The Larnaca Declaration on Learning Design –

Implications for the Future

James DalzielProfessor of Learning Technology &

Director, Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE)

Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

james@melcoe.mq.edu.au

www.melcoe.mq.edu.au

Keynote presentation for ICEM 2013 & 8th International LAMS & Learning Design Conference, October 3rd, 2013

Overview

• **Part 1: Background

• **Part 1: The Larnaca Declaration on Learning Design– Framework / Representation

– Conceptual Map

– Practice

• Part 2: Challenges for the Future

Background: ALTC/OLT Fellowship

• “Success Factors for adopting Learning Design”– From July 2011 to Dec 2012

• Expert group meetings and discussions– Pedagogic Planner meetings in Europe 2007-2010

– Fellowship meetings: Oxford Oct 2011 & Sydney Dec 2011

– Larnaca meeting in Sep 2012 & Nov Sydney followup – basis for Larnaca Declaration write up

– Recent followup meeting in Bintan – working towards edited book for 2014; Larnaca as opening chapter

Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The views in this project do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching.

The problem that led to Larnaca Declaration

• Years of meetings with experts to discuss core ideas of Learning Design – interesting but no sense of breakthrough

• December 2011 meeting discussion of “agreed common ground”, yet not documented - want to avoid restating same foundational ideas each time we meet

• Discussion in Larnaca led to some key new ideas for foundations for the field of Learning Design

• Released as “Larnaca Declaration” (Dec 2012)

• Recent edits to improve document arising from Bintan meeting (Sep 2013) to be released later in 2013

Timeline of developments in the field of Learning Design

“Pedagogically neutral” ?

• Learning Design is not like other pedagogical theories, as it does not propose a theory of how students learn, and therefore how teachers should teach– This is what makes Learning Design distinctive

• Rather, it seeks to develop a “pedagogical meta-model” for describing examples of teaching and learning based on many different pedagogical theories– “Arrangement” of teachers and learners in a sequence of

activities

• Learning Design as “pedagogically neutral”– (or… aspires to be….)

First page of the manuscript of Bach's lute suite in G Minor. Wikipedia.org

Date of manuscript unknown. Held in Florence, Italy. Photo by Asiir 17:00, 13 February 2007, Wikipedia.org

Learning Design Representation

• Learning Design is yet to develop an agreed representation/notation like music, but we have early “pointers” to what it might be

• See Larnaca for more details – 3 examples here– LAMS (Role Play example)

– AUTC Flow diagram (Predict Observe Explain example)

– Pattern example (Jigsaw example)

• NB: Terminology– Learning Design = the field of study

– a learning design = a specific instance

– teaching strategy = a design based on a pedagogical approach

LAMS representation (example of Role Play Sequence)

AUTC representation (example of Predict Observe Explain)

Pattern representation (example of jigsaw)

Learning Design Core Concepts

Three parts:

1.Representation – formal description of the flow of teaching and learning activities

…but also…

2.Sharing – sharing of learning designs to be viewed, re-used, adapted, shared back

3.Guidance – accompanying information about the background and rationale for the learning design

Learning Design Conceptual Map

• In Larnaca we realised that we needed a much wider “map” of the educational landscape beyond just the “notation” idea

• We re-used the “metamodel” idea to try to build a broad map that could be used to analyse many different approaches to education– Help to draw attention to what aspects are prominent (and less

so) across the broader landscape for a given theory, and where the same component of the map is interpreted differently

Learning Environment: Characteristics & Values

External Agencies InstitutionEducator Learner

All pedagogical approachesAll disciplines

Educational Philosophy

A range based on assumptions about the Learning Environment

Theories & Methodologies

Guidance Representation Sharing

Core Concepts of Learning Design

Tools Resources

Implementation

Program

Module

Session

Learning Activities

Level of Granularity

Teaching Cycle

Feedback Assessment Learner Analytics Evaluation

Learner Responses

Creating learning experiences aligned to particular pedagogical approaches and learning objectives

Challenge

New Foundations for Learning Design

• Why develop a “neutral” framework/notation for educational activities?

• Why develop a “neutral” map for the broader landscape of education?

• To help educators identify, share and adapt effective teaching and learning activities– What matters for music is using the notation system to convey

beautiful music, not the notation system itself• …and there are different styles of beautiful music (Baroque,

Classical. Modern)

– So any Learning Design framework/notation, and the wider conceptual map, is to foster greater sharing of effective teaching and learning activities – “Learning Design Practice”

New Foundations for Learning Design

• Many educators already use the phrase “Learning Design” to mean something like “how I design activities to help my students to learn”

• Effective doesn’t mean only collaborative or constructivist learning approaches – sometimes “drill and practice” is the most effective method

• The key issue is how educators use the most effective methods to suit their context and subject matter– More sharing of effective teaching ideas gives educators a

wider range of options to foster effective learning

Learning DesignLearning Design

Learning Design Practice(LD-P)

Learning Design

Conceptual Map

(LD-CM)

Learning Design

Framework(LD-F)

The Larnaca Declaration on Learning Design:New Definitions for the future of the field