Designs for Learning: A Research Approach (original) (raw)
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Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Designs for Learning
Aalborg Universitetsforlag, 2016
The conference theme this year is: designing new learning ecologies. This theme includes areas such as designs for learning and change, connecting design, theory and practice, and reconceptualising learning. A total of 35 papers have been accepted for the conference: 18 full papers and 17 short papers. The accepted papers revolve around a broad range of research subjects and practices within the conference theme. These include methodological questions, discussions of design-based research, presentations of educational designs and discussions of perspectives on designs for learning as self-regulated learning or social semiotics explorations, and so forth. The overall Designs for learning community is facilitated through a collaboration between three Scandinavian universities (Stockholm University, Aalborg University and the University of Bergen).
Reinventing learning: a design-research odyssey
Design research is a broad, practice-based approach to investigating problems of education. This approach can catalyze the development of learning theory by fostering opportunities for transformational change in scholars’ interpretation of instructional interactions. Surveying a succession of design-research projects, I explain how challenges in understanding students’ behaviors promoted my own recapitulation of a historical evolution in educators’ conceptualizations of learning – Romantic, Progressivist, and Synthetic (Schön 1981) – and beyond to a proposed Systemic view. In reflection, I consider methodological adaptations to design-research practice that may enhance its contributions in accord with its objectives.
The beginning of the twenty-first century has been described as a time of development for social innovations through which people use, share, and create knowledge in ways that differ fundamentally from those of previous eras. To enhance our students’ chances of becoming active agents in their own lives and learning in settings far beyond classrooms, this design-based research aims to synthesize theoretical perspectives and empirical research in order to propose an approach to participatory learning that leverages the opportunities afforded by new technology, cultural environments, and communities, especially museums. The museum was selected as the exemplary context for the development of a research-based pedagogical model because previous research and practice have characterized school field trips to museums as missed educational opportunities. The theoretical perspectives derived from the socio-cultural theory of learning and learning by collaborative designing serve as the framework for developing and exploring the pedagogical model for design-oriented learning in museums. The empirical research consists of three design experiments that present a continuum focusing on the iterative development of the model and examining different perspectives of it. In Study I, the aim was to examine what kind of learning systems emerged when three different student groups collaboratively designed their own museum visits with the support of a virtual design tool. Study II examined, through participant-led photography, the emergence of the object-oriented design process of pre-service teachers in museum settings. Study III focused on exploring how teachers from eight different European countries experienced the design-oriented pedagogical model and evaluated its usability. What distinguishes the design-oriented approach from the traditional school field trip to a museum is that the learners themselves design the specific network of museum artifacts, tools, and other resources in terms of the shared design task and their own specific research questions. The results indicate that a technology-mediated design process for the museum visit enhances the creation of collaborative inquiry communities, but only to a limited extent, if the implementation of the activities in the museum does not adequately support participatory forms of learning. Careful consideration should be given to interactions during the museum visit with an emphasis on changing of orientation from providing artifact-related knowledge towards drawing on the museum artifacts as a medium for communication and thinking in the pursuit of a shared object. In this way, museum professionals can better recognize the interests and needs of students from diverse backgrounds and how to guide them to use, connect, and organize the museum’s artifacts and other resources in a way that supports the advancement of inquiry. The results of the study also emphasize the need for diverse personal, social, and professional tools to enhance thoughts and actions in the evolving process of designing, inquiring, and sharing outcomes. Furthermore, the students should be able to participate in the creation of newly made interpretations and combinations of resources with outcomes that are both personal and collective, and contribute to the extended learning community. However, it represents a profound change in the ways we perceive the role of students and learning contexts, and poses challenges for the teachers and educators to bring these pedagogical perspectives into existence, especially when the traditional school practices create various challenges and constraints. The developed research-based pedagogical model with elaborated design principles may help educators in different institutions to recognize current patterns and to facilitate connected learning across spaces and communities.
How learning design can illuminate teaching practice
The Future of Learning Design Conference, 2010
The field of learning design holds the promise of providing teachers with a framework that will enable them to design high quality, effective and innovative learning experiences for their students. By creating the possibility of deconstructing their existing teaching strategies; aiding reflection on their own practice; documenting and scaffolding innovative learning activities; and sharing and reusing expert practice, learning design has the potential to improve the quality of teaching throughout the higher education sector. A key challenge for the future of Learning Design is to continue to bridge the gap between rich, descriptive models and technologies (such as IMS-LD), and the everyday practice and understanding of teachers. This paper highlights the distinctions between the central concepts, such as the differences between a formal learning design framework, the active teacher process of creating a learning design, and the requirements for creating, transmitting and adopting effective learning designs with an aim to improve student learning.
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ABSTRACT This article explores the potentials of new pedagogical approaches, assisted by digital technologies, to transform today's learning environments and create learning for the future���learning environments which could be more relevant to a changing world, more effective in meeting community expectations and which manage educational resources more efficiently.
Learning design research in action
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The new field of Learning Design is gaining traction in higher education, aiming to address a number of challenges in technology enhanced learning and teaching. This symposium seeks to build on the national Learning Design Research strengths and help highlight Australian Learning Design theory and practice expertise. It also aims to further consolidate the Australian and international Learning Design community. The content of this submission directly addresses the following topics: An introduction of the Learning Design Framework, Generic Templates, Teacher Design Thinking in Higher Education, Connecting Connectivism and Learning Design, and Translating Learning Outcomes into Learning Designs. The symposium will be divided into five topic-based presentations. The topic discussions will be led by members of the Australian Learning Design network. Discussion will be open and audience interaction will be encouraged.
Design-based research and the learning designer
Who's learning, 2006
The role of the learning designer has expanded from the commonly known activities of an instructional designer to incorporate a range of new roles, largely prompted by new technologies. In this paper, we articulate an approach that further extends the role of the ...
Supporting Design for Learning: A (UK) case study of the JISC funded programme
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This paper will a provide a summary of the current effort in the United Kingdom (UK), through the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) funded Design for Learning Programme, to synthesise the approaches of e-Learning developers providing systems, services and associated tools, with e-learning researchers studying how these are employed to support effective teaching and learning.