Reflection - Week one - Learning Design for a 21st Century Curriculum

Branwen Trevellion visits Etopia Island in Second Life

Week one has gone quickly in the Learning Design for a 21st Century Curriculum. For my reflections I am using the Three-Step Reflective Framework template that I devised in my research.

Step 1: Take notice & describe the experience - description of evidence

I have achieved all my goals as described in my first blog post. The prospect of carrying them all out was rather daunting, and luckily I was on leave and had plenty of time. I am not sure how I will get on once I go back to full-time work next week. Cloudworks, I have found to be completely confusing, and as such I decided to only focus on looking at a few clouds, mainly people with similar interests to what I want to pursue. In my mind, this seems a bit silly as there are so many possibilities out there but I only have limited time. I have tried to choose projects to engage with that will extend my thinking and learning. For example:

• Project one: Ellie Brewster (Dr Sharon Collingwood) exploring learning design for creating presence in virtual worlds using open resources and mobile devices - Cloudscape

I have also enjoyed joining the discussion about learning design but it has been pretty limited regarding numbers and responses - possibly because the forum does not enable responding to posts via email.  So vaguely disappointing.

I have developed a definition of learning design for myself, and have decided to go with individualized learning design as described on my second blog post. I did not listen to the launch or attend the convergence session, but can do that next time.I have also looked at some of the readings once I managed to sort out how to access them on Bibsonomy. I visited Second Life for the first time in a couple of years - it has changed a little, and the tools and controls seem harder to find. I also want to visit some other virtual worlds such as Open Sim.

Step 2: Analyse the experience - implications of your decisions, actions, and reactions.
I enjoyed the responses to my discussion posts which has put me in an interesting position, I am now really confused about the ideal approach for learning design, and also whether individualized learning design is actually feasible. However, negotiation with the students is key to whatever tack I take though which has always been a strength anyway though I am working within organisational constraints associated with the teaching qualification I teach. Constraints such as set learning outcomes and prescribed assessments - even though negotiated assessments are offered they are within particular parameters to meet the learning outcomes. And the approach is always about designing activities and offering content, since the students (teachers) that I work with need that kind of structure. The implications are then that I need to continue to balance my preferences with those of my students in the way that I design my courses.

So I guess, by engaging in this course, I am not only extending my existing knowledge, I am also challenging my beliefs and assumptions about learning design. According to Mark Nichols, by doing this I am engaging in transformative learning. This appeals to my interest in reflective practice.

My skills in navigating a virtual world need some developing as I feel like a real beginner. I also feel it would be useful to meet up with others with some expertise. I wont be able to design for a virtual world if I don't fully know what the environment involves, and how easy it is to manipulate items.

Step 3: Take Action - Reflect on what you learned and how you will use this learning.
What I have learned is that there is no one way for 'doing' learning design.  If I forced my views on students' about individualized learning design - no content, activities or assessment provided by the teacher, unless in negotiation with each student - I would be as bad as the most prescriptive teacher. I still have a lot to learn about different peoples' perspectives surrounding learning design.

I know that I prefer to use constructivism or connectivism, but I am not fully cognisant with the latter learning theory, so I need to explore this further and the implications for learning design. I know very little about effective learning design for virtual worlds, and need to explore the literature around this.

Therefore, my learning goals for the learning design course are to:

1. Maintain regular entries in my learning journal (blog);
2. Explore the concept of individualized learning design further;
3. Access and immerse myself in some of the research and literature associated with learning design for virtual worlds; 
4. Explore the practical aspects of several virtual worlds;
5. Investigate others' perspectives and clouds and cloudscapes in the Mooc; and
6. Develop my knowledge about connectivism as a model to underpin individualized learning design.

Learning design - a definition

spirals19 by pizzodisevo

So far in the oldsmooc the definitions of learning design are all teacher centric because the teacher is always in charge of designing the learning. I think we probably need to throw away the established theories and the models - even though Ida has done a fabulous job of collating them on the wiki - and begin afresh using a truly learner-centric model - even the Arcs model by John Keller that Ida states is more learner-centred is teacher-led. This would mean moving to a constructivist/connectivist framework, and leaving cognitive/behaviourist approaches behind.

I think the role of teachers is to mentor and to teach critical thinking, scaffold metacognition and to guide students in how to be self-directed and self-regulated learners - our role is to guide students to develop their own strategies for learning, and to obtain and manage the information they need - access, filter, evaluate and create - and in doing so they will develop the knowledge they need to reach their learning goals. Teachers are thereby freed up from hours of designing and developing content and activities, and can support student learning more effectively through mentoring.

Unfortunately, the spiel about learner-centred learning still occurs around curricula where the learning outcomes for courses and qualifications are set by the organisation, and teachers still set the learning objectives for each module.  Even if students already have skills and knowledge, they are often required to sit through the same stuff again, so they become bored and switch off and they disengage. Sure learning outcomes do guide the students and helps them know what they need to understand about a topic, but surely they should be the ones to decide the meaning that they need to extract from a learning experience, and what learning experiences they need to achieve their dreams?

