technologically, design, and learning-sound courses on a new platform.
When deciding to partner with Construct in conjunction with Canvas, OUHSD attributed the decision to Construct’s “focus on the user experience.” They believed the Construct approach was not simply about the content, pedagogy, or other buzzwords but instead about “how students experience the content and the learning” (Aaron Ferguson).
Oxnard noted that when taking their programs online, they were inspired by how we, as a society, engage with and enjoy social media. Their classes needed to be designed to create a similar intrigue and interest for their students. With Construct’s production team, OUHSD was able to integrate customized colors, graphics, and videos that helped them to achieve this vision. Being able to design course content at a personalized level allows for the teachers AND students to come first.
Project Goals
1
Developing internal content that aligns with the material taught in classrooms
2
Creating 18 year-long and semester-long high school courses
3
Building courses in Canvas that can be used for credit recovery
4
Designing course templates that can be reused, adapted, and personalized
5
Bridging the gap between face-to-face and distance learning for teachers
Construct & Canvas are the best
investments you can make for teachers.
—Aaron Ferguson
EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY DESIGN COACH
OXNARD UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
The Process
Phase 1
Design & Discovery
Construct worked with OUHSD to determine learning design components that needed to be kept consistent across all courses: the structure that all of the courses would follow, A.K.A. the Proof of Concept Blueprint, and the Visual Style Guide that the courses would follow. Construct worked closely with faculty to identify which textbooks were being used for each course, to determine any Canvas integrations available through the publishers.
Phase 2
Learning Delivery
For each course, Construct identified and hired a freelance Subject Matter Expert specializing in creating online content for that specific subject. Construct worked with the SMEs to create blueprints and course atlases, while Construct’s production team created graphics and video scripts. Faculty were involved in every step of the process and signed off on all the deliverables.
Phase 3
Visual Design & Discovery
Since each course had ~30 minutes of videos, one video per module, Construct established a consistent video style, format, and purpose. Construct also hired on-screen talent and worked with a freelance videographer to shoot the videos.
Phase 4
Final Review
Construct organized an in-person review meeting after the course was built in Canvas so SMEs and faculty could go through each module together. Construct then ensured that any requested changes would be completed within 24 hours.
Construct creates a great way to provide the first step to helping hesitant teachers to transition into the distance learning environment.
—Aaron Ferguson
EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY DESIGN COACH
OXNARD UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
Results
Construct has currently delivered ten courses at a rate of 12 weeks per course.
Construct is contracted to deliver eight more courses.
Construct has created 200+ custom graphics and 60+ original course videos for Oxnard Union High School District thus far.
Construct is currently developing 300 more custom graphics in addition to 120 original course videos for Oxnard Union High School District.
Oxnard Union High School District has experienced a 300% increase in the number of Canvas users since working on this project.
Oxnard Union High School District’s online courses will serve ~17,000 students.
Working with Construct and Canvas provides a great starting place. It gave teachers much more time to develop relationships on a community-level in their classes. They have more time to focus on students and students have the ability to work at their own pace because the learning is designed much more effectively.
—Aaron Ferguson
EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY DESIGN COACH
OXNARD UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
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