Outcomes from the Design for Learning Programme

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Outcomes from the Design for Learning Programme

• Sarah Knight, JISC e-Learning Programme

Joint Information Systems Committee
Supporting education and research
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e-Learning Programme 2008-2012

• The aim of the JISC e-learning programme is to
  enable UK further and higher education to create
  a better learning environment for all learners,
  wherever and however they study, in order to
  realise the vision

• The vision is of a world where learners,
  teachers, researchers and wider institutional
  stakeholders use technology to enhance the
  overall educational experience by improving
  flexibility and creativity and by encouraging
  comprehensive and diverse personal, high quality
  learning, teaching and research.

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The context

• While the students expect to be able to set
  themselves up, technologically they will not
  expect the technology to encroach on what they
  see as the key benefits from university
  interaction and learning.
• I prefer to learn face to face with a teacher
  helping me understand any problems that I have.
• Traditional teacher/pupil learning methods are
  preferred as the backbone for everyday learning.
  Technology needs to be used as a tool to
  complement this way of learning.
• (JISC Student Expectations study, November 2007)
• Consultations carried out with children, parents
  and other citizen juries to determine preferred
  scenarios for education in 2025 and beyond
  (Beyond Current Horizons) find a strong
  preference for relationships with teachers to
  remain at the heart of the learning experience.
  (FutureLab, February 2008)

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Design for Learning 2005-06

• a set of practices carried out by learning
  professionals defined as designing, planning and
  orchestrating learning activities which involve
  the use of technology, as part of a learning
  session or programme
• The idea of design embraced
• New educational roles
• New ways of guiding others to learn
• The need to represent and share educational ideas
  more explicitly
• Design-type professional practices innovation,
  (re)interpretation in new contexts, iterative
  approach to solutions, continuous evaluation
• Design-based systems to support practice

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Lessons learned phase 1

• Existing design practice is very varied,
  depending on departmental and personal
  preferences and historical precedents
• Educational design tools are rarely experienced
  by practitioners as pedagogically neutral or as
  flexible enough to accommodate their existing
  practice
• There is a need for tools that support
  collaborative design, contingent/responsive
  design, and effective sharing of design processes
  and outcomes
• Practitioners want rich (e.g. graphical,
  narrative) expressions of their pedagogical
  intentions, but also bite-sized curriculum
  elements (e.g. LOs) that can easily be
  re-purposed and re-used
• Design processes need to be integrated with other
  processes and resources (e.g. VLEs,
  learner-related data) if design practice is to be
  transformed

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Exposing conceptual challenges

Diversity of existing approaches to design
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Design for Learning 2006-08

• a set of practices carried out by learning
  professionals defined as designing, planning and
  orchestrating learning activities which involve
  the use of technology, as part of a learning
  session or programme

learning professionals
designing, planning and orchestrating
technology
activities

• with the progressive involvement of learners

• and structuring

coursessessionsactivitiesobjects
with the use of
realisation
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Design for Learning programme aims

• Ensure the process of designing, planning and
  orchestrating learning activities (design for
  learning) in UK post-16 and higher education is
  based on sound pedagogic principles, is
  evidence-based and learner-centred
• Promote the development and implementation of
  tools and technical standards to support the
  process of design for learning
• Promote the sharing of expertise in design for
  learning, for example through sharing and re-use
  of effective pedagogic learning designs, use
  models or exemplars and
• Support the establishment of communities,
  services and resources to promote and sustain
  effective practice in design for learning.
• 11 Projects started by May 2006 and the majority
  finished by May 2008.
• www.jisc.ac.uk/elp_designlearn and
  http//dfl.cetis.ac.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

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Design for Learning 2006-08

• Exploring the use of existing tools (LAMS,
  Moodle) in different contexts
• Adding functionality to existing tools (LAMS,
  ReLoad)
• Building shareable outcomes of the design process
  (designs, GLOs)
• Developing shareable representations of the
  design process (DialogPlus toolkit, Phoebe wiki)
• Building an integrated planning tool to support
  design at the course and session level (LPP,
  Phoebe planning component)

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The Pedagogy Planning tools

• proof of concept(s)
• testable prototypes
• evaluation data from pilots
• gather requirements
• expose technical and conceptual challenges
• explore with partnersthe feasibility of future
  development and usage
• (build on previous work?)

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Two planners
LPP http//www.wle.org.uk/d4l/ Phoebe http//phoebe-project.conted.ox.ac.uk/
Intended for regular use to support course and session planning Intended primarily for use during ITT, CPD, prof review
Scaffolded support for decision-making process Design and guidance separate but linked systems
(Some) educational values built in to system e.g. using checklists Educational values fluid, owned by communities of users
Supports decision making through embedded relational model Information model allows for maximum flexibility
Some typologies embedded to support decision-making Typologies minimised extensible flat lists, web 2.0 tagging
Java enterprise TRAC wiki
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Functional requirements for pedagogy planning
tools

• Customisability for different users and contexts
• Flexibility to take different starting points and
  to iterate between different levels of the design
  process
• Planning/design at the levels of course, module,
  session, activity, learning object, with
  coherence and effective information flow between
  each of these levels
• Alternative forms of output according to the
  nature of the task and users personal
  preferences. Visual representations should
  complement text-based representations.
• One output type may be a runnable instantiation
  of a design as a sequence of learning activities
  in a virtual learning environment
• Planning tools should make explicit the
  underlying educational rationale for design
  decisions, and the consequences of decisions in
  terms of how the design will be experienced by
  learners.

• Support for constructive alignment among the
  components of the curriculum such as topics,
  outcomes, methods, tools, staff resource, and
  student workload.
• Such tools need to support conformance to quality
  standards, either general (FE) or institutional
  (HE)
• Planning tools are most valuable to users when
  they make it possible to work collaboratively
• Capacity to represent the context for a learning
  design in a way that is easily understood,
  interpreted, evaluated and shared.
• Facility to link with repositories of e.g.
  exemplary designs, curriculum resources, and
  learner-related information, as well as
  context-relevant help and guidance

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ALED, Swansea College

• This project evaluated the use of LAMS (1.02
  2.02) and Moodle and produced 18 learning design
  exemplars and 5 case studies within the following
  further education curriculum areas
• Learning Resources Centre Student Induction,
• Holistic Therapies
• Initial Assessment
• Modern Languages
• Art / Design / Media
• http//aled.swancoll.ac.uk/mediawiki/

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Exemplar designs
Your Amazing Brain Learning Design
Description This learning design introduces
students to the workings or the brain and the
things students can do to improve their own
learning. The learning designs incorporate two
Flash interactive games as well as a SCORM
compliant learning object. The aim of the
learning object is to make students aware of the
steps they can take to improve their own learning
and concentration.
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Key findings

• actively encouraged students to exhibit a record
  of their thinking by sharing with their peers, as
  well as to prompt reflection about their
  learning. The feedback from students was very
  positive Generally, the practitioners were
  surprised at how well students engaged with the
  learning designs and plan to use this approach in
  the future.

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DeSila, University of Sheffield

• To what extent does a tool such as LAMS add value
  to the practice and impact of designing for IBL,
  and to the dissemination of IBL pedagogy?
• LAMS was useful in bringing the concept of design
  for learning to the fore at institutional and
  individual levels and in supporting the practice
  of process-aware design for IBL.
• Practitioners often wanted to use LAMS in
  conjunction with the institutions VLE, but there
  was limited opportunity to do this during the
  project because of interoperability constraints.
  
