Learning Design

The  activities over the next few weeks are focused on learning, and in particular to get us to look critically at it, get a better understanding of the processes and guidance that can help to create new learning activities. It would seem that we need to make the design process more explicit in order to better share our  knowledge, transfer good practice and help teachers to find tools that are relevant and useful to them in the activities that they are creating.

Learning design  is....

Conole, in the course materials notes that:

"Learning activities are those tasks that students undertake to achieve a set of intended outcomes.

Learning design refers to the range of actions associated with creating a learning activity and crucially provides a means of describing learning activities."

It would seem that this version of 'learning design' has sprung from the Open University and it's interesting that it is very much based on ways of sharing knowledge across faculties. It's about, "points to be aware of, how to do it better and how to share practice and results". A nod to the collaborative direction of learning? The point is, according to the resource materials, to help teachers understand the process better, to become more time and resource efficient (teachers and students) and to enhance the sharing practice.

So what does learning design mean to me?

It's interesting to reflect on this after sharing a few posts in the forums. This is where the 'depends on the context' comes in. All learning I design follows the same'ish' systematic planning cycles (we use NAOMIE), but I do design different kinds of learning - or more appropriately, get involved at different points of the cycle.

·         Topic (what's the overall aim of the piece of learning)

·         Learners(this effects greater the approach, methods and content)

·         Objectives(the effect this should have on the learners)

·         Method (getting into the details, the approach and the content)

·         Implementation (resources, support, doing it.)

In my role I design learning for written resources and elearning at a national level. In this instance, I am involved right at the start of identifying the needs in the first place and doing the research in order to develop objectives. I also deliver face to face training as well. This takes 2 forms. One in which the need has been identified, and I need to develop the learning. So this could be that staff members need to know more about writing learning materials. I will find out as much as I need to about who these people are, what they already know, and develop the key things that I think they need to make the learning successful for them. But I also deliver learning that already has the objectives written and identified, and so, similarly to most teachers, I have to find the best methods and approaches to suit the learner and make it an effective learning experience.

The interesting thing for me is that my learning is about changing people. It's about their knowledge, skills and behaviour in that it changes what they do and how they do it, or gives them a new approach or tool. I don't do assessment in the classic form. We don't have exams, I don't have exam board criteria. The only assessments that I really do are when I deliver First Aid, and those are done by watching people in action, and in a subtle way rather than explicit. (eg, they do a number of different real life scenarios in teams, rather than an individual being assessed on a one to one basis. It's more labour intensive for those running the training, but less daunting for the student).

Therefore, my approach to learning design may be more informal flexible because the reasons for the learning may be more informal.( Although we do have rules and regulations, guidance and principles.)

But - this does make it more o a challenge to have performance indicators, or to know if the learning has been successful. This is both the challenge and the fun of working in a voluntary organisation!