Inform Learning Design Research Articles

Development of undergraduate employability skills through authentic assessment in college-based higher education.

This paper explores how authentic assessment can be implemented to enhance opportunities to develop employability skills through problem-solving tasks. Based on the eight key tenets of authentic assessment (Ashford-Rowe, Herrington and Brown, 2014), this paper presents formative and summative assessment case studies which were created in partnership with external stakeholders on three separate degree programmes at an undergraduate college-based higher education provider. The case studies report on the development of employability skills through authentic learning design on courses ranging from level 4 to level 6 of the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications. The cases add weight to the argument for embedding employability within the curriculum wherein the core skills/intended outcomes are delivered as part of the taught curriculum rather than as paralleled approaches which aim to develop employability as an add-on. Each of the case studies are individually distinct, however they each share commonalities that collectively produce an effective framework for authentic assessment design. These key components include effective collaboration with external stakeholders (employers) from within the respective sectors, the joint formulation of a ‘problem’ that allows students to apply real world skillsets to overcome, and lastly the opportunity for external stakeholders to contribute towards feedback that students receive in respect to the assessment carried out. Learning developers in higher education should look to utilise the conclusions of this paper to inform learning design in their contexts.

Learning clinical skills: an ecological perspective

The pedagogy underpinning clinical psychology training is often reliant upon the acquisition and transmission of knowledge and the practice of skills. The dominant paradigm in the training of clinical psychologists emphasises competence-based training drawing upon a scientist practitioner model of practice, often underpinned by knowledge of evidence-based interventions. Little has changed over the past 40 years. Training is predicated upon the assumption that effective therapy is attributed to the therapist’s skills to implement specific therapeutic processes and her or his capacity to form an effective working alliance with the client or patient. We provide an argument for an alternative paradigm in which ecological principles are privileged with a view to enhancing clinical training of psychologists in health settings responsive to the trainee as well as the broader societal context in which they practice, by adopting a pedagogy which prioritizes the relationship between the person and the environment. The proposed approach brings an ecological set of assumptions to the learning experience in clinical contexts. Key principles, drawn from an ecological perspective includes: affordances, the emergence of self-organisation in clinical learning, constraints and rate limiters. The approach is supported by examples applied to clinical learning contexts. Implications for clinical training are discussed. The ways in which an ecological approach may contribute to more effective learning outcomes through the use of representative learning contexts may inform learning design, how learning is actioned in clinical psychology as well as future research on the pedagogy of clinical training.

Faces of informed research:

This paper presents the Faces of Informed Research, an information literacy (IL) framework that aims to enhance researchers’ capacity to participate productively in collaborative interdisciplinary partnerships. Universities and funding bodies increasingly require collaborative approaches to research initiatives. Beneficial for advancing shared research interests, collaboration often requires overcoming significant variation in disciplinary approaches, including how researchers use information to conduct research, to transition unfamiliar researchers into working relationships. A conceptual development process was undertaken to expand on the Seven Faces of Informed Learning to further adapt the framework to collaborative and interdisciplinary research contexts. Embodying critical components of working together, Informed Research especially supports researchers’ collective enablement and enactment of different experiences of using information. Drawing from the pedagogic model Informed Learning Design, an ‘informing narrative' illustrates how the recognition of variations in information experience may be used to enrich researchers’ collaborative capacity. Future investigation will focus on the role of Informed Research in relationship to 1) research training in higher education, 2) group collaboration ‘efficacy,’ 3) research, research management and research collaboration leadership, and 4) the importance of information experiences for successful research, collaboration, and writing.

