Designing for Learning.

A few weeks back we were asked about how we design for learning.

There are lots of different approaches, and depending on what you adopt, may depend on how you plan, and utilise technology.

Things to consider.......

Types of Learning.

This task asked us to think about how we use technology for, and map these onto a grid. The exercise makes you think about how digital media could be used for each of these things by drawing on our experiences.

·         thinking and reflection

·         experience and activity

·         conversation and interaction

·         evidence and demonstration

Mapping Tools to pedagogy (conole et al,2004)

This task looked at mapping activities, based on three dimensions:

·         individual–social: any learning activity can be located somewhere along a spectrum from being an individual, isolated experience to being essentially social in nature.

·         active–passive: some learning activities involve active engagement, whereas other aspects of learning may occur through some degree of passive immersion.

·         information–experience: learning activities vary in the degree to which they are information or experience based. 

The learning centred approach (Hybrid)

The model focuses on eight key characteristics of learning, from both the learner and the designer perspectives. The eight events are ‘creates’, ‘imitates’, ‘practices’, ‘explores’, ‘receives’, ‘debates’, ‘experiments’ and ‘meta-learns’. (This is my favourite model - because of the resources, but also because it mirrors much in the way that I plan and train others in designing learning.)

Comparing different Schema

Often people think design is difficult. All of these tools break down learning in different ways for practitioners. In my experience, we spend a lot of time with trainers getting then to understand the processes of designing learning from start to finish. Maybe other practitioners don't. Therefore all these tools give insight into breaking done the reasons as well as the activities, tools and technology that could be used in learning design. When you understand what it is that needs to be accomplished - it is much easier to determine whether technology can be used. So in answer to the question " Does it help teachers adopt a less technology driven approach" for me, no - as my trainers are not driven by technology in the first place. I am interested in why this is such key area within educational context, as the design of learning outside education seems to be focused much more on linking the designs to the outcomes. Is this because teachers are only involved in the final stages?

  In fact, activities like the ones we have undertaken, are similar to activities that I undertake in order to get people to understand how technology CAN be used. by understanding more about learning design, and what activities with learning are meant to enable, it helps to develop different approaches, and allows trainers to be more adaptive. Giving people simple structures and templates to do this -- simplifies the activity, and helps to empower them  to be more creative. Certainly in a face to face environment, I know that if one approach isn't working, then I can change the method to be more, or less engaging - to hit the learning outcome in a different way. I am not sure how this transfers across to a digital environment yet!

tools for planning

At the start of the weeks, Conole in the study material, expressed the need for there to be a better understanding of the design process. The activities over the last two weeks have all been about this. 'Learning design' is not just an OU approach. Each context has it's own approach and tools, ;language and pedagogy and the different tools we have looked at can be used in different ways by the different practitioners. Learning design is a "complex, messy and creative process" as Conole suggests, and the approach varies on a number of things, including where in the lifecycle of design you begin.

Yannis Dimitriadis in his interview with Pettit said that learning design should support practitioners in a real context, and that resources are about trying to capture the design process. He also points out that we need 'structure for success'. That, people really won't, on the whole, learn for themselves.

Compendium LD. A visual design tool. The activity we were given was for us to think about one of the activities we have already undertaken and to use the tool to design the activity. The software is fairly easy to use, although not necessarily initiative to start with. It would have been nice to see some designs to start with. Some interesting learning points to come out of this activity, besides the fact that half the group couldn't download the software. As already mentioned, different people came from different viewpoints in how to use this, and how to visually display things. A very useful tool for the 'visual' learners, and those who like mind maps (I hate mind maps, like tables!) This however, proves the point of learning design being messy!

Cloudworks. "Social networking for learning design". Another community based resource from the OU, built on the general principles of social media. Interestingly, most of us also found this quite messy. Although, like most things it takes time to move around and figure things out, we felt that it was not necessarily useful to everyone.  Personally I preferred educause.

With community based resources, you need to be a part of that community, otherwise you feel like you are nosing around someone else front room. I belong to a number of similar forums and closed communities, where resources and discussions are shared with like minded practitioners. So the learning point from this is , that there needs to be enough activity, but also that it needs to be relevant for the particular practitioner.

Pedagogy planners.  London Pedgaogy planner and phoebe. These are more tools for the micro planning. Both of these projects seem to have ended, but both again, give simple tools to enable teachers to plan their learning.

Beethams and me.

The issues

Authenticity of activity. For us this is making sure that there is an authentic context. Learners have for years been saying that it needs to be relevant to the role that they do - and this is also one of our training principles. Can we create activities that allow the learner to develop better skills or reasoning or to understand the issues they might come across better, and their role in problem solving? Can we give them a chance to rehearse? Therefore when writing materials we need to make sure the activities we are suggesting have this authentic context.

Formality and structure. As a volunteer movement we are incredibly flexible. we have principles and criteria for assessment, but this is in the form of other volunteers assessing the individual on how they have applied their learning to their role. The structure of learning has definition, but is not rigid. Trainers can deliver the objectives in the way they think best suits the learner. The danger of this is they design learning that best suits themselves rather than the learners. Certainly when I deliver learning it is very flexible and changed to suit the needs of the learners, even though the general pattern of activities is in place.

Retention/reproduction versus reflection/internationalisation. We do both of these, through role play and group work and through reflection and action planning, and also through the validation process itself. I would maybe add another layer to this which is about actualization - problem solving. Often learning is very group orientated, because the organisation is about team work. So maybe there needs to be some thought about how we design activities that also give the individual room for reflection.

