The Future of Learning Designs Making them useful and useable for teachers and learners Sue Bennett University of Wollongong,Australia Sue Bennett University of Wollongong,Australia

Focus of presentation Learning design for teachers –reflect on current thinking and work Learning design for learners –what are the option? What next?

Learning design for teachers Design as routine but non-expert activity of regular academics and teachers Better design leads to better teaching and learning Learning design = way to communicate and share designs to be adapted by others

Current approaches Online repositories of ideas (and sometimes designs) Systematic formalisms (pedagogical patterns, visual representations) ‘Authoring’ and planning tools Representation tools Support systems

What next? Diverse range of solutions (and perceived problems) Lacking a systematic exploration of: –what works –for who –under what conditions –why

Learning designs for learners How might learners designs be useful to learners? Not only by removing the teacher and automating the process Not only about offering open choice to learners either Explore other possibilities

Other conceptions… A representation to communicate the teacher’s design –Learners can see relations between tasks, resources, supports –Sense of the overall logic and rationale –Understand options for learner choice

Or… A learning support –Sequences and strategies for completing a task –Individual or group study, outside class time –Aim to build learners’ repertoire of skills (similar to LD as support for teachers’ design)

What next? Develop means of testing these ideas with learners Experimental and naturalistic designs

Conclusion Ideas about learning design continue to expand Tools and strategy development important Also need to test ideas ‘in the wild’