Aligning Innovation with Impact in Higher Education

Matthew Street, Head of Digital Learning, University of Warwick

Matthew Street is Head of Digital Learning at the University of Warwick. He has over 15 years of experience in higher education. Street specialises in learning design, innovation and digital strategy. He holds a Master’s in Online and Distance Education and is a Senior Fellow of the HEA and an MBA candidate.

Through this article, Matthew Street emphasises that meaningful innovation in digital learning comes from aligning strategy with lived experience. He shares insights from his journey, highlighting how purposeful design, critical evaluation of technology and listening to staff and students can lead to more equitable and effective learning environments.

An Unconventional Path to Digital Learning

I didn’t follow the usual route into learning technology. I started in programme administration for a politics course, handling timetables, assessment entries and student queries. Around that time, the organisation adopted a new virtual learning environment (VLE), and I became increasingly interested in how people used it. That interest grew into an informal role supporting colleagues in better using the system in ways that enhanced teaching.

That led to a secondment on a Jisc project focused on improving assessment and feedback processes. It was a largescale initiative that helped me see how closely technology is tied to people and systems and how meaningful change is often less about the tools themselves and more about how they’re embedded into institutional culture and practice.

From there, I moved into a more traditional learning technologist role. I worked across two central teams—one supporting students through skills-focused online content and another supporting staff using digital tools effectively. It was also where I started teaching, co-leading a postgraduate certificate in teaching and learning with technology. That experience was formative. It allowed me to work directly with academic colleagues and help them think critically about using technology in their contexts.

“Lasting change in digital learning does not come from adopting new tools alone. It comes from aligning strategic intent with the real needs of staff and students, listening carefully, designing purposefully and ensuring that impact is visible in everyday teaching and learning”

I later became a learning technology manager, overseeing faculty-facing staff while continuing to teach. Eventually, I took on a more strategic role as senior lead for digital education projects, developing and managing institution-wide initiatives and focusing on innovation. That brought me to my current role as Head of Digital Learning at Warwick.

It’s been anything but linear, but each step has given me a new lens on how digital tools can support and enhance learning. That range of experience still shapes how I approach the work today.

Staying Critical in a Changing Landscape

Technology is constantly evolving, but what matters most is how it’s used in context. I try not to view tools in isolation. They’re always shaped by the environments in which they’re applied, just as much as they shape those in return.

Ironically, part of my role involves being a healthy sceptic. I look at what a new tool improves, changes, and whether it adds value. Once we’ve established that, we focus on helping others make informed decisions, so adoption isn’t just reactionary, but purposeful.

Innovation Starts by Asking the Right Questions

Innovation is always contextual. What’s new for one group might be routine for another. So when we talk about innovation in learning and teaching, we’re talking about change as experienced by the people using the systems, what it looks like and how it affects and changes their work.

At scale, we avoid rushing to implement new tools. Instead, we start by understanding what problem someone is trying to solve. If someone says, “This doesn’t work,” we ask, “What exactly isn’t working? Why not? What’s the root cause? Only then do we look for the proper intervention.

One example from early in my career was around peer assessment. Students often said they didn’t like it, but after digging deeper, we found the issue wasn’t the concept itself; students weren’t getting individual marks in group work. There were no clear criteria to guide contributions.

We found a Jisc project with an open-source tool that allowed students to co-create assessment criteria and rate each other’s input. An algorithm combined peer and staff feedback to generate individual marks. It addressed the root issue, and engagement improved significantly.

For us, innovation isn’t always about chasing new technology. It’s about understanding people’s experiences, responding thoughtfully and exploring how technology can inform learning and teaching and how learning and teaching inform technology development.

Designing with Purpose, Not Just Flexibility

Hybrid and flexible models are gaining traction and offer value, but we approach them through the lens of purposeful design. The key question we ask is, what are we designing and why?

I talk to teams about being intentional in shaping equitable and accessible experiences, taking into account the diverse contexts our learners come from. We often build out scenarios or personas to explore different learner needs and design from there. It’s not just about offering flexibility but structuring it to support students.

And sometimes, too much flexibility can become a constraint. You might create something highly self-directed, only to find that students need more scaffolding to benefit fully. So we look at interventions holistically, what are we trying to achieve and how do we design for the people who’ll use them?

Aligning Strategy with People on the Ground

In my experience, lasting change happens when it is built from both directions. It’s not just about senior buy-in, it’s about having senior leaders actively involved, setting direction and aligning with organisational strategy. But that alignment must also be grounded in the realities of day-to-day work.

That’s often the hard part. Everyone has competing priorities and limited time. So, success comes from identifying where those top-down goals and grassroots needs intersect. What motivates each group? Where are the shared interests? If you can find those connection points, you can build initiatives that feel relevant and real.

Look for opportunities where strategic intent meets community needs and deliver them in ways people can see and engage with. When change feels tangible, it’s much more likely to take root.

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