seminar
Teaching as a design science: Challenging the pedagogy in learning technologies
Pedagogic innovation is increasingly important as we try to respond to an economic, social, cultural, and technological environment that changes almost too quickly for our education systems to keep pace. Teachers have to negotiate responsive curricula that will not date by the time their students have graduated, and have to teach in a way that enables more students to attain a higher level than historically has been necessary.
To achieve this professional miracle we will need to change the nature of our professional activity, and will need technology to assist us. First, we have to recognise that teaching is a ‘design science', that uses what we know about teaching and learning, and takes an iterative approach to discovering how to make it optimally effective. Second, we have to exploit to the full the capabilities of digital technology if we are to achieve this difficult task of producing larger scale and higher quality learning.
In this presentation I will look at ways of characterising pedagogy as it is represented in learning technologies of different types. Some of these are discussed in my recent book*, so I will look at some interactive learning designs using some of these categories to differentiate the types of pedagogy they support, and to critique those that under-exploit the capabilities of the technology.
* See Diana Laurillard (2012). Teaching as a Design Science: Building Pedagogical Patterns for Learning and Technology, Routledge, New York.
<p>Diana Laurillard is Professor of Learning with Digital Technologies at the London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, leading externally-funded research projects on developing a learning design support environment for teachers and trainers, and on developing software interventions for adult learners with low numeracy and dyscalculia. She is also Assistant Director for Open Mode learning, and was previously Head of the e-Learning Strategy Unit at the Department for Education and Skills, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for learning technologies and teaching at The Open University. She is on the Boards of the e-Learning Foundation, Supervisory Council for Fern Universität in Germany, and the UNESCO Institute for IT in Education.</p>