Week 5: The Future
Posted by: Nick (Nicholas Ford) on 30 November 2008 - 4:29pm
Hi everyone,
Although this is my first contribution to this forum I have been "lurking". I thank you all for your thought provoking contributions to date. I am still digesting many of your insights and observations. The question I pose to the forum is what are the current and future challenges facing learning designers?
~ Nick.
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Current Challenges
Hi all,
I've been watching the forum from afar...but wanted to add $.02 here re some current challenges...just a few:
cheers
Ben
learning design & delivery mod...
Robin said: "my interest in learning design has little to do with aspects of e-Learning"
I think that the critical variables are the instructional variables (the pedagogical variables) and not the mode of delivery variables (teachers, printed instructional programmes, computer programmes, etc).
For example practice with good feedback following errors results in much faster acquisition than practice without feedback. This is an example of an important instructional variable (feedback following errors). How the feedback is delivered should have no additional effect. Sometimes the delivery mechanism appears to have an effect. But I suggest that the appearance is illusory. The illusion occurs because it is much easier to programme a skilled teacher to deliver good feedback following hundreds of different kinds of errors than it is to programme a computer to provide good feedback following hundreds of different kinds of errors and this makes the skilled teacher look more effective. The converse is also possible. A teacher delivered lesson which fails to provide good feedback will look less effective than a computer delivered lesson which does provide good feedback. In both cases the difference in effect can be traced to the presence or absence of good feedback and not to the delivery mechanism.
challenges for learning design...
It's hard enough thinking about current challenges let alone future ones!I feel a little bit like a thief as my interest in learning design has little to do with aspects of e-learning and so consequently I feel as if I'm stealing the idea from your world - plagiarising.....perhaps that's because I am? I think that focus Nick talks about of being on the learning is critical to face to face learning too. The shift needs to be made away from 'what we teach' to 'what the learners need to do to learn' and learning design helps this process. It shifts the focus in course design from content to activities. The challenge is to find the structures within which to facilitate this happening. We maybe need to work more closely with staff developers and learning technologists and academics and librarians and quality assurance people to ensure a common understanding of the educational drivers for implementing what we mean by learning design.
Flexibility
John says: "Seems somehow we need to be more flexible about our design for online courses if we are to acknowledge that one size does not fit all!"
One idea could be to design learning experiences constructed from a number of pedagogical threads which are connected at opt in / out nodes. Students could choose the thread that best suited them. They could even "back track" and opt out of one thread and into another.
the one-size-fits-all debate
Hi guys,
(I'm still hanging off the ceiling of a hotel room in Melbourne so I can hack into someone's wifi... what was it you were saying about access?)
Oh yes... Nick says "But what are the implications of accessibility, learner centredness and the acknowledgement that one size does not fit all for LD's ?"
I'm really interested in the ongoing 'one size fits all' debate - partly because I come from that sector of learners for whom traditional 'teaching' worked really well. I loved sitting in English lit lectures and then doing an exam! It worked for me. On the other hand, i can get really irritated with group work that can result in a lot of wasted time - and I have withdrawn from a course that relied so heavily on group work and group assessment that I couldn't meet the requirements within my Life. I would have liked the flexibility of having a choice about how I completed the course requirements. No, one size doesn't fit all - but let's not think that working in groups is always the answer either.
I've been at Ascilite the last few days. Two extremely interesting things: Today's keynote was Gary Poole, from Uni of BC, talking about learning spaces. He had some very interesting observations about students in two learning 'states' (my word not his) - 'co-acting' and 'interacting'. (his words). Co acting is like small children engaging in parallel play - they are working in the same space, but independently. Interacting is - well that's obvious. The interesting thing about the 'co-acting' was that people are highly competitive in that state - they feel they are being observed and evaluated. He was talking about physical spaces, but I think there is a lot we can transfer in this respect to the online environment - and certainly to belnded environments. I need to think about it more... However, he was clear that people need solitary time as well as the social and interactive states. I'm quite sure each person works best with a different balance. How do we accommodate this? Individually customised courses? How do we do that and preserve group work?
Second thing (and linked to the potential for individual customised courses) was PebblePad - software that started life in the UK as an e-portfolio and is now branded as 'personal learning space'. This really IS learner centred. Each learner owns their space - but it has far more functionality than a standard e-portfolio, while being wonderfully easy and intuitive to use. I won't rabbit on about it now, but to come back to Nick's original question about current and future challenges - I think I'd say that we haven't found the perfect online learning tools yet. I wonder if something like PebblePad is actually a much better integrative solution than our current LMSs. Have any of you seen it?
Other observations re learning design and Ascilite - some interesting bits and pieces about professioanl development; things being tried but nothing of outstanding success. I will review my notes and see if there's anything else I can add.
Now back up to the ceiling to see if I can post this message...
Cheers, k8
James Dalziel calls Learning
James Dalziel calls Learning Design the "missing component of e-learning". http://cnx.org/content/m14733/1.4/
I think there is definitely a major challenge in providing learners with structured group tasks, not just interacting individually with content on screen. Dalziel makes the point that this dimension - structured small group teaching - is not commonly found in online courses. Seems somehow we need to be more flexible about our design for online courses if we are to acknowledge that one size does not fit all!
He goes on to make a case for sharing learning designs, not just content. [Interesting. The 'Connexions' website this post is on does seem to be mostly about sharing content though, albeit some interesting modules - see Best Practices in Online Teaching.]
Another thought provoking quote along those lines from the same post: "The vision of how Learning Design could contribute to improving education was, for me, best articulated by Diana Laurillard in the UK Government e-learning strategy in 2005. Point 89 says:
Re: technology and future chal...
Paul said: another challenge is to do with finding a way ahead with web 2 technologies - picking a sensible path between the total enthusiasts on the one hand and the total sceptics on the other.
I agree Paul. A significant challenge i see emerging for LD's in this context is the impact of ICT's upon the expectations and behaviours of learners. The flexibility, accessibility and richness of learning experiences afforded by ICT's challenges the traditional paradigms of one size fits all instructional design. I believe that the term learning design represents an evolution of pedagogies that place learners at the centre. But what are the implications of accessibility, learner centredness and the acknowledgement that one size does not fit all for LD's ?
Re: future challenges
Nick said: The question I pose to the forum is what are the current and future challenges facing learning designers?
One from earlier discussion was around the de-professionalising of the role.
For me, another challenge is to do with finding a way ahead with web 2 technologies - picking a sensible path between the total enthusiasts on the one hand and the total sceptics on the other.
Paul