Learning DesignGrainne Conole.

What is learning design?

• By definition, learning design is the practice of planning, sequencing and managing learning activities, usually using ICT-based tools to support both design and delivery.

• Learning design tools allow practitioners to plan learning from small-scale activities up to whole lessons and programmes, and has been popularised by user-friendly tools; LAMS (Learning Activity Management System). IMS has a specification for Learning Design (IMS LD).

The implicit nature of teaching practice

Design is an inherent part of any teacher’s practice: Design is so embedded in a teacher’s practice, it is not formally articulated but it helps the teacher with the planning and preparation of lessons.

Focus and the understanding of Learning Design brings the following questions to mind:• How do teachers prepare their teaching materials and/or teaching sessions? • What decisions do they make? • How do they decide which activities, resource and technologies to incorporate? • Where do they get advice and help on the process?

A critical eye on the design process

• There is a need for better understanding of the design process to inform teachers willing to use these emerging technologies in effective and innovative ways.

• Teachers need guidance and help in making decisions about the creation of new learning activities.

This module will give an overview of the issues associated with designing for learning and approaches to design that will help teachers and designers. It will give the advantages and the difficulties of learning design.

The design process

This process is used to help teachers map the pedagogy, technologies and activities students are intended to take. The main focus is on:• How design can be represented and shared. • The advantages and disadvantages of different forms of

representation

Why focus on design at all?

Design has attracted a growing interest in teachers trying to understand the design process. There are a number of reasons why we should focus on design but these two are important:• By making the design process more explicit it can be more easily shared with

others, which means good practice can be transferred. • There is now such a diversity of resources and technologies available, which can

potentially be used to support the teaching process that teachers need clearer guidance to help them find relevant tools and resources and find support on how to incorporate the tools and resources into the learning activities they are creating

Why design is becoming increasingly important

• Design is the core of the teaching practice. The learning experience of the students depend on how the lesson was presented and what learning tools are used.

• Good learning design create learning materials that have a good impact on how students learn.

• Learning design aims to move the pedagogic skills of the expert teacher from the realm of tacit to explicit knowledge and to capture the essence of that knowledge for reuse in other contexts by other staff.

‘Learning activities’ and ‘learning design’

Learning activities and learning design are the central topics in this theory.Learning activities - undertaken to achieve intended outcomes • Finding and synthesising a series of resources from the web • Contributing to a ‘for and against debate’ in a discussion forum • Manipulating data in a spreadsheet • Constructing a group report in a wiki • Summarising the salient points of a podcast.

‘Learning activities’ and ‘learning design’ Cont.

Learning design – the creation and means of describing learning activitiesThe term learning design refers to :• The process of planning, structuring and sequencing learning

activities, • The product of the design process – the documentation,

representation(s), plan, or structure) created either during the design phase or later.

‘Learning activities’ and ‘learning design’ Cont.

Learning design provides the means of creating learning activities and the ability to share these activities with other teachers or tutors. Activities are created in a way that is easy to understand so that they can:• Be shared between a teacher and a designer • Be repurposed from one teacher to another • Serve as a means of scaffolding the process of creating new learning

activities • Provide the tools for practitioners to capture their innovative practice in a

form that is not only easy to share but also gives them ownership of the problem and solution.

‘Learning activities’ and ‘learning design’ Cont.

Learning design aims to enable reflection, refinement, change and communication by focusing on forms of representation, notation and documentation. This can:• Make the structures of intended teaching and learning more visible and

explicit.• Serve as a description or template, which can be adaptable or reused by

another teacher to suit his/her own context • Add value to the building of shared understandings and communication

between those involved in the design and teaching process • Promote creativity.

Different interpretations of ‘learning design’

The term ‘Learning design’ originated in the technical community and gained popularity in the year 2004. • It was created to provide framework for describing

teaching strategies and learning objectives which could be shared between eLearning providers.

• It was also created to focus on pedagogy and the activity of the student rather that the content. This approach is called ‘design for learning’.

The value of learning design as an approach

Learning design can be seen as something of no value to your normal teacher or facilitator but it has now gained popularity in eLearning and distance learning.The advantages of instilling good design across teaching and support stuff of an educational institution:• A clearer perception by the teacher of good examples of teaching or learning

support • More efficient use of the teacher’s time • More efficient and effective learning on the part of students • More useful sharing of pedagogic insights across the teaching and support staff,

and across disciplines.

The value of learning design as an approachCont.

Learning design seeks to provide tools and support that can help those involved in teaching and learning respond to changes – be these constraints on time and resource, greater choice in technology and pedagogies, the blurring of the real and virtual, and shifting roles – and stakeholders involved in planning and delivering courses. • When teaching at distance these factors may be particularly beneficial,

due to greater planning and design before delivery to students.• It also asks questions about how design occurs, what decisions do

teachers make? What is their process? For both the practitioner and the institution.

Capturing practice

• Good teaching practice requires the creation of a textual or visual space and within it, a vocabulary of pedagogical elements.

• What is captured depends to some extent on the intended audience for the design.

• The rules of combination of these elements, to create a learning task and groups of such tasks, have to be articulated.

What are the drawbacks?

Learning design has, by far attracted much interest but remains a developing field in the mainstream practice. Issues and challenges:• The theoretical and methodological challenges understanding this

process and the impact and consequences of the approach. • Practical and theoretical challenges - representations of learning

designs can vary in their form, role, granularity.• Uncertainty with issues of ownership , how to share and proficient

skills representation.

Therefore….

Learning design refers to the range of activities associated with creating a learning activity and providing means to describe the learning activity. Internationally, a number of research groups are actively working in the area of learning design. They are trying to find ways to help teachers create better learning experiences for students, which are pedagogically grounded and make innovative use of new technologies.

Learning Design Word cloud: