teachers as learning designers: using design thinking to innovate and enhance learning experience

TEACHERS AS LEARNING DESIGNERS

using design thinking to innovate and enhance student experience

Rikke Toft NoergaardAssociate Professor,

PhDCentre for Teaching

Development and Digital Media,

Aarhus University

[email protected] @RikkeToftN

TEACHERS AS LEARNING DESIGNERS

1. WHY: THE WORLD WE TEACH INThe changing mandate of the university in society

1. HOW: RECONFIGURING TEACHING PRACTICE TO FIT THE WORLDDesign thinking & learning design as teacher’s response

1. WHAT: TEACHING AS INTENTIONAL FUTURE-MAKINGValue-based vision-driven educational design thinking as teacher’s intentional design practice

1. ROUND-UP & RESOURCES2

THE WORLD WE TEACH IN: THE CHANGING MANDATE OF THE UNIVERSITY

On the future of teaching: From knowledge transmission to complex community building

3

1WHY

The Mode 1 university (left in the past)intrinsic academic value & ‘ivory tower for educated life’

▰Teachers’ embody the ivory tower and shapes students thinking by telling them what they need to know: Knowledge is stable, controlled and transmissible = self-sustained ecosystem with intrinsic value

▰The university is in control of education and decides what it takes to be educated

▰ Institution as a shrine for universal knowledge - courses are fixed - classrooms closed - knowledge is not up for discussion

4

The Mode 2 university (living the present)utilitaristic value & ‘factory for the future workforce’

▰Teachers’ embody the factory and produce students as future workforce. Knowledge is unstable, uncontrolled but transmissible = conveyer belt producing demanded skills

▰The society is in control of education and decides what it takes to be educated

▰ Institution as a producer of utilitaristic value - courses are fixed - classrooms open -knowledge is not up for discussion

5

The Mode 3 university (looking to the future)societal value & ‘community centre for academic citizenship’

▰Teachers’ embody the community centre and collaborate and communicate with students and society about the production of academic citizens. Knowledge is dialogic, exploratory and transformational = teaches, students & society co-create societal value and knowledge.

▰Education emerges as critical-creative partnerships between institutions, companies, organisations, , the public, government

▰ Institution as creative collaborator & critical co-creator of societal value - courses are open -classrooms are open - knowledge is up for discussion

6

TODAYEducation faces many challenges in the changing modern world. Learners are changing in their

approaches to education – they use digital technologies, they multi-task, they collaborate and they are

becoming less patient with teacher- centric styles of education.

Educators face many changes – such as expectations of adopting innovative teaching approaches,

alignment of teaching to external standards, growing requirements for professional development and

difficulties in balancing a complex range of demands from different stakeholders.

Educational institutions also face many changes, such as the rise of the knowledge economy and the

need for different kinds of graduates, a shift from knowledge scarcity to abundance, and the impact of

technology – especially the internet via open sharing of educational resources and massive open online

courses (MOOCs).

The Larnaca declaration on Learning Design, 2012

TEACHERS ARE ALREADY PRODUCING DESIGNSTHEY ARE JUST NOT LEARNING DESIGNERS

▰ Teachers have always been design practitioners & producers of designs in their teaching BUT teachers are not necessarily reflective design thinkers or intentional producers of learning designs

▰ To become learning designers ‘transmission teachers’ need to stop taking teaching too seriously & start taking teaching seriously (Continued dynamic iterative development)

▰ For teachers to become learning designers institutions need to establish critical-creative, exploratory & experimenting collectives that embody and invite for open courses/classrooms/knowledge (leadership-staff & staff-student partnerships)

8

RECONFIGURING TEACHING PRACTICE TO FIT THE FUTURE

Design thinking & learning designas a teacher response to mode 3

9

2 HOW

“LEARNING DESIGN REFERS TO 1) the process of designing the learning activity, 2) the sequencing of the learning activity into patterns, 3) the final learning activity as a product