So I am a fan of learning design whereby students take 'the reins' and the teacher mentors and facilitates the process. Is there a name for this type of learning design yet? Individualized learning design is a term used by Suny Empire State College.

I really like the idea of enabling students to 'pick and mix' the courses they want to take and decide the shape of their qualifications, so assessment of prior learning is going to be key to this, as is constructivism and connectivism as approaches to learning. I really like the individualized learning design and mentor model (with learning contracts and student-designed degrees) practised by Suny Empire State College - read more.

Learner-designed activities
Back to the idea of learning activities designed by students for students ....Lets say for argument's sake that the topic they need to explore is around creating an identity on the Internet. If using individualized learning design, the students may have decided that they need to do this to up their profile for the future and to connect to others while they learn. For some many it will be more beneficial professionally to have an Internet presence. So creating an online presence and identity becomes one of their learning goals. A student might say:

• Who do I want to be? 
• Where will I show myself on the Internet?
• What do I want others to see? 
• What tools can I use to achieve this? 
• What do I know already and what do I need to know? 
• Who can help me with this? 

Some students will go it alone. Others will join with peers, and some may ask the teacher. From my perspective, the role of learning design is handed to the students - the teacher may support the students with questions to get them started, but the only thing the teacher might provide is guidance with the task that the students has decided to undertake, in discussion with his or her mentor (teacher): 

• Create an identify for yourself on the Internet.
• Share what you learn with others.

I wonder what others think? Is this a cost-effective model of learning?

week one - MOOC - Learning Design for a 21st Century Curriculum

Millionaire's walk at Sorrento on the Mornington Peninsula 

near Melbourne - Summer 2012

I have recently come back from a Xmas holiday spent in a stunning spot as shown in the pic to join - Week one of the MOOC - Learning Design for a 21st Century Curriculum - organised by Open University in the UK. I am curious to see how they approach this, and am looking for some fresh ideas.

One big question looms for me. Will this course have anything different about learning design compared to what we did in 2008 with Flexible Learning and Facilitating Online - in the pre-MOOC era before the name of Moocs and interacting with large numbers of participants became fashionable?

My goals this week are to:

• Engage in all the activities - my introduction and initial interest in a design project has been conveyed on writing this.
• Explore the study circles with the intention of joining a project group.
• Find a definition of learning design that resonates.

I have decided to join a project with Ellie Brewster (Dr Sharon Collingwood) exploring learning design for creating presence in virtual worlds using open resources and mobile devices.Peter Miller's tip about Lumiya for android devices is a goodie so I will look into that so I can play on my eepad.

Day Five
I had a refresher in Second Life today and rejuvenated Branwen Trewellion - she now has a new haircut. For some reason, I found it more challenging to change the appearance of my avatar and to move her around. It looks like there have been some changes in SL since I was last there. I went to Koru (NMIT's space) and made it my homepage. Before that I encountered some strangers and one was attacking an avatar and there was lots of swearing so I felt the need to get out of the area quickly so went to a familiar space - Koru. However, once there, it felt quite lonely as no-one was around. Psychologically the beauty of a virtual world is the presence of others to interact with in a meaningful way, and I felt this need acutely when I was exploring today.  Next time I will take a pic to put on here. I want to explore OpenSim next and some of the other virtual worlds platforms being mentioned, e.g., Cloud party and Twinity.

A big issue for me is accessibility for students when using virtual worlds so if they can use their mobile devices - i or android phones, e or ipads and notebooks that would be fabulous.  As Sharon has mentioned orientation to the environment is key to success but it does take up a lot of time. I have been on the mind map and added some initial ideas. Next up the readings which I hope to enjoy with my feet up reading on the eepad....my back is killing me at the mo so I cant do much else. So in between hanging upside down and visiting the physio the Mooc (and a pile of library books, of course) is keeping me occupied.

Manifesto for Teaching Online - Transforming Assessment

O Manifesto by Katler Dettmann

"Feedback can be digested, worked with, created from. In the absence of this it is just response." 

This is one of the statements from the Manifesto for Teaching Online (Clara O'Shea, 2012) discussed during the presentation: Assessment and the Manifesto for Teaching Online. This was the start of the online Transforming Assessment  webinars series - Rethinking assessment in a participatory digital world - Assessment 2.0. A recording will be available soon on the site.

In this project researchers from the University of Edinburgh investigated writing, assessment and feedback practices in a MSc in E-Learning programme. Students used blogs and wikis for their writing, some was peer-assessed once the students became familiar with how to blog. Clara  also said during her presentation that seeing how others are developing their arguments gives a better sense of how the ideas are unfolding. Feedback has an important role in this process. Affirming feedback as well as questions encourages students to respond more analogically - reflectively.

