Learning Design Framework Research Articles

Social innovation education: towards a framework for learning design

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical framework to support the embedding of social innovation education in existing academic programmes.Design/methodology/approach– By adopting Conoleet al.’s (2004) methodological approach to reviewing, mapping and modelling learning theory, this study addresses four research questions: how can social innovation education be defined? Which learning theories best support social innovation education? How do such learning theories relate to existing models of learning in higher education? What implications does a social innovation pedagogy have for learning design?Findings– Findings suggest that social innovation education is supported by a praxis that is grounded in critical learning theory, transformational learning theory and epistemological development. By extending Conoleet al.’s (2004) model of learning theory, the present study proposes a “zone of pedagogical praxis for social innovation education” that supports learning design on a more critical plane.Research limitations/implications– The proposed model of learning may be of interest to other universities as they work towards stronger thinkers and stronger communities.Practical implications– Using a theory-informed model for learning design nurtures a pedagogical praxis and underpins the development of a practical toolkit for designing social innovation education.Originality/value– The findings of this study will provide a point of reference for other higher education institutions as they look for guidance on embedding principles of social innovation into their curricula.

Designing effective MOOCs

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have expanded significantly in recent years and are challenging traditional educational fee-paying offerings. The advantages of MOOCs are cited as the fact that they are free, that they enable participants to be part of a global community of peers and to have the experience of learning through social media and that they offer the potential for opening up educational and facilitating social inclusion. Nonetheless there are challenges associated with MOOCs. Firstly, most have very high dropout rates. Secondly, there are challenges with approaches to recognition of learning and issues with learner authentication and cheating. Thirdly, there are issues with providing support at scale. This paper argues that effective design of MOOCs is key. It focuses on the description of a 12-dimensional classification schema for describing and designing MOOCs. It then uses the schema to describe five MOOCs, which are respectively based on associative, cognitive, constructivist, situative and connectivist pedagogies. It then describes the 7Cs of Learning Design framework and discusses how it can be used to design MOOCs.

Design and implementation factors in blended synchronous learning environments: Outcomes from a cross-case analysis

Increasingly, universities are using technology to provide students with more flexible modes of participation. This article presents a cross-case analysis of blended synchronous learning environments—contexts where remote students participated in face-to-face classes through the use of rich-media synchronous technologies such as video conferencing, web conferencing, and virtual worlds. The study examined how design and implementation factors influenced student learning activity and perceived learning outcomes, drawing on a synthesis of student, teacher, and researcher observations collected before, during, and after blended synchronous learning lessons. Key findings include the importance of designing for active learning, the need to select and utilise technologies appropriately to meet communicative requirements, varying degrees of co-presence depending on technological and human factors, and heightened cognitive load. Pedagogical, technological, and logistical implications are presented in the form of a Blended Synchronous Learning Design Framework that is grounded in the results of the study.

Weaving complexity and accountability: approaches to higher education learning design (HELD) in the built environment

The role of built environment professionals—planners, construction and project managers and property professionals—is to develop efficient cities improving social, environmental and economic outcomes. Professional practice that strikes a balance between the built and natural environment requires graduates with multidisciplinary skill sets, dictating the need for cross-disciplinary practice in undergraduate study. If we want alternative approaches to development, we must nurture professional capabilities that allow for a change in the way we see and act. In the light of this, we seek to enfranchise the many stakeholders engaged in the professional education programs offered in higher education. Higher education plays a central role in the development of professionals with the ability to recognise and mitigate the environmental impacts of traditional practice. This paper presents how courses in two Schools at RMIT, Global, Urban and Social Studies and Property, Construction and Project Management, have developed a transferable framework through which environmental capabilities may be embedded into undergraduate education. It explores the role higher education plays in the development of graduate capabilities and presents a conceptualisation of processes to realise this, through the Higher Education Learning Design Framework for development, and renewal, of traditional courses. The paper offers with a detailed exposition of the HELD framework against two courses. We explore this framework in relation to knowledge themes, professional and generic skills and assessment design.

A Learner-Centered Design Framework for E-Learning

This paper presents a design framework for online learning. The framework is based upon the taxonomy devised by Dettmer (2006). In a learner-centered focus, it draws together the cognitive, affective, social, and sensorimotor domains of learning, and is situated with the concept of online personal learning spaces and environments. It is at this intersection of learning domains that the graduate attributes and general capabilities of students are able to be intentionally supported and demonstrated. The proposed framework draws on recognized theory, principles, and practical considerations of contemporary online learning to clarify considerations of the learning outcomes, learning processes and learner performance when designing online learning that is mediated by education technology. This integrative approach will support mentored, reflective learning design and design-based research aimed at improving both the experience and outcomes of online students. The paper contends that this framework presents a useful design that reflects the nature of contemporary online learning environments.

