Teachers’ Design Processes: An Analysis of Teachers’ Design Talk and Use of Pedagogical Patterns

Abstract

Research on how teachers design to support learning and how teachers use different learning designs is still in its infancy. The explorative study reported here aims to approach an understanding of how teachers design learning activities by analysing upper secondary teachers’ design work while using pedagogical patterns. Ten teachers working in pairs of two were invited to design and document learning activities based on pedagogical patterns. The findings reveal that (1) pedagogical patterns inspire teachers to embark on a design process that aligns with their own context, and (2) teachers’ design processes share common general design characteristics and are, among other things, different, dynamic, unpredictable, and unsystematic. It is concluded that knowledge about teachers’ design processes and the use of learning designs may inform researchers on how to develop design-supporting tools and resources.