Implementing effective learning designs: an overview of an ALTC Competitive Grants Program project

Learning Design for the higher education environment is a complex task, especially in light of the increasing diversity of the student body. Learning materials need to be designed to take advantage of different student ability levels, learning approaches & media, and curriculum developed to support a huge variety of outcomes that are often discipline specific. Learning Design is a professional activity for which many of our academic staff is not trained. In the project outlined in this paper we will implement a learning activity planning tool that will provide comprehensive guidance for academics that will assist them in the development of inspiring Learning Design examples and supportive activities. The project team will initially explore the issues to emerge from the implementation of Learning Designs and identify barriers to their widespread adoption and ways of overcoming them. These findings will then underpin the implementation of a learning activity planning tool that addresses these adoption challenges in its design and streamlines the planning process. A tool will then be developed which can be used by academic staff to tailor these exemplary examples to meet the individual lecturer’s and/or course co-ordinator’s particular requirements, whilst providing them with the underlying pedagogical principals involved in the Learning Design.