Symposium 3: The 7Cs of Learning Design – a new approach to rethinking design practice

Designing for learning is arguably the key challenge facing education today; new technologies offer a plethora of ways in which learners can interact with rich multimedia, communicate and collaborate. Despite this teachers lack the necessary digital literacy skills to make effective design decisions that are pedagogically informed and make appropriate use of technologies. Learning Design has emerged in the last ten years as a means of addressing this, by providing teachers with guidance and support for their design practices. Learning Design is predicated on three aspects: guidance, visualisation and sharing. The paper will describe the development and evaluation of a new framework for Learning Design, the 7Cs of Learning Design. The framework consists of the following elements:Conceptualise (i.e. what are you designing and why, who are you designing for?),Capture (in terms of capturing resources to be used and activities around Learner Generated Content), Communicate (mechanisms to foster communication), Collaborate (mechanisms to foster collaboration), Consider (activities to promote reflection and enable assessment), Combine (combining the activities to give a holistic overview of the design and associated learning pathways), and Consolidate (in terms of running the design in a real learning context, evaluating, refining and sharing the design). The paper will describe the framework and how it can be used, along with an evaluation of its application in practice. It will conclude by contextualising this work within recent broader developments in the field. The framework can be used by individual teacher or with groups of teachers co-designing learning interventions. The latter has been effectively delivered in a series of workshops we have run over the past year.

A Learning Activity Design Framework for Supporting Mobile Learning

This article introduces the Learning Activity Design (LEAD) framework for the development and implementation of mobile learning activities in primary schools. The LEAD framework draws on methodolog ...

Getting Down to Details: Using Theories of Cognition and Learning to Inform Tangible User Interface Design

Many researchers have suggested that tangible user interfaces (TUIs) have potential for supporting learning. However, the theories used to explain possible effects are often invoked at a very broad level without explication of specific mechanisms by which the affordances of TUIs may be important for learning processes. Equally problematic, we lack theoretically grounded guidance for TUI designers as to what design choices might have significant impacts on learning and how to make informed choices in this regard. In this paper, we build on previous efforts to address the need for a structure to think about TUI design for learning by constructing the Tangible Learning Design Framework. We first compile a taxonomy of five elements for thinking about the relationships between TUI features, interactions and learning.We then briefly review cognitive, constructivist, embodied, distributed and social perspectives on cognition and learning and match specific theories to the key elements in the taxonomy to determine guidelines for design. In each case, we provide examples from previous work to explicate our guidelines; where empirical work is lacking, we suggest avenues for further research. Together, the taxonomy and guidelines constitute the Tangible Learning Design Framework. The framework advances thinking in the area by highlighting decisions in TUI design important for learning, providing initial guidance for thinking about these decisions through the lenses of theories of cognition and learning, and generating a blueprint for research on testable mechanisms of action by which TUI design can affect learning.

Aiming at Sustainable Innovation in Teacher Education - from Theory to Practice

The paper composes a framework for learning design, using Web 2.0 technologies in teacher training, transferring the advancement in technology to become an affordance in the teach- ing/learning process, based on Bloom's Extended Digital Taxonomy in order to enhance the Tech- nological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge of teachers. As a case study, it shows how ELTE University tries to develop sustainable innovation of competencies in digital literacy and mod- ern teaching/learning methodologies directly among the teaching staff in teacher training and stu- dent/future teachers as well as indirectly within public education in order to transfer innovation there. The complex aims of a specific course Educational Technology are described with detailed explanation of the methodology used in attaining the prescribed aims, giving links to the concrete tools and resources used. The description of course requirements are tagged with features of the nature of the learning design as being transmissive, dialogic, constructionist and co-constructive, illustrating how each element contributes to the adaptation of theory into practice. The role of a newly established T@T Mentoring Network is explained, which presumes sustainability for inno- vation within teacher training and the network of in-service and practicing teachers.

Designing Web 2.0 Collaboration Tools to Support Project-Based Learning

Collaborative learning involves small groups of students working together to solve problems for the purpose of learning. There are a large number of researches that focus on the technical aspects of computer-mediated environments for collaborative learning. Very few studies have examined the design of Web 2.0 technologies to support collaborative learning using an activity-oriented approach. In this study, activity theory was used as a design framework for collaborative learning in a Web 2.0 environment using Google Applications technology. By employing an activity-oriented design method, a collaborative platform was developed to facilitate social learning activities that are mediated by artifacts and collaborative tools using Google Applications technology.

