Learning design is the practice of planning, sequencing and managing learning activities, usually using ICT-based tools to support both design and delivery. Learning design tools allow practitioners to plan learning from small-scale activities up to whole lessons and programmes, and has been popularised by user-friendly tools such as LAMS (Learning Activity Management System). IMS has a specification for Learning Design (IMS LD) which potentially allows for the sharing of designs across different design tools and environments, and for designs to be uploaded and 'run' in virtual learning environments, also called learning management systems.
The Open University Learning Design Initiative, in collaboration with a number of other institutions (Brunel, Cambridge, University of the South Bank, Reading), has set out to research, pilot and evaluate a rigorous learning design process, and identify what problems in curriculum design it is capable of solving. Lessons emerging from the five institutions include the following potential benefits of a learning design approach.
- It acts as a means of eliciting designs from academics in a format that can be tested and reviewed by others involved in the design process, i.e. a common vocabulary and understanding of learning activities.
- It provides a method by which designs can be reused, as opposed to just sharing content.
- It can guide individuals through the process of creating new learning activities.
- It helps create an audit trail of academic (and production) design decisions.
- It can highlight policy implications for staff development, resource allocation, quality, etc.
- It has the potential to aids learners and tutors in complex activities by guiding them through the activity sequence
Other projects in Cluster C of the Curriculum Design programme are working on a broadly Learning Design approach to institutional curriculum transformation. In addition to the many resources available through the OULDI project, resources relevant to this subject can also be found on the Viewpoints and Principles in Patterns project pages. A Cloudscape is dedicated to outcomes from this Cluster (external link: see community sites below for more information about Cloudworks on the Design Studio). The OULDI team have also produced an idealised model of learning design embedded into the curriculum.
Much of the evidence from these projects to date highlights known problems, for example that:
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finding a single format to communicate educational design is problematic
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a conceptual model of the decision making processes involved in educational design will not coincide precisely with the business process model of curriculum development – though many points of intersection are noted e.g. at programme approval
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(relatedly) a data model for educational design, while it may use existing standards such as COVARM, XCRI, CERIF standard, requires additional educational elements
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design practice takes place at a number of inter-related levels, e.g. activity, session, modules, course: it is still not obvious how these are related in terms of workflow and information flow (there may not be one solution to this question)
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much design activity (especially at task level) is tacit and undocumented; however, it can be valuable to articulate (and embody in the decision-making process) some explicit design principles
In addition to addressing the wholesale problems of learning design, all three projects are working on some pragmatic local solutions such as the development of free-standing planning widgets, guidance tools, and means of visualising the curriculum to support the processes of design.
Since 2007 a series of Design Bashes have been organised by CETIS to explore issues in design capture, representation and sharing across systems. Project teams from JISC CDD have played an active role. There is a page summarising issues from the 2011 design bash on the Design Studio.
Learning design and learning activity design are explained in more detail in Effective Practice in a Digital Age (pp10-15). There is also a JIME (Journal of Interactive Media in Education) special issue on the subject, and a guide called Learn about learning design available from the OULDI project at the Open University.
Examples of LD software and tools (see also Learning Design Tools)
Examples of LD communities and web sites
Tagged assets and resources
Browse resources on the Design Studio relating to Learning Design
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