• LAMS was experienced as relatively easy to use.
  Institutional commitment to supporting the system
  was identified as critical to practitioner
  willingness to invest time in developing
  LAMS-based designs.
• Practitioners attitudes to reuse suggested that
  they might be more open to reusing whole-sequence
  LAMS-based activity designs when the content is
  perceived as generic and therefore also directly
  transferable.
• Designing for staff development (using LAMS for
  inquiry-based learning)
• http//www.shef.ac.uk/desila/

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Key findings

• LAMS was seen to provide well for the design of
  linear forms of inquiry and relatively
  tightly-structured, teacher-controlled pedagogy.
  It appeared considerably less well-suited to the
  design of more flexible and open-ended forms of
  inquiry and despite its orientation towards
  activity it did not tend to direct pedagogical
  thinking and practice towards student-led
  pedagogy Students responses to using LAMS were
  mixed but there were clear indications of
  positive engagement and beneficial impact on
  learning experiences. Negative responses often
  related to limitations on the ability to
  independently move freely back and forward
  through a sequence.

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eLIDA CAMEL Project

• The eLIDA CAMEL collected a series of individual
  and collaborative case studies on the
  implementation and evaluation of tools and
  systems to support design for learning in a range
  of post-16/HE contexts.
• Produced learning sequences, 14 comprehensive
  individual case studies and 7 collaborative case
  studies to illustrate effective pedagogic use of
  LAMS V1.1-V2, Moodle and related tools,
  investigating re-use of learning designs and
  sharing effective practice in D4L via a community
  of users. Limited uses of ReLOAD were considered.
  
• eLIDA team members collaborated in evaluating
  practitioner DfL pedagogic practices in visits
  carried out in the programme.
• http//elidacamel.cms.gre.ac.uk/
• Business Studies Case Study LAMS 2.0

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eLida Camel

• Practitioners benefit from structured social
  networking processes developed in a long-term
  community of practice. A communities of practice
  approach is valuable in fostering mutual
  supportive critique that can support
  practitioners development of their practice
• Valuable lessons in the pedagogic processes
  involved in design for learning can be achieved
  if sufficient resources are allocated to
  practitioners and institutions with an interest
  in participating in these e-learning
  developments.
• As practitioners become more confident in their
  practices with one another, and in the experience
  of sharing and critiquing one anothers designs,
  the trend towards re-usability of designs appears
  to increase markedly.
• A D4L system (in this context LAMS, Moodle or
  Moodle integrating LAMS) can improve
  practitioners thinking and planning skills and
  will be adopted if it
• fits the way practitioners normally plan for
  learning and
• enables a variety of appropriate activities
  within a logical sequence for students to perform
  to meet identified outcomes and
• can integrate with existing resources

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Conclusions

• Challenges to the development and integration of
  design for learning tools1 include
• The complexity and non-linearity of design
  processes
• The diversity of existing approaches to design
• Diversity and rapid change in the educational
  tools that may be deployed in the curriculum
• The range of institutional (and
  extra-institutional) systems, standards and
  processes that are potentially involved in design
• The need to support collaborative, contingent and
  flexible design practices, giving teachers and
  learners scope to adapt the curriculum as they
  engage with it.
• 1 Largely drawn from Phoebe Evaluation Report
  (M. Manton and L.Masterman, 2008) Issues Arising
  (H.Beetham, 2008)

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Further challenges

• Staff time and motivation to engage, and the lack
  of specialised expertise
• Institutional support tends to be focused on VLE
  use and other centrally mandated technologies
• Cultural resistance to sharing learning designs
  and resources, unhelpful QA processes, and
  perceptions of design tools as controlling
  quality rather than enabling innovation1
• Curriculum documentation where this is dictated
  by institutional requirements and traditional
  practices it may not be best suited to sharing or
  expressing educational rationales
• Technology can radically change roles in the
  curriculum process this may in itself present
  obstacles to change
• The rise of learner-owned technologies, along
  with learners use of web 2.0 technologies and
  participation in their own social networks and
  content-sharing communities
• A large gap remains between standards and
  practice in this area, and this needs to be
  addressed for large-scale uptake to be viable.
• 1 Additional points from Edit4L Project
  Completion Report (P. Riddy et al, 2008)

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http//dfl.cetis.ac.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page