Research on a Design Framework for Blended Learning

This paper proposes a framework for the design of blended learning that consists of three key considerations: what to blend, how to blend and effects of blending. “Blending (what to blend)” involves four aspects: the blending of traditional classroom-based, e-learning and real learning contexts, the integration of various learning resources (contents, tools and social support), the combination of formal and informal learning, and the convergence of different learning methods (individual, group, class-based collective learning).

Theoretically speaking: use of a communities of practice framework to describe and evaluate interprofessional education

This article uses Wenger's () theory of communities of practice, and in particular his learning design framework, to describe and evaluate the pedagogy of one interprofessional continuing professional development (CPD) programme for health, education and social care professionals. The article presents findings from 27 post-intervention interviews conducted 12 months after the CPD. Key pedagogic features of small group working, action planning, facilitation, continued independent learning and ‘safe’ learning environment were found to provide facilities for ‘engagement’, ‘imagination’ and ‘alignment’ (Wenger, ), with the use of task-focused small group work particularly appreciated by participants. Problems of falling attendance and marginalisation are discussed using Wenger's concept of ‘identification/negotiability’. It is suggested that careful selection of delegates and provision of sufficient organisational support may mitigate such problems.

From handheld collaborative tool to effective classroom module: Embedding CSCL in a broader design framework

The field of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) includes designers who emphasize effectiveness, measured via experiments, as well as designers who emphasize context and conduct qualitative research on teaching and learning practices. We conjectured that these two different emphases could be fruitful combined in a research and development process aimed at producing effective CSCL practices. We explored this possibility in a project that adapted a CSCL tool from Chile to serve as the basis of an effective 3-week classroom module for primary school mathematics in the United States. To go from tool to module, we addressed curricular fit, training materials, pedagogical guidance, formative and summative assessments, and logistical support. In conducting the project, we found that effectiveness and contextual research could be conducted simultaneously and yielded complementary insight to this design process, which enabled our project to rapidly move from the base tool towards complete classroom modules. An experiment we conducted after our design iterations showed that students who used the modules learned more about the target content, fractions. A retrospective analysis of our design process suggests that the Integrative Learning Design framework is useful for organizing the complementary components of effectiveness and contextual research in our design process.

Learning design in healthcare education

Emerging from ongoing work into educational modelling languages, learning design principles and the IMS Learning Design framework provide formal ways to annotate and record educational activities. Once educational activities have been encoded they can be played, replayed, adopted, shared, and analysed, thereby reifying much that is otherwise lost in face-to-face teaching. The use of learning design tools, including the free and open source LAMS system (www.lamsfoundation.org), allow practitioners to experiment with learning design approaches in their own teaching, both in terms of creating and encoding their own designs and playing, adapting and analysing designs from other teachers either from within or outside a particular field or subject area. This paper reviews the key issues associated with designing for learning in the context of healthcare education, some of the themes and approaches already in development or use, and the implications of this approach on the practice and theory of healthcare education.

Learning objects and learning designs: an integrated system for reusable, adaptive and shareable learning content

This paper proposes a system, the Smart Learning Design Framework, designed to support the development of pedagogically sound learning material within an integrated, platform-independent data structure. The system supports sharing, reuse and adaptation of learning material via a metadata-driven philosophy that enables the technicalities of the system to be imperceptible to the author and consumer. The system proposes the use of pedagogically focused metadata to support and guide the author and to adapt and deliver the content to the targeted consumer. A prototype of the proposed system, which provides proof of concept for the novel processes involved, has been developed. The paper describes the Smart Learning Design Framework and places it within the context of alternative learning object models and frameworks to highlight similarities, differences and advantages of the proposed system.DOI: 10.1080/09687760500104591

Learning objects and learning designs: an integrated system for reusable, adaptive and shareable learning content

This paper proposes a system, the Smart Learning Design Framework, designed to support the development of pedagogically sound learning material within an integrated, platform-independent data structure. The system supports sharing, reuse and adaptation of learning material via a metadata-driven philosophy that enables the technicalities of the system to be imperceptible to the author and consumer. The system proposes the use of pedagogically focused metadata to support and guide the author and to adapt and deliver the content to the targeted consumer. A prototype of the proposed system, which provides proof of concept for the novel processes involved, has been developed. The paper describes the Smart Learning Design Framework and places it within the context of alternative learning object models and frameworks to highlight similarities, differences and advantages of the proposed system.DOI: 10.1080/09687760500104591

The Role of Design in Research: The Integrative Learning Design Framework

In this article, a general model is proposed for design research in education that grows out of the author’s research and work in related design fields. The model emphasizes the stage sensitivity of (a) research questions, (b) data and methods, and (c) the need for researchers to design artifacts, processes, and analyses at earlier stages in their research that can then be profitably used (perhaps by different researchers) in later stages.