Towards faster feedback in higher education through digitally mediated dialogic loops

How feedback is understood and enacted has shifted from the traditional practice of providing individual feedback on summative tasks at key points to a more ongoing series of dialogues between the teacher and students during the teaching period. This paper reports on the experiences of designing faster feedback through weekly dialogic feedback loops to enhance students’ personal connection to their learning while providing teachers with faster, actionable feedback data to inform learning design. A pragmatic inquiry considered how benefits might potentially be amplified through the use of digital technologies. Data included student reflections collected via the GoingOK web application, interviews and focus groups. The findings identify and theorise four types of digitally mediated feedback loops: students in computer-mediated dialogue with themselves; students and teachers in dialogue with each other; the reflection on how feedback informed learning; and the sociotechnical dialogue informing ongoing technical design. Three design dilemmas that were experienced by teachers as they enacted digitally mediated dialogic feedback loops are articulated, alongside the principles that enabled responsive design. Understanding these design elements is fundamental if automation of some parts of the feedback loop through reflective writing analytics is to be considered both feasible and desirable.
 Implications for practice or policy:
 
 Digitally mediated feedback loops can facilitate faster feedback, enabling students to reflect on their learning and providing teachers with access to new insights about diverse learners.
 Feedback technology can challenge existing ideas about feedback.
 Faster feedback can save teachers time, but efficiencies are likely to depend on an increased human workload in the short term as automation technologies can be slower to develop.
 Sociotechnical innovation requires collective dialogue between educators and digital developers, across asynchronous timelines.

Multimodal Learning Analytics to Inform Learning Design: Lessons Learned from Computing Education

Programming is a complex learning activity that involves coordination of cognitive processes and affective states. These aspects are often considered individually in computing education research, demonstrating limited understanding of how and when students learn best. This issue confines researchers to contextualize evidence-driven outcomes when learning behaviour deviates from pedagogical intentions. Multimodal learning analytics (MMLA) captures data essential for measuring constructs (e.g., cognitive load, confusion) that are posited in the learning sciences as important for learning, and cannot effectively be measured solely with the use of programming process data (IDE-log data). Thus, we augmented IDE-log data with physiological data (e.g., gaze data) and participants’ facial expressions, collected during a debugging learning activity. The findings emphasize the need for learning analytics that are consequential for learning, rather than easy and convenient to collect. In that regard, our paper aims to provoke productive reflections and conversations about the potential of MMLA to expand and advance the synergy of learning analytics and learning design among the community of educators from a post-evaluation design-aware process to a permanent monitoring process of adaptation.

Learning Analytics for Learning Design: A Systematic Literature Review of Analytics-Driven Design to Enhance Learning

As the fields of learning analytics and learning design mature, the convergence and synergies between the two are becoming an important area for research. This paper intends to summarize the main outcomes of a systematic review of empirical evidence on learning analytics for learning design. Moreover, this paper presents an overview of what and how learning analytics have been used to inform learning design decisions and in what contexts. The search was performed in seven academic databases, resulting in 43 papers included in the main analysis. The results from the review depict the ongoing design patterns and learning phenomena that emerged from the synergy that learning analytics and learning design impose on the current status of learning technologies. Finally, this review stresses that future research should consider developing a framework on how to capture and systematize learning design data grounded in learning analytics and learning theory, and document what learning design choices made by educators influence subsequent learning activities and performances over time.

Information experience: A domain and object of study

ABSTRACTIntroduced into the field in 2014, “information experience” (IX) is a research domain that focuses on the ways that people derive meaning from engagement with information in the various aspects of their lives. IX is also an object of study comparable to other objects, such as information seeking or information literacy. This interactive panel will discuss aspects of IX, including the various ways it may be described in the field, and how it is manifest in a current IX research project. Two learning design models – informed learning design and information experience design (IXD) – will be introduced, exemplifying how theoretical understandings of IX can be applied in practice.

Informed learning design: teaching and learning through engagement with information

ABSTRACTWhile higher education teachers are able to use information in sophisticated ways to learn and communicate within their disciplines, they may not be accustomed to teaching their students to use information creatively and reflectively to support their work in a course. This article introduces informed learning design, a curriculum design model by which teachers specifically enable students to learn course content through intentional engagement with information. Drawing from informed learning pedagogy and the variation theory of learning, the design model outlines an instructional pattern for enabling student awareness of critical aspects and features of the object being studied related to both information use and course content.

