Lumen is deeply committed to eliminating race, income, and gender as predictors of student success in US higher education. Each and every student, regardless of their race, income, or gender, is capable of succeeding when they are supported effectively. And at Lumen, we are working to provide every student and each instructor with the pedagogical supports they need to be successful.

In 2022, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided Lumen with substantial funding in support of this vision. This generous grant allowed Lumen to update and improve our equity-centered design process, leading to significant improvements to our content and assessments as well as a new software platform for supporting students and instructors as they engage in the teaching and learning process. The new courseware offering that resulted from this work is called Lumen One, and the first subject is Introductory Statistics.

Equity-Centered Design

We define equity-centered design as “the practice of purposefully involving historically marginalized and resilient communities throughout a design process with the goal of allowing their voice to directly affect how the solution will address the inequity at hand” following Kwak (2020). This principle is sometimes expressed as “design with, not for.” As we created Lumen One, we involved students and faculty throughout the process of drafting platform features, content designs, and assessment approaches.

One of our key strategies for designing with students, instead of for them, was the creation of two User Testing Centers (UTCs). Through partnerships with Santa Ana College and Rockland Community College, two Minority Serving Institutions, the UTCs trained 13 student interns to complete user testing research cycles with more than 140 of their student peers. Using a variety of research techniques – from empathy interviews and cognitive interviews to prototype testing and interactive co-design sessions, the interns helped Lumen understand the answers to questions like: What’s the reality of students’ lives and academic experiences today? How might students solve the problems they experience in their gateway courses? What’s interesting, relevant, and engaging to them? What definitely isn’t? What would students change if they could?

Examples of Equity-Centered Designs

Students taught us many valuable lessons through their work with the UTCs. One of those lessons is that there’s nothing that students find universally interesting and relevant to their lives. This recognition led us to co-design data analysis practice in Introductory Statistics that has a greater chance of engaging students by including multiple datasets. This gives each student a chance to choose a topic to analyze that’s meaningful to them. We call these Choose Your Own Dataset activities.                                                         

Students also told us that they frequently need to hear a concept explained multiple times by multiple people. This typically leads them to search YouTube for additional perspectives on challenging topics. However, surfing YouTube presents a number of challenges. Different instructors use different language to describe the same concepts, making them more difficult to understand. And the YouTube algorithm always suggests unrelated videos that easily distract students and waste their time. Understanding the underlying desire for additional perspectives as well as the challenges presented by using YouTube for this purpose, we recorded three different instructors with different perspectives and life experiences explaining key concepts throughout the course. This allows students to get a range of perspectives on challenging ideas without the confusion and distractions of YouTube.

In another example, students told us they strongly wish that instructors better understood them as individuals and appreciated the obligations they have outside of class, like working full-time or caring for an aging family member. Many students long to feel a genuine connection to their instructors and to feel seen and supported. To help bridge this gap between instructors and students we co-designed an Introduce Yourself activity for students and a corresponding instructor dashboard. This provides faculty with information like students’ preferred names and pronunciation, preferred pronouns, academic majors, year in school, and obligations outside of class.

As a final example, we heard loud and clear from students that they don’t enjoy reading long monolithic blocks of text. This complaint actually aligns very well with research about what makes for effective studying. Specifically, research consistently shows that engaging in interactive practice with immediate feedback is dramatically more effective at promoting learning than reading or watching video.

(And this effect of doing interactive practice is causal, not merely correlational.) This student perspective combined nicely with another consistent bit of feedback– that students hate having to purchase a calculator or special mathematics software in order to do homework for their classes. We brought these ideas together in a co-design that significantly reduces the amount of passive reading and video watching that students do in the course. In place of reading and watching, students engage in significantly more interactive practice, including with an online statistics tool that is integrated directly into the course materials at no additional cost.

Equity isn’t Just a Process – It’s Also Results

It’s often said that equity is a process, and I agree with the call to action underlying that idea. But equity must also be about results. For example, if Lumen’s equity-centered design process doesn’t facilitate equitable outcomes for students, then our process still needs work. We recognize that there are likely many cycles of continuous improvement between us and the audacious goal of eliminating race, income, and gender as predictors of student success. With Lumen One Introductory Statistics available for broad adoption this fall, we’re excited to evaluate our initial progress towards this goal, publicly share what we’re learning, and continuously re-design Lumen One with – not for – students and faculty across the US in pursuit of equitable outcomes. 