The role and importance of other people. This is especially important in a volunteer organisation. Also because often the trainer won't have any contact with the learner's other support mechanisms. Therefore, it can't be assumed that the learners will experience the 'authentic' activity you have created in the sessions. We came up with some radical ideas about tailoring learning to individuals and having lots of methods. But this relies on the support structures available. More support to supporters is a key part that needs developing.

Locus of control. This a definite area of development and from a central point of view one that needs more guidance. As a volunteer led organisation, it takes about five years for information to be clearly communicated and actioned across the UK, up to the most important ground level people. Even though there may be clear guidance, volunteer managers often do not follow it, and insert their own rules and control. Often this is because of fear of the unknown. This is evident in the distrust that some training managers have in learners using elearning or workbooks to study at their own pace. Again, a better understanding from those supporting and managing the learner process is required for it to work better.

Different approaches

Our learning is a blend of different approaches - very much linked in with Blooms', knowledge, skills and behaviours.. We want people to take on the situative elements - build on their roles and be able to participate in the wider context of their role. We also though want to enable them to solve problems and action plan, as a people orientated organisation, this will be a key skill. And they also need to know the rules and regulations about what they do, as well as develop practical skills.

The learning outcome DOES need to be meaningful to our learners, as they are volunteers, and so the pressure on time is often of huge relevance. When Beetham talks about designing learning, the considerations about experience and motivation and accessibility and skills are ones that we teach our trainers, and is a personal mission of mine. However this is not always easy, as you don't always know who will be turning up to your training sessions. (especially when you are a national development officer for the UK).

Using technology.

So how do we currently use technology.? We do have the dreaded old fashioned instructional elearning programmes. I view these much the same as videos or web page sin content. There may be some exploration or reflection involved, but without any support structures in place during the learning, they are simply informational. Support has to come afterwards as people work through the validation process. We do however encourage exploration and reflection in the newly designed workbooks. It is still a rather simple learning process, but by asking learners to involve others or to explore resources on the website we are introducing a new dimension to the approach.

We use technology a lot in the processes that lead to learning development. Research, data processing, experimentation all play their part is understanding what the needs is, as well as assessing the approached to take. For instance, we know that learners want more group activities and tasks and less passive lecturing through feedback. We know which areas in the UK may not be completing learning and can offer more support and direct development work.

We are also using more conferencing technology and experimenting with one off activities to try things out and get a feel for whether it can work for us.

Beetham - An Approach to learning activity design

Digital tools and materials should not change the fact that designing learning is about the activities the learner does and the outcomes of that activity.

"learners need opportunities to make a newly acquired concept or skill their own: to draw on their own strengths and preferences, and to extend their repertoire of approaches to task requirements"

Tasks are required OF learners (like curriculum in education).Activities are engaged in BY learners in response to the task. Beetham tells us that theorists stress the need for integration across activities, and therefore despite the  fact that people learn in different ways, and that the outcomes may be different, there are issues that cross all learning design:

·         authenticity of activity

·         formality and structure

·         retention/reproduction versus reflection/internationalisation

·         the role and importance of other people

·         locus of control

Beetham tells us that when designing for learning outcomes the activity must be meaningful for the learner and its context, and also that there should be an "identifiable change that is anticipated in the learner". If the learning activity needs to be meaningful to the learner, then so does the learning outcome.

There are no surprises when it comes to designing for learners and the variants to consider, and how these can be co-dependent on each other:

·         experience, knowledge and competence in subject

·         accessibility

·         motivations and expectations

·         prior experience of learning and method

·         preferred approaches to learning

·         social and interpersonal skills

·         confidence and competence (if using ICT)

Beetham states that if we truly want to design learning that is relevant to each individual learner, then we need to provide a flexible approach. This is one in which the learner is allowed to make their own decisions on the tasks they undertake, and one that digital technology could support. Technology allows us to present a wider range of options, however, and this is a recurring theme, there is limited availability of skilled practitioners to provide the relevant feedback and support such a personalised approach takes. Beetham also remind us that most learning involves some form of interaction with another person, often someone who is more expert than the learner.

Beetham links the use of digital resources and technologies with the traditional approach to learning. In a face to face environment you think not only about the resources, but about the layout of the room, the environment within which learning is fostered. This is also true of the digital environment. Different artefacts have different affordances (Gibson 1979), but these affordances can have different meanings in different contexts. Saloman (1997) in week 6 already pointed out that we view different forms of representation in different ways. We know that some people like different things. Technology could allow us to give the learner a choice of medium, or an opportunity to experience different mediums, so that they get a variety of representations rather than just one approach - which may not be suitable for them.

Examples of how we can use technology:

·         Research - databases, evaluating online resources

·         Comprehension tasks - note taking, answering questions and mind mapping

·         Creating tasks - tools used create different representation could also be used by learners to create their own representations, which could then be used as assessment.

·         Analysis tasks - diagnostics, informatics, analytical software

·         Experimentation and discovery tasks - models and simulations (eg.second life), digital environments

·         Communicative tasks - forums, conferencing

Associative learning, being about 'recall' and highly rule based where the learning outcome is about a new skill or concept. The learning involves a teacher who is both the subject matter expert and the guide through the activities.

Constructive learning, being about discovery and based on incidents and strategies where the learning outcome is about problem solving or developing new understandings. In this context teachers need to be facilitators - negotiating outcomes, supporting learner discussion and giving relevant feedback as well as the ability to respond to different learners needs.

Situative learning, being about developing new identities or roles and so the activities are more role based and the learning outcomes are about being able to participate in new situation or play a more expert role. These learners need a sympathetic mentor with insight into their context and ability to support their developing role.

In summary, Beethams remarks that we need to understand the design process if we want to evaluate it and share it with others.

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!