Value-based vision-driven learning design focuses on creating explicit & intentional relations between educational values & visions, pedagogical principles & patterns, learner interactions & experienceswithin a course/activity to reconfigure teaching for better learning experiences

1010

“Adopting a designer mindset means using empathy and observation to understand where the learners are, and creating the things that will help them get to where you want them to be (Mor, Craft & Maina, 2015)

1111

Learning design is “the creative and deliberate act of devising new practices, plans of activity, resources and tools aimed at achieving particular educational aims in a given context” (Mor & Craft, 2012)

To become a learning designer is a process of learning to reflect & intentionally act on experiences in HE (Kolb)

VALUE-BASED VISION-DRIVEN LEARNING DESIGN IS:

▰ Ethically driven & human-centered: value-based to create worthwhile learning experiences

▰ A process by which teachers aim to achieve educational visions in their teaching

▰ Future-making: responding to the changing mandate & iteratively designing its way forward towards better teaching & learning at the mode 3 university

▰ Shifting teacher focus from content/transmission to process/activity (from noun to verb)

▰ A reflective inquiry informed by theory & a creative practice (learning by designing & reflecting)

▰ Focusing on creating inter-relations between educational value & vision, pedagogical principles & patterns, learner interaction & experience of a course/activity

12

MASTERING THE LAYERED ‘INQUIRY FOR ACTION’ OF EDUCATIONAL DESIGN THINKING

▰ Pedagogical principles & virtues => learner experience (Why)

▰ Pedagogical approach => learner interaction form (How)

▰ Pedagogical patterns => learning process (How)

▰ Pedagogical activities => learner tasks (What)

▰ Pedagogical materials => learning environment (What)

...The ‘why’ should always inform the ‘how’

...The ‘how should always inform the ‘what’

...The ‘what’ should always inform the ‘why’

...And the ‘who’ should always take the center stage13

LEARNING DESIGN REVOLVES AROUND QUESTIONSIN ORDER TO MOVE FROM THE WHY TO THE WHAT

14

HOW?PEDAGOGY

What pedagogical approach do you want

to emphasise?

HOW?LEARNING ACTIVITIES

& PATTERNSHow do your design

teach and what do the learner do?

WHY?LEARNING

EXPERIENCEWhat do you want the

students to experience?WHY?

PROBLEM & VISIONWhat specific problem

do you want to address?

VALUE-BASED VISION-DRIVEN LEARNING DESIGNMoving from the why to the what

15

Conceptualise vision

HOW?Pedagogical

structure

WHAT?Look & feel of

design

Identify domain Map valuesWHY?

Learners’ experience

Put together design patterns

Pedagogical approach

Hand, head and heart of student

Learning design to be validated &

evaluated

Content & actions

Technologies & materials

TEACHING AS INTENTIONAL FUTURE-MAKINGThe example of ‘GO:IT’: reconfiguring teaching practice through answering design questions 16

3 WHATHOW?

Pedagogical structure

WHAT?Look & feel of

design

WHY?Learners’

experience

THE LEARNING DESIGN PROCESSMoving from the why to the what

17


HOW?Pedagogical

structure

WHAT?Look & feel of

design






=> New learning activity to be

validated

Content & actions


1. Identify existing activity in domain

Name curriculum, course, activity

Identify wicked problem: technological, material, experiential, interactional, contextual...

2. Map values

Envision desired future experience of and action in the domain

Map core desired values of the vision

3. Conceptualise vision in a sentence

Imagine change in interaction or experience that make vision come true

Integrate interaction & values in a vision-statement that capture desired change

18

Check for relationship between future vision and present problem

1. WHY? The learners’ experience(mapping future vision to present problem)

THE GO:IT DESIGN EMERGING FROM QUESTIONS OF: Why => How => What

19



&

Identify wicked problem: technological, material, experiential, interactional, contextual

2. Map values


&


3. Conceptualise vision


&


20





Identify wicked problem: technological, material, experiential, interactional, contextual...