Interested in Learning More?

Hear what your peers who’ve adopted Lumen One have to say during a webinar on October 26th at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Register here: https://info.lumenlearning.com/exploring-lumen-one-in-the-classroom

References

Kwak, J. (2020). How equity-centered design supports anti-racism in the classroom. https://www.everylearnereverywhere.org/blog/how-equity-centered-design-supports-anti-racism-in-the-classroom/

Inspired by the Lumen name, the new brand identity demonstrates the powerful and unique connections Lumen enables educators to make with their students to inspire learning and achieve individual goals.

The Lumen light wave, captured in both the logo and through a gradient design system, is the foundation of our new graphic language. Based on the visible light spectrum, it features solid wavelengths that intersect to create “points of connection.” These points represent the connection between educators and their students throughout their educational journey and the speed of learning that Lumen makes possible.

This concept of connected brilliance will be featured in our new brand guidelines for brand identity, look and feel as well as tone and messaging.

“While we are thrilled to launch Lumen’s refreshed brand, our core mission is not changing,” said David Wiley, Ph.D., cofounder and Chief Academic Officer of Lumen Learning. “We will always believe that every student – regardless of income, race, or any other characteristic – should be cared for and empowered to learn. And we will continue designing technology that puts people first and fosters the relationships that inspire learning.”

We’re excited to share our new brand with you and look forward to connecting.

Portland, Oregon / October 18, 2022 – Lumen Learning, a leading provider of higher education teaching and learning materials focused on improving student outcomes and removing race and income as predictors of student success, today announced its 10th anniversary since its founding by CEO and Co-Founder Kim Thanos and Chief Academic Officer and Co-Founder Dr. David Wiley. 

With 2022 as its most pivotal year to date, Lumen announced in April it was awarded a prestigious competitive grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to further its groundbreaking work in creating and implementing equitable courseware focused specifically on eliminating race and income as predictors of success and establishing relatable courseware for underserved students of Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and low-income backgrounds. Lumen’s results-backed actions around effectively supporting minority students in this capacity is a first in the industry, something no one else is doing. Lumen was awarded the grant because of its long history of creating change in higher education and its promising strategy of integrating faculty professional development directly within its courseware. 

To further its work, Lumen has partnered with Rockland Community College and Santa Ana College, both with large minority student bases, to establish on-campus student testing centers. Lumen is also working with Howard University’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning & Assessment (CETLA) faculty and staff who are providing guidance and direction for the courseware, as well as with The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) to effectively scale the courseware to universities across the United States. To date, over 980 institutions have adopted Lumen’s courseware nationwide.

“Over the past decade, one constant remains: We’ve stayed true to our roots of creating and delivering courseware that helps students and faculty achieve their greatest potential,” says Kim Thanos, co-founder and CEO of Lumen Learning. “We could not have achieved outstanding success without the dedication of our talented team and the support of our customer community. Our passion for finding solutions and pioneering innovative user- and equity-centered learning comes through in everything that we do.”

Lumen Learning was founded with the overarching goal of achieving better results for students by working closely with faculty while simultaneously reducing costs for its users. Over time, recognizing more could be done for students, Lumen transitioned its focus from cost savings to tackling more difficult and complex issues to advance equity for all students. The company has set industry benchmarks through its commitment to increasing equity, access, and affordability in higher education while addressing the issues faced by students of underserved and underrepresented backgrounds. Since its founding, over 12,600 faculty have adopted Lumen’s courseware, and its open educational resources have garnered over 1 billion views.

Another major focus for Lumen is its faculty professional development platform, Lumen Circles, which uses virtual learning communities to connect faculty members with peers to help them hone their expertise as student-centered teachers. Lumen has created timely and relevant materials that are grounded in evidence-based practices to enhance effective teaching and learning, ultimately increasing student success. Over 1,000 faculty fellows have completed Lumen Circles; the most popular program to date is Belonging & Inclusive Teaching Fundamentals where over 300 fellows have completed the program. 

