­The use of H5P to Enhance Student Learning and Experience for Diverse Cohorts in Animal Science

Abstract

The challenges currently facing higher education institutions in a post COVID-19 world, make it increasingly difficult to deliver an authentic approach where curriculum planning, delivery and assessment are purposely tailored to the goals and needs of the learner community. In 2021 the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ) delivered its first suite of animal science courses. UniSQ has a traditionally higher external cohort of students compared to their on-campus, therefore the curriculum design needed to cater for this. Several key active learning strategies were employed to deliver this experience including flipped classrooms, group discussions, case studies, and problem-solving exercises, and they were operationalised via the use of the digital learning tool; HTML 5 package (H5P). H5P is an open source, online learning tool that ensured the capability to deliver an authentic experience for a diverse student cohort. It has been extensively applied in other disciplines, but to date the research suggests that its potential as a learning tool has not been fully realised in agricultural disciplines such as animal science. Engagement and satisfaction appeared to be positively impacted by the implementation of H5P in the animal science courses at UniSQ. Positive feedback related to the ability to engage meaningfully with the content in an enjoyable way, clarity of instruction and relevance of content. Longer term tracking of student engagement is, however, required to fully realise its impact.