Steven Warburton

Practical Design Patterns for Teaching and Learning with Technology

These are challenging times in which to be an educator. The constant flow of innovation offers new opportunities to support learners in an environment of ever-shifting demands. Educators work as they have always done: making the most of the resources at hand, and dealing with constraints, to provide experiences which foster growth. This was John Dewey’s ideal of education 80 years ago and it is still relevant today. This view sees education as a practice that achieves its goals through creative processes involving both craft and design. Craft is visible in the resources that educators produce and in their interactions with learners. Design, though, is tacit, and educators are often unaware of their own design practices. The rapid pace of change is shifting the balance from craft to design, requiring that educators’ design work become visible, shareable and malleable. The participatory patterns workshop is a method for doing this through engaging practitioners in collaborative reflection leading to the production of structured representations of design knowledge. The editors have led many such workshops and this book is a record of that endeavour and its outcomes in the form of practical design narratives, patterns and scenarios that can be used to address challenges in teaching and learning with technology.In order to reduce guessing in multiple choice question tests and to reduce effort in test construction construct the test so that the ratio of correct answers is comparatively high (e.g. 50%) and distribute correct answers unevenly (that is a question may have zero, one, or more than one correct answer options).

Assessment-driven course design foundational patterns

Assessment is one of the most important areas in education yet many university teachers are not trained in assessment strategies and the underlying principles. Assessment should be fair and relevant for the targeted learning outcomes. While these are honorable goals, the principles do not state how to achieve them. This is where patterns come to the rescue as they capture tested ways to ensure constructive alignment, a learning outcome oriented course design, and a clearly stated and communicated list of assessment criteria. The patterns presented in this paper have been mined by a group of practicing educators during the first EduPLoP. They are foundational assessment patterns and can be considered as entry point for more specific patterns on different assessment types.

A set of patterns for the structured design of MOOCs

A design pattern approach, in the form of participatory pattern workshops, has been used to explore the design approaches that experts in the field of online learning have used to develop and deliver Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Over the course of 3 intensive workshops a total of 20 design patterns were developed from shared narratives of successful practice. These patterns describe solutions to problems that are contextualised to six design dimensions: structure; orientation; participation; learning; community and management. The validity of these patterns has been tested against novel design challenges. In this paper, we present the 20 design patterns as a scaffold for both novice and expert developers to build a MOOC and suggest that integrating design patterns into a simple iterative design cycle can provide a powerful course development approach.

Double Loop Design

A critical role for Learning Design is to improve education, but we need to first ask ourselves: what is the role of education? Dewey (1938/2007) argues that it is to provide experiences that promote growth. Not just in the course of the experience itself, but in setting up the conditions for further growth through future experiences.

Mapping the development of a new MA programme in higher education: comparing privately held perceptions of a public endeavour

Abstract After spending a year working on the development of a new online Master’s programme in higher education, members of the development team were interviewed to reveal their thoughts about the nature of the programme. The dialogue of each interview was summarised as a concept map. Analysis of the resulting maps included a modified Bernsteinian analysis of the focus of the concepts included in terms of their semantic gravity (i.e. closeness to context) and the degree of resonance with the underpinning regulative discourse of the programme. Data highlight a number of potential issues for programme delivery that centre around the use of appropriate language to manage student expectations in relation to the process of learning and the emotional responses this can stimulate, as well as the tensions that can be foregrounded between the demands of teaching and research within a university environment.

MOOC Design Workshop: Educational Innovation with Empathy and Intent

For the last two years we have been running a series of successful MOOC design workshops. These workshops build on previous work in learning design and MOOC design patterns. The aim of these workshops is to aid practitioners in defining and conceptualising educational innovations (predominantly, but not exclusively MOOCs) which are based on an empathic user-centered view of the target learners and teachers. In this paper, we share the main principles, patterns and resources of our workshops and present some initial results for their effectiveness.

Dialogical assessment patterns for learning from others

Assessment, be it formative, summative or diagnostic, is at the heart of all educational endeavour yet university teachers are not always trained in assessment strategies and their underlying principles. Assessment should be fair and relevant for the targeted learning outcomes and engage the learner in a process of reflection that develops increased self-awareness. Patterns as descriptions of tested methods of action can help in reaching these goals by scaffolding educators in the process of learning design. The five patterns presented in this paper have been mined by a group of practicing educators at the first EduPLoP workshop held in March 2015 and build upon two earlier patterns sets.

Sharing is Caring

Hybrid education aims at dissolving the dichotomies within education such as physical-digital, academic-nonacademic, online-offline, formal-informal, learning-teaching and individual-collective. It takes a more holistic view and take the diversity of students and teachers into account. In this paper we will focus on mixing the digital and non-digital world, digital and non-digital artefacts, in order to make sharing resources simpler and more open. This addresses educational values such as self-expression (as contribution becomes both simpler and more diverse), openness, flow of activities (avoiding any seams between media), and inclusion (allowing everyone to participate). This paper introduces five patterns of hybrid pedagogy which enable sharing between learners and educators.

Student's choice of assessment

Assessment, be it formative, summative or diagnostic, is at the heart of all educational endeavour yet many university teachers are not trained in assessment strategies and the underlying principles. Assessment should be fair and relevant for the targeted learning outcomes and engage the learner in a process of reflection that develops increased self-awareness. Patterns as descriptions of tested ways of action can help (university) teachers in achieving these goals, as teachers are not always trained in these specific aspects of education. In this paper we will present six patterns that take the diversity of students into account by offering choice and variety of assessment. The six patterns presented in this paper have been mined by a group of practicing educators during the first EduPLoP workshop held in March 2015 and build upon three earlier pattern sets.

Social Media and Learner Interaction in Social Spaces - Overview

This section of the book elaborates a series of design patterns that explore the domain of social media and learner interaction in social spaces, with the aim of maximising the benefits that stem from deploying both these elements in collaborative educational settings.