Teaching as a design science in learning and technology

Teaching as a design science in learning and technology

Diana LaurillardLondon Knowledge LabInstitute of Education

Sept 2012 cc: by-nc-sa

The policy context• Professional educators connected by technology to

empower, and inspire effective teaching (US Plan 2010)

• Promote professional learning communities between policy, practice and research (UNESCO 2011)

• There needs to be a greater prioritisation of teaching partnerships between technologists, learning support specialists and academics, and an end to the ‘not invented here’ syndrome… Good practice must also be shared. (HEFCE OLTF, 2011)


Teachers as an innovative professional learning community• Reconceptualising teaching as ‘a design science’

• Teachers building on the designs of others

• Articulating their pedagogy

• Adopting, adapting, testing, improving learning designs

• Co-creating and sharing learning designs

A computational representation of pedagogic design


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, 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 collaborate and learn…

… using a learning design support tool

Can learning design be supported computationally?


A ‘pedagogical patterns collector’ for capturing and articulating good pedagogy

A’ learning design support tool’ for teachers to find, adopt, adapt, analyse, experiment, trial in practice, redesign, and share designs

By developing design tools

The Learning Designer A TLRP-TEL project

http://tinyurl.com/ppcollector3

https://sites.google.com/a/lkl.ac.uk/ldse/Home

To help teachers

Articulate their effective teaching ideas for others to adopt

Adopt ‘pedagogical patterns’ of good teaching and open resources

Model pedagogical benefits and teaching costs

http://tinyurl.com/ppc3





Timings

Categorised teaching-learning activities

Short description

Learning outcome

Colour-coded

content

Capturing pedagogy as design plans

Black text articulates

the teacher’s pedagogy


Comparison of pedagogical benefits

AcquisitionInquiryDiscussionPracticeProduction

Acquisition

Inquiry

Discussion

Practice

Production

Conventional

Blended

Categorised learning activities

Analysis shows more active learning

A computational representation could analyse how much of each activity has been designed in


A computational representation


The Pedagogical Patterns Collector

Colour-coded text identifies content

parametersBlack text captures pedagogy design

A library of patterns to

inspect, both generic and

specific versions


Read, Watch, ListenInvestigateDiscussPracticeShareProduce

Adjust the type of learning activity.Edit the instructions.

Check the feedback on the overall distribution of learning activity

Add link to an OER, e.g. a digital tool for practice

Adopt – Adapt – Import resources - Test and re-design – Share what works

Adopt/Adapt a teaching pattern

Export to Word

[Moodle]

Represent the teacher as

present or not


Comments on the PPC

• [The pie-chart] is one of the most useful features … it gives a good overview of the balance between different learning experiences

• I rarely consider how the students' time is apportioned … it's good to be made to think about this.

• Seeing how the sessions are shaping up in such a visual medium …. would probably make me think more carefully about providing a mix of activities


A Pedagogical Pattern Collector for capturing and articulating good pedagogy

The Learning Designer for teachers to find, adopt, adapt, analyse, experiment, trial in practice, redesign, and share designs

By developing design tools

The Learning Designer A TLRP-TEL project

http://tinyurl.com/ppcollector3


To help teachers

Articulate their effective teaching ideas for others to adopt

Adopt ‘pedagogical patterns’ of good teaching and open resources

Model pedagogical benefits and teaching costs

http://tinyurl.com/ppc3





The Learning Designer overview

The start screen:Import or Create

Properties:• Credit hours• Student numbers• Learning outcomes• Description• Designer reflection• Student feedback

Timeline: • Select teaching-

learning activities,• Define what they do

in activity• Define timing of

each one, group sizes, sequencing

Analysis:• Charts of the overall

learning experience – types of learning, and of experience of personal, social or whole class

• teacher workload – for initial design and for reuse


LC

Teacher concepts

LC

LP

LP

Learner concepts

Learner practice

GenerateModulate

Learning through acquisition, instruction

Learning through inquiry

Acquiring

Inquiring

Talk, book, video, Web

A theory-based framework of the learner learning


LC

Teacher concepts

Learning environment

LC

LP

LP

Learner concepts

Learner practice

GenerateModulate

Learning through practice with meaningful intrinsic feedback

Task/Feedback

Actions

GenerateModulate

Lab, Game, Simulation



Instructivism - Social constructivism – Experiential learning – Inquiry learning - Constructionism – Collaborative learning

(Dewey, Vygotsky, Piaget, Gagné Bruner, Papert, Marton, Bransford…)

LC

Teacher concepts

Peer concepts

Peer practice


LC

LP

LP

Learner concepts

Learner practice

GenerateModulate

GenerateModulate

GenerateModulate

Practising

Ideas, questions

Ideas, questions

Outputs

Outputs

Acquiring

Inquiring



Instructivism - Social constructivism – Experiential learning – Inquiry learning - Constructionism – Collaborative learning