2. Map values



3. Conceptualise vision in a sentence



21




22

WHY?LEARNING






23


HOW?Pedagogical

structure

WHAT?Look & feel of

design







validated

Content & actions


2. HOW? Pedagogical structure (mapping present problem to future pedagogy)

4. Hand, head & heart of student

Create the hand, head and heart of students by answering what is most important that the student experience?

Draw/describe hand, head & heart of student

5. Pedagogical approach

Select core form of engagement in the course /activity that invites for the wanted learner experience

Check that the general pedagogical approach correspond to vision & form head, hand and heart

6. Design patterns

Divide the course / activity into patterns that work together to teach the learner what to do, think and feel?

Construct sequence of events (design patterns) that make the vision materialize?

24

Check for relationship between future vision & pedagogy/patterns








6. Design patterns



25









6. Design patterns



26



27

HOW?PEDAGOGY

What pedagogical approach do you want

to emphasise?




WHY?LEARNING






28


HOW?Pedagogical

structure

WHAT?Look & feel of

design







validated

Content & actions


WHAT? Look & feel of design(mapping pedagogy to tools & tasks)

7. Technologies & materials

Decide the technologies and materials that can fulfill the pedagogical approach & patterns

Identify the tools that shape the hand, head and heart & realise the vision

8. Content & actions

List the content of the course / activity that should be taught and learned

Identify the learner’s tasks and actions in the course / activity that make learning happen in alignment with vision, values and pedagogy

9. Validation & evaluation

Describe how you will validate that the design fulfill the values/vision and achieve the formation of hand, head and heart

Decide how to evaluate the learner experience

29

Check for relationship between Vision, actions & validation











30












31



32

HOW?PEDAGOGY

What pedagogical approach do you want to

emphasise?




WHY?LEARNING EXPERIENCE

What do you want the students to experience?WHY?



HOW?Pedagogical

structure

WHAT?Look & feel of

design

WHY?Learners’

experience

ROUND-UP & RESOURCES

33

4 Rikke Toft NoergaardAssociate Professor,

PhDCentre for Teaching

Development and Digital Media,

Aarhus University

[email protected] @RikkeToftN

ROUND-UP & RESOURCES

Resources for the WHYValues: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_85.htm

34

Resources for the HOWPedagogy:Connected curriculum: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/a-connected-curriculum-for-higher-educationInnovating pedagogy 2016: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/innovating/

Resources for the WHATTechnologies & materialsMake space: https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/make-space-excerptsTrend report 2016: How tehnological trends enable customized education: https://www.surf.nl/binaries/content/assets/surf/en/knowledgebase/2016/trend-report-2016.pdf

HOW?Pedagogical

structure

WHAT?Look & feel of

design

WHY?Learners’

experience

Visions: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_90.htm

Patterns: Design method toolkit: http://medialabamsterdam.com/toolkit/Art & science of learning design: https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/2398-the-art-and-science-of_learning-design.pdf

Content & action: Practical design patterns for teaching & learning with technology: https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/1937-practical-design-patterns-for-teaching-and-learning-with-technology.pdfTechnology enhanced learning - design patterns and pattern languages: https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/technology-enhanced-learning-1/technology-enhanced-learning/

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_85.htm

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/a-connected-curriculum-for-higher-education

http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/innovating/

https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/make-space-excerpts

https://www.surf.nl/binaries/content/assets/surf/en/knowledgebase/2016/trend-report-2016.pdf

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_90.htm

http://medialabamsterdam.com/toolkit/

https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/2398-the-art-and-science-of_learning-design.pdf

https://www.sensepublishers.com/media/1937-practical-design-patterns-for-teaching-and-learning-with-technology.pdf

https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/technology-enhanced-learning-1/technology-enhanced-learning/