I also like another statement: "A routine of plagiarism detection structures-in a relation of distrust." Clara believes that students need to be taught how to write well and cite correctly, and a culture of blame is not helpful. She also mentioned that the design of the assessments is key in preventing plagiarism I have to say that I agree. Clara wants us to take the Manifesto apart and discuss the statements....feedback in my opinion needs to stimulate critical thinking and extend students' knowledge and that is why I believe in giving formative feedback on summative assessments. It takes more work but the students are more likely to learn and develop a deeper knowledge of the concepts....more so than they might by just passing.

Professional learning and development

The teacher & the VPLD approach by hazelowendmc

I am sold on Hazel Owen's Virtual Professional Learning Development approach. For the larger size of the image click here. At first glance the model looks complicated but in actual fact it is surprisingly simple. At the core is the teacher who becomes a participant in a virtual learning community. The model uses a Moodle platform to facilitate online interactions with other teachers, resources and mentors. The diagram shows how the teacher is linked to a virtual learning community, the students and the wider education community. It is worth noting that the virtualness of the approach does not exclude face to face interactions. The complexity of the diagram comes from the inclusion of all the processes and practices involved in the professional learning and development that the teacher engages in. What I am exploring is how this model could be applied to specific teaching and learning practices such as assessment, in particular assessing action competence. 

Owen, H. (2011). Design for virtual professional learning and development: infinity and beyond. Proceedings of the International Conference on eLearning Futures 2011 (pp. 46-53). Auckland: Unitec.

A new era of educational design for learning

http://www.mediaspin.com/images/superstock/social_networks_profiles-hgrebe-800.jpg

This is my response to a post by Hazel Owen on the Ethos consultancy website, March 22, 2012 - The curriculum is dead; long live learning.

People may also be interested in the written article on this topic. Bass, R. (2012) Disrupting ourselves: The problem learning in higher education. Educause Review, March/April, 22-33. This article totally describes what we are trying to do in the curriculum development projects at the Educational Development Centre at Otago Polytechnic. This was a great find, affirming that what we have been trying to do in the organisation since 2007 is regarded as effective, and the best way forward. What is not recognised by most lecturers is the need to design from the experiential phase of learning rather than from the objectives.

What do you actually want the students to experience, and how will you help them get this experience? And how will you guide them to find the information they need to understand the experience? For example, midwives need to know how to 'catch a baby' so when designing curriculum a good place to start is: what do they actually need to know to understand the birthing experience? I believe that lecturers think of this when writing course objectives but why not let the students think what they need to know guided by the lecturers in a constructivist model of learning. Preferably not actually giving birth but many do or have done prior to taking the course. Do they get RPL for this experience? No. Food for thought though isn't it.

Competency-based skills still need to be taught I agree, so a mix of what George Siemens (2005) regards as learning in the transmission domain may be more applicable for this in the form of courses with other learning enabled in the acquisition and emergence domains where self-generated learning (create own objectives etc), inquiry-based learning and reflective and critical thinking are valued. Bronwyn

References
Bass, R. (2012) Disrupting ourselves: The problem learning in higher education. Educause Review, March/April, 22-33.
Siemens, G. (2005). Learning Development Cycle: Bridging Learning Design and Modern Knowledge Needs. elearnspace: everything elearning. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/ldc.htm

Introducing myself

Priscilla in EDC by bronwynannh

You may be wondering why I am introducing myself with a picture of a kune kune piglet. For me she represents diversity. I am an Educational Developer, and work with a broad variety of people, as well as teaching the Flexible Learning course. A couple of years ago, Priscilla was one of our customers in the Educational Development Centre. She was such a gorgeous wee thing and kept us entertained for an hour while we waited for the SPCA to arrive. She was a wanderer from one of the local student flats, brought in by one of the polytechnic students who found her out the front on Forth street. Yes this is me in the next picture, after one of my weekend walks in the bush with hubby. It is a great way to forget about the academic stuff.

I have been involved in teaching this course since 2006, and helped to develop the Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Learning and Teaching. I entered the staff development side of things in 2001 when I was appointed the Blackboard coordinator for the organisation. Before that, I had been teaching bioscience in the nursing and midwifery degrees - both online, on-campus distance and in block courses. My interest in eLearning has taken me on a very interesting pathway in teaching and learning. I have recently submitted my Doctorate in Education and am now playing the waiting game. My focus was on using reflective frameworks for professional learning and practice.

I also teach an online course called Evaluation of eLearning for Effective practice. This is part of the Graduate Certificate in Applied eLearning now run by Manukau Institute of Technology, and originally developed as a TANZ initiative when I was involved in their elearning group. I really enjoy keeping up with the latest trends in learning and teaching. This includes not only the technologies which are springing up everywhere, but also innovative thinking around learning. I have recently been involved in running workshops on critical thinking, self-directed learning, reflective practice, ePortfolios and Web 2.0 tools. Oh yes, and I do lots of work with learning design, and have led curriculum development and research projects. I am really looking forward to reading your blogs.