Supporting open information literacy via hybridised design experiments

This report discusses a project that forms connections between design experiment and informed learning approaches to designing learning activities supportive of open information literacy and scholarly communication among library and information science graduate students. Open information literacy is defined as information literacy relating specifically toward leveraging open access and open educational resources. Focus is placed on implications for research and practice by exploring one example of a hybridised, informed learning design experiment that fused subject content and open information practice. This project report represents an early step in thinking about the possibilities of infusing informed learning research structures and strategies with design experiments.

Information literacy and informed learning:

Our paper draws together conceptual innovations emerging from the work of a group of researchers focussed on the relational approach to information literacy, more recently labelled ‘informed learning’. Team members have been working together in various configurations for periods ranging from seven to seventeen years. Our collaborative approach continues to yield new concepts and constructs which we believe to be of value to ongoing research and practice. Some of the ideas discussed have been previouly published, while others are being put forward for the first time. All are significant in that they together form new constructs that have emerged from a focus on the relational approach to information literacy. In this paper, Christine Bruce introduces the background to this work and the contributing researchers. Then the individual authors present the key directions which they have developed and are leading, typically working with one or more of the wider network. The key ideas presented are: The expressive window for information literacy (Mandy Lupton); information experience design (Elham Sayyad Abdi); cross-contextuality and experienced identity (Andrew Demasson); informed learning design (Clarence Maybee); spaces for inclusive informed learning (Hilary Hughes); and informed systems (Mary Somerville and Anita Mirjamdotter). In each piece, authors reflect on what the idea is about, where it came from and what it might mean for research and practice.

The missing link for learning from analytics

Learning analytics is an area of growing importance in higher education. Lead practitioners acknowledge this development as a convergence of many fields, including educational data mining, technology systems development, learning design and SoTL, and encourage synergistic connections. Past experience of learning technology innovations shows that incentives and professional development for teachers are keys to successful adoption, along with easy to use tools, evidence of benefits and institutional support. However, current literature shows little evidence of initiatives designed to forge connections between these fields of practice, and a review of papers from a leading learning analytics conference does not identify professional development as a priority. This paper outlines a professional development initiative designed to address this gap and make learning analytics practice accessible to tertiary teachers. The area needs urgent attention if the potential of learning analytics to increase knowledge about learning and inform learning design is to be realized.

Designing for Family Science Explorations Anytime, Anywhere

ABSTRACTFamilies play an important role in informal science learning, but they may need supports for engaging in science that is exploratory, inquiry based, and builds on family practices. We designed resources that frame scientific sensemaking as an active and playful process of exploration in which family members are coparticipants. This approach contrasts with more traditional school‐like canonical patterns of engagement in family science conversations where adults state facts and provide explanations to children. The Anytime, Anywhere resources were designed to locate phenomena of interest in outdoor settings and cue families about how they might engage playfully in exploration by using sensemaking activities and conversation starters. We analyzed families’ video‐recorded activities and interviews as they field‐tested the resources at a coastal beach. The analysis shows families engaged in three features of scientific sensemaking, both in response to our designed activities and spontaneously. They elicited ideas and mechanistic processes, made hypotheses, and experimented to test ideas. We propose emerging design recommendations for Anytime, Anywhere family scientific sensemaking activities, which can inform learning design in a variety of settings.

The impact of nonlinear pedagogy on physical education teacher education students’ intrinsic motivation

