Learning Design
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Work in progress, expect frequent changes. Help and feedback is welcome. See discussion page. |
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Contents
About Learning Design
Learning design is about building environments that enable learners to learn. It focuses on the activity learners need to undertake in order to meet learning goals. Resources and supports are then carefully chosen and matched to enable learners to achieve their learning goals.
| Learning design today is focused on and driven by learners. Teacher-centred practices are being challenged, as is a focus on “designing for delivery”. This shift is articulated well in an article in the online Journal for Learning Design (vol 1, no 2) Beyond Instructional Design: Making Learning Design a Reality.[1] |
Much learning design is done intuitively but designs are strengthened when pedagogies and teaching approaches are consciously chosen to support the achievement of learning goals. Learning design draws on a variety of pedagogies and teaching and learning approaches.
Useful Resources
Useful examples of activity or task oriented design and tools:
Learning theories outlined:
- The Funderstanding site is another that outlines learning theories.
- The Theory and Practice of Online Learning (2nd ed.) - open textbook - blends scholarship and research; practical attention to the details of teaching and learning
Constructivist theories of learning:
- Situating Constructionism by Seymour Papert and Idit Harel, the first chapter from the book Constructionism (1991), provides some of the original thinking on the topic.
- The Design of Constructivist Learning Environments, by David Jonassen, in Instructional-design Theories and Models: A new paradigm of instructional theory by Charles M. Reigeluth, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (1999), Chapter 10, p. 215-239, offers a good synopsis of the theory and useful examples.
- Reading list from The Nature of Constructionist Learning course offered through MIT OpenCourseWare.
Many of the resources developed in WikiEducator will be used in learning environments where access to new technology is difficult or impossible. However, for some it will be appropriate to consider designing for learning that does utilise new technologies and can particularly focus on the development of web2 environments. That is, a focus on using technologies to network and build collaborative opportunities with learners having far more input into the design of their own learning spaces.
New technologies and learning design:
- Wiki Pedagogy challenges traditional design practice:
Resources for newcomers to learning design:
- A learning design activity in a simple text-based game format
WikiEducator Tools
We are developing a set of tools to help with the learning design of projects in WikiEducator.
Page Nodes
Notes
- ↑ Sims, R. (2006). Beyond instructional design: Making learning design a reality. Journal of Learning Design, 1(2), 1-7.