(Dewey, Vygotsky, Piaget, Gagné Bruner, Papert, Marton, Bransford…)

LC

Teacher concepts

Peer concepts

Peer practice


LC

LP

LP

Learner concepts

Learner practice

GenerateModulate

GenerateModulate

GenerateModulate

Practising

Acquiring

Inquiring Discussing

Producing

Collaborating



LC

Teacher concepts

Peer concepts

Peer practice


LC

LP

LP

Teacher communication

cycle

Peer communication

cycle

Teacher modelling

cycle

Peer modelling

cycle

Learner concepts

Learner practice

GenerateModulate

GenerateModulate

The Conversational Framework

GenerateModulateTeacher

practice cycle

Peer practice

cycle

Instructivism Social constructivism Experiential learning Inquiry learningCollaborative learning

Dewey, Vygotsky, Piaget, Gagné, Bruner, Papert, Marton, Bransford…

Constructionism


LC

Teacher concepts

Peer concepts

Peer practice


LC

LP

LP

Learner concepts

Learner practice

GenerateModulate

GenerateModulate

Learning with technology

Inquiring

Discussing

Acquiring

Practising

Collaborating

Producing

Web resources

Webinar, Forum

Podcasts

Skills Practice

Tools

Collaboration tools

DesignsProductions


Co-creating new pedagogies

• Import existing learning designs• Use advice and guidance• Consider alternative designs• Adapt the design to own context• Analyse the designs• Re-design – test – improve – share what works


Import an existing learning design

Co-creating new pedagogies

Adapt an existing learning design

Consider advice and guidance on adaptation

Consider alternative learning activities


Re-designing

Use drop-down menu to change teaching-learning activities and analyse effect on learning experience and teacher time


Analysing the design

Interpreted in terms of the

Conversational Framework

Contrasting teacher workload

for own design and reuse


Modelling learning experience and teacher workloadHow can we estimate the effects of the decisions we make as we plan a course?

We select the set of teaching and learning activities we intend to use

These have consequences for the pedagogical benefits, and the comparative costs in terms of teachers’ workload


Comparison of pedagogical benefits, and costs in terms of teachers’ workload

AcquisitionInquiryDiscussionPracticeProduction

Acquisition

Inquiry

Discussion

Practice

Production

Yr 1 Yr 2 Typical

15 15 30

3.5 1.8 1.2

Yr 1 Yr 2 Typical

15 15 30

5.2 2.3 0.4

Student numbers

Teacher hrs per student

Conventional Blended

Lower per capita costs in a typical

year for large

numbers

But who funds the up-front design and development costs?


Modelling the costs for increasing student cohort size

30 60 90 120 1500

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

ConventionalOpen Mode

Teacher days per student

Cohort size

The per-student support costs never improve through economies of scale

Blended


MOOC feasibilityOnly ‘fixed’ costs

Mainly ‘transmission’ teaching – multimediaOrchestrated peer learningUse of interactive digital learning objectsAutomated assessmentCertificate of ‘attendance’

No ‘variable’ (per student) costsNo individual student supportNo tutor-based assessment, formative or summativeNo accreditation of learning


Sharing…

Once tested and evaluated with students, export (with metadata) to shared folder, website, community library, open repository…


Comments on the approach

• Teachers respond positively to the Learning Designer tools and see this as a way of improving teaching, and potentially of saving time

• The Learning Designer concepts of sharing designs, reuse, adaptation, advice on TEL, analysis of the learning experience, suggestions of design alternatives, and categorisation of designs, were all welcomed by teachers

• Teachers commented on the added value of the detailed descriptions of pedagogy, which enable them to have a more in-depth conversation about their practice and what makes a learning design more effective


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 [the Learning Designer] 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”


Teachers as innovative co-creators of technology-based pedagogiesFeatures of teaching as ‘a design science’:

• Teachers adopting, adapting, testing, improving, sharing learning designs

• Teaching as collaborative learning, supported by online collaborative design tools and repositories

• A theory-based computational representation of pedagogic design that migrates across subjects and clarifies learning benefits and teaching costs


Further details…

Teaching as a Design Science: Building pedagogical patterns for learning and technology (Routledge, 2012)


The LDSE project team

IOE/LKLBrock Craft (RF)Diana Laurillard (PI)Dejan Ljubojevic (RF)

OxfordLiz Masterman (CoPI)Marion Manton (CoPI)Joanna Wild (RF)

Birkbeck/LKLGeorge Magooulas (CoPI)Patricia CharltonDionisis Dimakopoulos

LondonMetTom Boyle (CoPI)

LSESteve Ryan (CoPI)Ed WhitleyRoser Pujadas (PhD Student)

RVCKim Whittlestone (CoPI)Stephen MayCarrie Roder (PhD Student)

Documents

Teaching as a design science in learning and technology