Learning design

Matrix (Source: 3dman_eu, goo.gl/18rRC9, under CC0 Public Domain licence)

Nowadays there is a wide range of pedagogical and technological choices available to teachers and students. Increasingly, educators are coming to see themselves as learning designers, drawing together possible pedagogies and technologies (though that doesn’t necessarily mean using digital technologies all the time) in such as way as to create the optimal learning experiences for their students. This is somewhat like assembling a jigsaw, or even a matrix, where all the elements should fit together as seamlessly as possible. Moreover, with the guidance of educators, and following similar principles, students can also become creators of learning experiences for their peers.

In recent years, a great deal has been said and written about the role of educators as learning designers by Diana Laurillard, Mike Levy and Glenn Stockwell, Nicky Hockly, and many others. As a white paper from the 2011 Sustaining Technology Enhanced Learning at a LARge scale (STELLAR) Alpine Rendez-Vous explains:

The challenge of education is no longer about delivery of knowledge: it is about designing environments, tools and activities for learners to construct knowledge. In order for educators to effectively orchestrate learning within this landscape they need to perceive themselves, and indeed to be perceived by society, as techno-pedagogical designers.

Source: Mwanza-Simwami, D., Kukulska-Hulme, A., Clough, G., Whitelock, D., Ferguson, R., & Sharples, M. (2011). Methods and models of next generation technology enhanced learning (p. 5). White paper. Alpine Rendezvous, March 28-29, La Clusaz, France.

In order to be effective learning designers, educators need a solid grasp of:

• • • traditional and contemporary pedagogical approaches, ranging from information transmission and behaviourism through to social constructivism (and its variants such as challenge-based learning, inquiry-based learning, problem-based learning, project-based learning and task-based learning, as well as newer variants such as phenomenon-based learning)
    • web 1.0 and web 2.0 tools and the pedagogical approaches to which they most readily lend themselves
    • the evolution of the internet towards web 3.0 (including the rise of big data, learning analytics, and artificial intelligence algorithms, with the AI chatbot ChatGPT having recently captured widespread attention)
    • mobile learning tools and the pedagogical approaches to which they most readily lend themselves (including the rise of extended reality interfaces such as virtual reality and augmented reality)
    • a selection of contextually relevant digital design models, such as TPACK, SAMR, T3, PICRAT and/or CoI (and, for mobile learning, iPAC), which can help educators to frame and evaluate current and potential learning designs
    • the concept of emergency remote teaching (ERT), referring to the rapidly delivered but often pedagogically limited switch to online teaching that occurred at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the need to now (re)focus on pedagogically improving such online teaching with the support of models such as those mentioned above
    • the benefits and challenges of hybrid (blended) learning and its more recent inflection, hyflex learning
    • the importance of inclusive design and design justice, supported by the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Guidelines
    • the importance of digital literacies and coding skills
    • the learning and assessment roles played by structures like PLNs, PLEs and e-portfolios
    • the relevance of collaborative online international learning (COIL) or virtual exchange (VE) initiatives to internationalisation-at-home strategies (which are important not only during lockdown periods such as during Covid-19, but at all times to help internationalise the learning of students, especially those who do not have the means to travel during their studies)
    • ways to ensure digital safety and wellness (including an understanding of digital privacy, digital reputation, and digital health and wellbeing)

Common frameworks for supporting educators in moving their uses of digital technologies away from older information transmission and behaviourist approaches, and towards more contemporary social constructivist approaches, include those mentioned under the fifth bullet point above: Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler’s TPACK framework, which reminds educators to bring together content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), technological knowledge (TK) and, in the most recent version of TPACK, contextual knowledge (XK), in order to design the optimal learning experiences for their students; Ruben Puentedura’s SAMR model model (see below), which helps teachers assess the pedagogical level on which they and their students are currently using digital technologies, before considering how to move to a more pedagogically sophisticated level; Royce Kimmons, Charles Graham and Richard West’s PICRAT, a matrix whose axes reflect whether students are using technologies in passive, interactive or creative ways (PIC) and whether technology replaces, amplifies or transforms learning activities (RAT), with the second axis being somewhat akin to SAMR; and Sonny Magaña’s T3 framework, which builds on but goes beyond TPACK and SAMR, placing more emphasis on task types rather than technologies, focusing more centrally on students’ roles, and adding a level where students’ learning directly impacts the wider world. 

Explanation of the SAMR model (Source: Lefflerd, goo.gl/bn8zs1, under CC BY-SA 4.0 licence)

PICRAT appears to be a suitable model for pre-service teachers as well as practising schoolteachers, while T3 may be particularly valuable for those with more experience in teaching with digital technologies, including tertiary educators looking to have their students engage in social entrepreneurship.

More references on this topic are available on the Publications on Digital Learning page.

Last update: January 2024.