Learning Design for Teaching in a Tertiary Context—Elise Allen
Assessment Task 2: Critical Reflection On The Learning Design Plan
Step 1: Reflectively describe the learning design plan
Creating the plan
I approached the task by looking at a current course I teach and, during everyday teaching practice, identifying areas that needed improvement. These areas became the focus of new learning design.
The main decisions I made during the creation of the plan were around the scope of the learning design. I had to decide how much of the course to focus on, and selected the most important areas in need of change. It was not going to be possible to implement changes over the whole course.
What influenced my decisions about the learning design plan the most was meeting the needs of students. In deciding on the scope and focus of the plan, I was influenced by consideration of that the students’ greatest needs were in terms of learning design. The other consideration which influenced my decision-making was the needs of stakeholders, primarily employers in the IT industry. Their needs helped me to decide which areas of the learning outcomes, content, activities, communication methods and assessments to focus on in my plan in order to produce the best potential employees.
Knowledge impacting the plan
Key factors of the tertiary education context that impacted on the creation of the plan included my knowledge of the Otago Polytechnic strategic frameworks (Otago Polytechnic, 2013), national frameworks such as the Māori Tertiary Education Framework (Māori Tertiary Reference Group, 2003) and the Tertiary Education Strategy, and quality drivers such as the New Zealand Qualifications Framework (New Zealand Qualifications Authority, 2016).
Learner diversity and cultural factors that impacted on the creation of the plan included the use of the learner profiles I had used in the D4LS process, as well as knowledge about cultural inclusivity (McLoughlin & Oliver, 2000).
Educational trends and theories also impacted the creation of my plan. Trends that specifically impacted on my choice of learning strategy included sustainable education, the increasing use of different kinds of communication including social media and the Backward Design Model (Bowen, 2017). Theories that impacted most on my plan included experiential learning (Kolb, 2015)—particularly workplace-like experience, teamwork, problem solving and reflection—and to some extent situated cognition (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989) and social constructivism (Vygotsky. 1978).
Factors concerning sustainable learning and teaching impacted a lot on my learning design plan as this is a key educational trend. It’s also central to the Otago Polytechnic strategic framework (Otago Polytechnic, 2013). These factors include sustainable development, such as learning design that values diversity, and taking a “humanistic approach to education” (UNESCO, 2015).
Information gathered to inform the plan included resources provided in the course material on Moodle, such as some of the literature cited above, as well as feedback from colleagues gained from class discussions and feedback from other members of the BIT teaching team.