Learning Design for Teaching in a Tertiary Context—Elise Allen
Assessment Task 2: Critical Reflection On The Learning Design Plan
Step 2: Reflectively analyse the learning design plan
During the alignment of course components several decisions formed the central approach to ensuring activities, content, communication and assessment were appropriately developed. The most important of these was deciding the scope of the learning design plan. Originally my decision was to scope the plan for a whole course, including all it’s components. Upon realising that this was not necessary, it became clear that a more sensible approach would be to design just one main learning strategy, and some related components. This decision was justified as the plan became much more manageable.
Lessons learnt
Key factors of the tertiary education context: in creating this plan, I learnt that there are many factors to consider regarding the tertiary education context. These include local and national plans as well as quality drivers. For example, it’s necessary to take into account the Otago Polytechnic strategic frameworks for learning and teaching, engaging Māori learners, sustainability and so on (Otago Polytechnic, 2013). On top of this, it’s important to plan within the correct level of the New Zealand Qualifications Framework (NZQA, 2016).
Learner diversity and cultural factors: McLoughlin and Oliver (2000) outline one of the key challenges in learning design when they write about how to take into account the diverse learning needs and cultural background of learners. In designing my learning plan, I learnt how important it is to explicitly design for these factors.
Educational trends and theory: the main educational theory I leant about during the creation of my plan was experiential learning (Kolb, 2015), however it was also important to form an understanding of the relationships between the various theories of learning as summarised by Hung (2001), such as behaviourism, constructivism, cognitivism and social constructivism.
Sustainable learning and teaching: as mentioned in the previous step, creating this learning design plan taught me about the importance of “taking a humanistic approach to education” (UNESCO, 2015), which means we are to be guide by “guided by environmental stewardship and by concern for peace, inclusion and social justice”. This relates to the above point about learner diversity because it includes avoiding discrimination in learning design - a challenging undertaking.