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Should learning design be supported computationally?. It’s difficult, but it’s worth a try, because… Teachers need much more support than they get to make the most of learning technologies
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Should learning design be supported computationally? It’s difficult, but it’s worth a try, because… Teachers need much more support than they get to make the most of learning technologies If they can learn together, collaborate, connectivate, build on the work of others, they can build this knowledge Not in just in staff development courses, not from books, not through exhortation, but in the same way as other designers learn… That’s why we built
The Learning Designer overview Properties: Input parameters and constraints Timeline: design Teaching-Learning Activities, timing, group sizes, sequencing Analysis: feedback on the overall learning experience and teacher workload The start screen: Import or Create
What does the Learning Designer help you work on? • Developing new teachers and CPD • Managing the Key Information Set • Doing more with existing resources • Complementing the value of OERs • Promoting reflection • Encourage creativity and innovation To provide help, the system needs a computational model of what it takes to design a teaching-learning activity Does it deliver?
Developing new teachers and CPD? • Import existing learning designs • Offer advice and guidance
Developing new teachers and CPD? Import an existing learning design Adapt an existing learning design Consider advice and guidance on adaptation Consider alternative learning activities
Comments on staff development • You could base its use in PG Cert. You know, embed in PG Cert course design modules [...] this kind of flow, so that it becomes a learned behaviour from the start. • I like the idea of working through this with some new staff and getting them to think before they get pulled into just standing there and lecturing because that's what happened to them when they were at university, getting them to think through how they can shift the patterns of how they're designing their learning
Managing the Key Information Set? • Analysis of the learning experience • Analysis of the logistics of learning
Key Information Set model Calculation of assessment methods and learning and teaching methods
Logistics, Learning experience Module title Credit value Student numbers Learning activities Learning experience Teacher workload
Module learning time Screen with Analysis 30 10 Total Learning Time 300 hours As the user changes the integers in each cell, the Total Learning hours updates. Pie Charts always on Screen and update with user input to the Table
Comments on KIS for the learning experience • “I think the representation at the end, the feedback, this bit was very, very helpful [i.e. pie charts]. So, I've made my decisions, what does it look like for a student, that was very, very useful, and the ability to go back and change that and say: actually, probably I need even more, let's say, inquiry”
Doing more with existing resources? • Understanding teacher workload • Adopting and embedding OERs
Teacher workload - reuse Compares time for preparing from scratch with time for reuse
Teacher workload – going online Change session type from ‘Tutor Group’ to ‘Independent Group’ Compare Teacher Contact time
Comments on reuse, sharing and workload • “If this was a kind of gateway to sharing practice, that would be very useful [...] and maybe for new tutors coming along to see different possibilities” • “Yes I think that is very useful to see what someone else has done… where you had them evaluating each other’s website, so they are creating a website and asking their colleague to review it… that’s an idea I hadn’t got in my course. And I think that’s an excellent idea. It has come to me because it is a design that has been built my someone else. And you get very useful ideas that you hadn’t thought of before that you use in your design”.
Complementing the value of OERs? • Adopt and adapt learning designs • Import existing resources • Exchange learning designs – via Web
The Pedagogical Patterns Collector Generic forms – Specific instances
The Pedagogical Patterns Collector And Export Check the feedback on the overall distribution of learning activity Read, Watch, Listen Investigate Discuss Practice Share Produce Adjust the type of learning activity. Edit the instructions. Add link to an OER Adopt – Adapt – Import OER – Export – Test – Revise - Share
Comments on the PPC • [The pie-chart] is one of the most useful features of the PPC designer, it gives a good overview of the balance between different learning experiences (WV05) • I rarely consider how the students' time is apportioned … it's good to be made to think about this. (WV17) • Seeing how the session/s are shaping up in such a visual medium with colour coding of activity types is useful and would probably make me think more carefully about providing a mix of activities (WV19)
Promoting reflection? • Feedback on designs • Alternative design ideas
Alternative design ideas and feedback Query the knowledge base for specific types of learning activity
Comments on alternative design ideas • “I think it definitely helps you to reflect on what you're doing [...] And then to see the pie chart and then to realise I want some more production and practice in there and go back and complete the design with those elements.” • “This would cause me to think again about my design in terms of: hang on a minute, if the system tells me that what I am planning has no inquiry element but yet that's what I'm trying to achieve, there must be something wrong” From a reviewer: "The ideas underlying the approach are interesting and significant as they constitute new directions to LD and handle limitations of existing LD tools."
