Why does design matter? How do you design a course for students in your context? What design frameworks or pedagogical approaches should you use when designing a course? How can you account for the social, the technological and the material in your design choices?
This course will provide you with an overview of a fascinating range of design contexts and challenges. You will be supported to develop your own understanding of design and pedagogy, and to create a course design tailored for your professional context and your learners’ needs.
This course takes a design-led perspective on digitally-mediated courses in a range of settings – including formal, informal, workplace and other learning contexts. On this course, you will explore how to approach course design in a designerly, well-theorised and critical way. There will be opportunities to:
• Understand and analyse design challenges.
• Discuss and question what makes a course, and what makes it 'digital'.
• Explore your own design needs and aspirations, and those of your learners and colleagues.
Keywords: designerly thinking, pedagogy, design frameworks, curriculum design.
The course will first introduce you to the concept of 'design thinking'. What does it mean to think and work in a 'designerly' way, and how can we, as educators, make use of design thinking approaches? What does the contemporary literature on learning design have to offer, and what are its limitations?
We will then turn to exploring a range of pedagogical approaches, reflecting on our own beliefs and values as we consider the theoretical and philosophical basis of a range of approaches (e.g. constructivism, relational pedagogies, compassionate pedagogies). We will also investigate the concept of the ‘curriculum’, making explicit the values and beliefs that are implicitly built into courses and that shape learners’ understanding about the nature of society, knowledge and power.
We then consider a range of design frameworks continuing our critical analysis of their foundations and assumptions as they configure the roles of teachers, learners, technologies, activities and teaching, learning & assessment itself.
Finally, we will explore beyond the basics of design frameworks and pedagogical approaches to consider a few key issues in course design. These issues will change depending on the interests of the cohort, as you and your peers share your contexts, design challenges and preferences. Past examples include critiquing the seemingly self-evident concept of ‘constructive alignment’, exploring inclusive design approaches and thinking through issues of assessment.
“The best resource on this course is the rich and inspiring array of knowledge and experiences our students bring. It’s a genuine pleasure to see how diverse professional contexts and challenges can inspire new solutions in different settings through connection and collaboration. Bringing theory and practice together is really hard work, but it is incredibly rewarding as it helps us find new design solutions and leads to us to becoming better informed and intentional designers.”
- Clara O’Shea, Course Organiser
There are many opportunities for peer learning and supportive collaborative approaches on this course. For instance, we will use collaborative annotations and comments to work through key readings together and have text-based discussions at times that suit you. These slower-paced activities allow time and space for you to develop your ideas.
We will also use live video sessions as opportunities to discuss our pedagogical and design experiences alongside the concepts & literature to help you think through your own developing course design. Times for sessions are based on cohort preferences and will be recorded for those who cannot attend.
Formative feedback activities will help you prepare for your final assignment (the course design). This includes a non-assessed group work activity over the design framework weeks that will help you get a wider overview of the myriad of design frameworks. Other activities include a provocation to articulate your own pedagogical values and beliefs, and an opportunity to think through key elements of your course design assignment.
There are two assessments:
Reflection (20%):
You will write a short, critical reflection on your choice of design framework. When writing this reflection, you will draw on the group activity you participated in during the design frameworks weeks. The activities, resources and critiques your group developed during those weeks can be used to help you develop your critical reflection (equivalent to 1000 words).
Course design (80%):
The course design includes three elements: a) a course overview; b) a written rationale for the design approach you have taken; c) a build or part-build of the course in an online learning environment of your choice. We will provide a user playground for you in an online learning environment, though you may choose your own institutional environment or devise your own technological solution. The course you design may be something you need to do ‘for real’, or it may be an opportunity to take an experimental, blue skies approach – the only restriction is that design, rationale and built artefact cohere and make sense as a pedagogical environment. It should not be a course design that you have already completed, though a re-design is permissible (equivalent to 3000 words).
These assessments are intended to evaluate your understanding of pedagogies, design frameworks and designerly approaches to course design. It is an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you can transform theoretical knowledge into a practical, coherent, and pedagogically sound course design that accounts for the specifics of your professional context.
In this course, you will articulate your own values and beliefs about course design, develop expertise in the pedagogies and design frameworks most relevant for your professional context and ambitions, and be able to craft a course design that is well-theorised, designerly and has a nuanced understanding of the course context.
On completion of the course, you will be able to:
- Understand and apply a range of approaches to the design of online and offline courses
- Critically evaluate these approaches via an understanding of their philosophical and theoretical bases
- Select and design media, learning activities and assessment tasks appropriate to each approach
- Design and build course components appropriate to your own institutional and educational context
Readings:
· Bower, M. and Vlachopoulos, P., 2018. A critical analysis of technology‐enhanced learning design frameworks. British Journal of Educational Technology, 49(6), pp.981-997.
· Fawns, T., 2022. An entangled pedagogy: Looking beyond the pedagogy—technology dichotomy. Postdigital Science and Education, 4(3), pp.711-728.
· Loughlin, C., Lygo-Baker, S. and Lindberg-Sand, Å., 2021. Reclaiming constructive alignment. European Journal of Higher Education, 11(2), pp.119-136.
Course Organiser favourite reading:
· Heylighen, A. and Herssens, J., 2014. Designerly ways of not knowing: What designers can learn about space from people who are blind. Journal of Urban Design, 19(3), pp.317-332.
Videos (from 2024 instance where we focused on inclusion)
· Holmes, K. (2018). Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design. GeekWire. (20:31 minutes)
· Collier, A. 2020. From curb cuts to Discotechs: How inclusive design and design justice can shape our classes and communities. Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology (COLTT), 5 August 2020. [Accessed 23 February 2025] (54:56 minutes - start at 4:24 minutes)