For the 2022 fall semester, Lumen Learning has hit its largest enrollment milestone thus far with over 150,000 enrollments. Over the past 10 years, total savings for students has topped over $160 million as more than 1.6 million students have used Lumen’s courseware, reinforcing Lumen Learning’s significant role in the edtech space and its overall mission to support and help students through equitable courseware. 

“I am extremely honored to be on a mission of enabling unprecedented learning for each and every student who uses our courseware as we continue to sharpen our focus on eliminating race and income as predictors of success,” said Dr. David Wiley, co-founder and chief academic officer for Lumen Learning. “Our entire team is committed to eliminating the gap that has historically affected so many students in higher education, and I look forward to the exciting work ahead as we pioneer solutions to create equity for all.”

Since its inception, Lumen has been building a world-class team to deepen understanding and accountability of evolving the student learning experience and meaningfully impacting the predictors of success. Most recently, Lumen created a unique team that is primarily focused on tackling both internal and external equity and inclusion initiatives. The company is entirely remote and currently has 79 employees spanning 28 states. Of all its employees, 57 employees live outside of Oregon, showcasing its desire to hire and retain top talent across the United States. 

Dr. David Wiley was recently nominated for EdScoop’s Industry Leader of the Year for pioneering change in higher education with unique solutions and a commitment to the industry. 

About Lumen Learning

Since 2012, Lumen Learning has partnered with colleges and universities to support teaching and learning innovation with a focus on improving affordability, access, and student success.

Lumen Waymaker and OHM digital courseware provide evidence-based learning design and data-driven content improvements to increase learning and student engagement using open educational resources (OER).

Lumen Circles provide faculty professional development to build skills and advance teaching practices. Grounded in research about how to increase learning and student success and delivered through peer-based virtual learning groups, Lumen Circles provide a supportive setting for faculty to expand their capabilities for teaching in dynamic educational environments.

Over 500 institutions across the U.S. are using Lumen-supported digital courseware for in-person, online, and blended courses. Materials created by Lumen are published under Creative Commons Attribution licenses and contributed back to the education community. Learn more at lumenlearning.com, and visit our course catalog at lumenlearning.com/courses.

Press Contact:

RF|Binder

Rebecca Epps

Phone: 925-451-3126

Email: rebecca.epps@rfbinder.com

In a previous blog post on accessibility, we explored the ways in which the Lumen team identifies, prioritizes, and delivers on accessibility improvements in our content and our platforms. While our team is constantly learning and expanding on our knowledge of accessible and inclusive practices, we also appreciate the expertise of leaders in the field. To that end, in the spring of 2020, we began an extensive search to find a third-party partner that could help us maximize our mission of unprecedented learning for all students.

As part of our commitment, we engaged with Perkins Access, a division of Perkins School for the Blind, to ensure that our platforms conform to the World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (W3C WCAG) Version 2.1 Level AA requirements to the maximum extent possible. These guidelines explain how to make web content more accessible for people with disabilities.

We’re thrilled to share that Perkins Access has been contracted to provide user and expert reviews, inclusive design reviews, ongoing accessibility support, and expert standards guidance.

Perkins Access has brought a holistic approach to partnering with us. Through the initial review of our learning platforms, Waymaker and OHM, the Perkins team worked to share insights and opportunities to improve the accessibility of our products. We were especially thrilled to work with their experts in reviewing the student AND instructor experience to support success for teaching and learning across our offerings.

Jennifer Sagalyn, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Perkins Access, shares, “As part of Perkins School for the Blind, it’s meaningful when our partners have missions that align with ours. Lumen is committed to providing quality education to all learners, regardless of ability. And we’re committed to helping Lumen make their digital experiences as accessible and inclusive as possible. That’s what makes our partnership a success.”

We’re looking forward to our partnership with Perkins Access and providing more accessible learning experiences to all students.

By: Anika Ledlow (Assistant Course Product Manager) & Jeanette Koskinas (VP, Product)