Encourage creativity and innovation? • Feedback on designs • Alternative design ideas • Tools for constructing designs
Select from existing Teaching-Learning Activities with given properties Constructing designs Change their properties to suit the context
Comments on creativity and innovation • “The approach is very helpful in getting me to think differently about learning design. It is because it is different to how I would normally design. This different perspective helps me think differently about my design. I like that because while it is similar in the idea of providing things like activities [….] it also helps me think more deeply about how this impacts the students’ learning.” • “It helps me to see an overview of my design and gives me a different way to think about my design. I’m already thinking about the importance of these concepts for my design and reflecting about the type of change and different activities. … Mm.. I think this is great. Very helpful.”
What issues must the Learning Designer also address? • Complexity • Potentially a tool of management control • Interpretability of analysis • The need for a topic-oriented focus “It’s very overwhelming … there’s a lot going on and to think about. I’m not sure what all the terms mean. I mean I don’t understand the difference between production and practice. Let’s have a look […] Yes – OK – I get it. Yes I see the difference. Probably we need a bit more help here with explanations and examples. But once you get into the tool it isn’t so difficult” “My only worry is that it [i.e. LDSE] turns into an institutional requisite rather than an option. It becomes a measurement tool, rather than a useful organisational tool that allows some critical self reflection on practice. I know that the goal is the latter, but software, once out there, can become so seductive to gather information for departments, policy makers, etc, and the information that is produced is probably ONLY useful for individual teachers, not education ministers, etc” “I think it's cute to have pie charts, it's neat [...] I would go back and squidge my stuff, reorganise my time because I would know that it would be a good thing to have a mix of all of these things (i.e. forms of learning). But that's because I think it's a good thing. If I didn't believe that this was a good thing, then you would show me a pie chart that was 90% of one thing I would still think it's ok” “My problem with the tool is that the pedagogy is neutral of the topic while the approach to teaching and learning requires a topic approach and this tool doesn’t help with this approach”
Future collaborations... • With HKU – to test the cross-cultural sharing of learning designs between school teachers (ESRC Bi-lateral?) • With LSIS – to integrate the Learning Designer with the Generator tool for FE deployment (BIS funding to 03/12) • Request to join EU consortium on ‘Intelligent Agents for Teaching and Learning’ (University of Macerata, Italy) • Request for collaboration on using the Learning Designer to support e-portfolios for staff (HKIofEd) • Request for collaboration on using the PPC to update training designs for the construction industry (Fundación Laboral, Madrid) • Interoperability discussions with LAMS, Moodle, Blackboard, CELs…
The ALT Survey on ‘Contexts of Use’ Respondents (89) were asked what key contribution they felt the LDSE project had made (52 knew of LDSE). Responses suggest that the LDSE project had: • Increased awareness of learning design support tools, and of pedagogy. • Enabled the move from research to practice in the use of learning design tools. • Provided learning design patterns that have been proven to work. • Advanced the visualisation of designs. The LDSE project’s key contribution has been “drawing together some of the best research of the [past] decade into a usable tool” although “future projects should 'sell' the point of learning design support tools hard.
The ALT Survey on ‘Contexts of Use’ Strongest context would be • Where learning design support tools are used in a staff development context Also high: • A course team is developing a new course – members use the tool for sharing their designs to aid working together. • Individual teachers use the tool to look at the learning designs created by other teachers, to get ideas and inspiration. BUT • We need for “Evidence that the tool provided significant benefits e.g. cost savings, time efficiencies” or “increased learner engagement”.
CreditsTheLearning Design Support Environment (LDSE) project IOE/LKL Brock Craft (RF) Diana Laurillard (PI) Dejan Ljubojevic (RF) Oxford Liz Masterman (CoPI) Marion Manton (CoPI) Joanna Wild (RF) Birkbeck/LKL George Magooulas (CoPI) Patricia Charlton Dionisis Dimakopoulos LondonMet Tom Boyle (CoPI) RVC Kim Whittlestone (CoPI) Stephen May Carrie Roder (PhD Student) LSE Steve Ryan (CoPI) Ed Whitley Roser Pujadas (PhD Student)
