Educational theory and approaches that inform our practice
Backward design challenges “traditional” methods of curriculum planning. In traditional curriculum planning, a list of content that will be taught is created and/or selected.[4] In backward design, the educator starts with goals, creates or plans out assessments and finally makes lesson plans. Supporters of backward design liken the process to using a “road map”.[5] In this case, the destination is chosen first and then the road map is used to plan the trip to the desired destination.
This learning design process was championed by by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins in their book ‘Understanding by Design (UbD™).
For more information visit www.hbe.com.au © 2013 Hawker Brownlow Education.
At UCEM our pedagogy for online education is centred around the idea of participatory (or active) learning. Traditionally, education has taken a transmission-based learning approach where students are fed material by an expert – for example, by reading a book, or sitting in a lecture theatre and listening to a “sage on a stage”. By contrast, active learning is centred around activities. We believe that by creating meaningful, authentic activities that students find useful and engaging, we can help students to develop their skills and knowledge more deeply.
Perspectives to support active learning
Three of the major learning theories which have informed active learning in online education are constructivism, social constructivism, and cognitivism.
- Constructivism: Developed by Jean Piaget. By nature, humans interact with others and the world, with the result that they continuously build and reorganise their own knowledge in the form of mental maps/schemas. Experiences and group activities are used to promote the building of knowledge. Arguably works best in post-secondary education when learners are better able to use higher-order thinking skills.
- Social constructivism: Developed by Lev Vygotsky. As above, but with more emphasis on learning skills by observation and on group activities. Learning steers development so people can learn anything at any age/time. Individuals learn at different paces. UCEM’s Virtual Learning Environment, Moodle, is based on social constructivist pedagogy.
- Cognitivism: Learners are treated as having prior knowledge and backgrounds that can be built on. This originated in Gestalt theory, claiming the mind is active and always looking for meanings.
Educators around the world have used these pedagogies to create many different techniques and approaches to support learning and teaching. In our module design, UCEM use a number of different approaches, including:
- Enquiry-based learning
- Competency-based learning
- Problem-based learning
- Experienced-based learning
- Design-based learning
Developed by Dr Clive Young and Nataša Perović at UCL Digital Education, ISD, the ABC curriculum design method is a ninety-minute hands-on workshop for module (and programme) teams. This rapid-design method starts with your normal module documentation and will help you create a visual ‘storyboard’. A storyboard lays out the type and sequence learning activities required to meet the module’s learning outcomes and how these will be assessed. The UCL ABC method integrates the powerful concept of learning types derived from the Conversational Framework Model of Professor Diana Laurillard (UCL Institute of Education).
The Carpe Diem Design method developed by Professor Gilly Salmon, University of Leicester, is another fast and effective team-based learning design method. Salmon includes her research on scaffolding the student journey and e-tivity design within the workshop model.
We have adapted elements from both models (ABC’s storyboarding and learning types), and Salmon’s scaffolding and more detailed e-tivity design to align with UCEM’s educational framework.
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