Background: Providing motivationally supportive physical education experiences for learners is crucial, since empirical evidence in sport and physical education research has associated intrinsic motivation with positive educational outcomes. Self-determination theory (SDT) provides a valuable framework for examining motivationally supportive physical education experiences through satisfaction of three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness. However, the capacity of the prescriptive teaching philosophy of the dominant traditional physical education teaching approach to effectively satisfy the psychological needs of students to engage in physical education has been questioned. The constraints-led approach (CLA) has been proposed as a viable alternative teaching approach that can effectively support students’ self-motivated engagement in physical education.Purpose: We sought to investigate whether adopting the learning design and delivery of the CLA, guided by key pedagogical principles of nonlinear pedagogy (NLP), would address basic psychological needs of learners, resulting in higher self-reported levels of intrinsic motivation. The claim was investigated using action research. The teacher/researcher delivered two lessons aimed at developing hurdling skills: one taught using the CLA and the other using the traditional approach.Participants and setting: The main participant for this study was the primary researcher and lead author who is a PETE educator, with extensive physical education teaching experience. A sample of 54 pre-service PETE students undertaking a compulsory second-year practical unit at an Australian university was recruited for the study, consisting of an equal number of volunteers from each of two practical classes. A repeated measures experimental design was adopted, with both practical class groups experiencing both teaching approaches in a counterbalanced order.Data collection and analysis: Immediately after participation in each lesson, participants completed a questionnaire consisting of 22 items chosen from validated motivation measures of basic psychological needs and indices of intrinsic motivation, enjoyment and effort. All questionnaire responses were indicated on a 7-point Likert scale. A two-tailed, paired-samples t-test was used to compare the groups’ motivation subscale mean scores for each teaching approach. The size of the effect for each group was calculated using Cohen's d. To determine whether any significant differences between the subscale mean scores of the two groups was due to an order effect, a two-tailed, independent samples t-test was used.Findings: Participants’ reported substantially higher levels of self-determination and intrinsic motivation during the CLA hurdles lesson compared to during the traditional hurdles lesson. Both groups reported significantly higher motivation subscale mean scores for competence, relatedness, autonomy, enjoyment and effort after experiencing the CLA than mean scores reported after experiencing the traditional approach. This significant difference was evident regardless of the order that each teaching approach was experienced.Conclusion: The theoretically based pedagogical principles of NLP that inform learning design and delivery of the CLA may provide teachers and coaches with tools to develop more functional pedagogical climates, which result in students exhibiting more intrinsically motivated behaviours during learning.

The place of theory in educational technology research

Research into educational technologies tends to focus on applied phenomena, with the consequence that theoretical concerns can be implicit or invisible. We identify an impatience with theory that is reflected in calls for “pragmatic” approaches, and ask how critical theory is in educational technology research. We contend that notions of theory drawn from naturalistic sciences that inform learning design give rise to a theory/practice distinction in which theoretical concerns are subsumed under practical goals, constraining the potential for rich conceptualisations and explanations. We make the case that theory matters in two senses: it has institutional and pedagogical implications for educational outcomes, and it is integral to the practices associated with educational technologies. Further, we claim that the material arrangements in educational technologies are often overlooked, and propose alternatives to this dualistic separation towards a relational theory-practice-researcher nexus.

Defining an agenda for learning analytics

Learning analytics is an emergent field of research in educational technology where the use of large, passive datasets collected routinely by online learning systems can offer unprecedented insights into student learning and behaviour. These datasets provide objective feedback from students to teachers, allowing the latter to check the validity of assumptions and the influence of learning design decisions. This offers a new opportunity to inform learning design and enhance broad understanding of learning with technology. However, translating raw analytics data into meaningful information for teachers and learning designers currently requires a high level of technical expertise. This paper outlines learning analytics as an emergent field of research, and an agenda to advance understanding and promote development of appropriate methodologies for research in learning technology.

Open Access in Higher Education–Strategies for Engaging Diverse Student Cohorts

With growth in online education, students gain tertiary qualifications through a mode more suited to their demographics such as work and life balance, learning styles and geographical accessibility. Inevitably this has led to a growth in diversity within student cohorts. The case study described in this paper illustrates strategies based on informed learning design for educating diverse student cohorts in an online program offered by Swinburne University of Technology. The case, an open-access, undergraduate information systems program, attracts mature age students studying while balancing employment and family commitments. The program’s open-access facet is the ‘no entry requirements’ such as prerequisite studies. Hence, many students enter the program via non-traditional pathways bringing significant differences in experience and consequent skill bases. The program’s innovative pedagogy encourages students to engage via active learning with tailored assessments, interactive communication via discussion boards and facilitated real-time sessions and formative feedback which include audio components.