tips and tricks for awesome learning design
Designing for autistic learners
Neurodiversity may be every bit as crucial for the human race as biodiversity is for life in general. Who can say what form of wiring will prove best at any given moment? Cybernetics and computer...
Why ‘little and often’ delivers flexible learning
At some point in our lives, most of us will have had to write an essay. And many of us will have left that essay until the last minute. This situation is the product of poor learning design. It's...
Tackling procrastination with learning design
Piers Steel is an expert in procrastination at the University of Calgary. In an interview on the BBC's One to One programme, Steel comments that by tracing our social media activity,...
Design learning for accountability
Learning anything is an effort. As learning designers, we have to convince learners that it's worth them making the effort to learn. One way of doing this is to design activities that require...
Are you building a creepy treehouse for your learners?
So what is a 'creepy treehouse' in learning design, and how do you know if you've built one? When Jeremy Hunsinger talked with Ding on our podcast, he used the phrase 'creepy treehouse' to describe...
Cognitive constructivism
In a previous post, we proposed that learning theories are key tools in every learning designer's toolbox. There are many different theories that attempt to explain how learning happens, and no...
Use learners’ prior knowledge to guide learning design
Everybody knows something. In fact, we all know a great deal - even by the time we’re about three years old. Yet a common problem in learning design is assuming that learners have no ‘prior...
Learning theories are design tools
Learning theories are tools. A surgeon has tools, a builder has tools. And theories are some of the most powerful tools a learning designer can use to build learning experiences. Different learning...
Why empathy is the ultimate tool in learning design
Empathy is a strength Empathy often makes people roll their eyes. They think it's all about being warm and fluffy. Not so. In learning design, and in teaching, empathy is about strength. It's like...
Should educators have exceptional digital literacies?
To what extent is it an educator's responsibility to be not just technologically literate, but exceptional? This question formed the basis of our first weekly Soap Box debate in the Creative...
How to do speed networking on Zoom
Why is speed networking on Zoom useful? One of the biggest things we've lost through the move to online working is the ability to socialise. This is not good for two reasons: a great deal of...
Explain your course design to your learners
Why should you take the time to explain your course design? Well, helping your learners understand why they are learning in a certain way can be a powerful tool for overcoming resistance to...
Video lectures: how long should they be?
How long should video lectures be? Shorter than six minutes, according to the largest ever study of engagement with online videos. So why is it that tutors continue to produce long video lectures?...
Why HEIs should be focusing on employee experience
The loss of the familiar My colleague Phil recently wrote about how many tutors in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are dealing with a form of bereavement. The shift to online teaching during...
Why a solutionist approach doesn’t work for online learning
Learning happens everywhere, and online learning is no different. So why do so many universities only permit tutors to use the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)? Prior to the Covid pandemic,...
Why you should challenge your students’ expectations of their performance
"The biggest effects on student learning occur when teachers become learners of their own teaching, and when students become their own teachers." (Hattie, 2009: 22) Sometimes you discover a piece of...
Great online learning isn’t about technology
A lot of people think that awesome online learning is all about using the latest whizzy technology. It isn’t. If someone talks at you for 30 minutes, you switch off - whether you’re online or...
Create the conditions for invention
"The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge." Seymour Papert High quality learning is active - in other words, it involves the learner...
