Developing effective learning designs: a project overview

Learning design for the higher education environment is a complex task, especially in light of the increasing diversity of the student body. Learning design is a professional activity for which many of our university’s academic staff is not trained. In this project the authors will implement a learning activity planning tool that will provide comprehensive guidance for university lecturers that will assist them in the development of inspiring learning design examples and supportive activities. They team will initially explore the issues to emerge from the implementation of learning designs and identify barriers to their widespread adoption that addresses these adoption challenges in its design and streamlines the planning process. It is then envisaged this tool will be used by lecturers to tailor exemplary lesson designs to meet the individual’s and/or course co-ordinator’s particular requirements, whilst providing them with the underlying pedagogical principles involved in the learning design.