Learning Designer

Learning Design Field

The learning design field involves helping educators to design, describe lessons and share fantastic teaching ideas. It constitutes the descriptive frameworks such as the learning Development cycle, 7c's and Learning Design conceptual map. These are a few frameworks that support the design activities process, however, these frameworks involve little guidance on how to design lessons. 

Learning Designer is a tool that  enables educators  to not only design lessons but goes beyond the realm of design and allows teachers to collaborate with other colleagues and share their designs. 

Affordances

I exported images of my example science on Earth and rocks from Learning Designer. When you begin creating, you can click on collaborate and invite fellow colleagues to view your lesson and use your materials. If your school uses Moodle, this resource allows you to export and post your lesson design for other colleagues to see. 

This tool also enables users to import, copy and paste past lessons from their browser. Furthermore, it allows users to allocate approximate time for the activity and link resources that you will be using in your lesson. The resources you use, are also available for other teachers' to view and access (Bower, 2017) pp. 65-92. 

Learning Design Tool for Science 

Using the Learning Design tool and TPACK model I created a blended lesson that takes the social constructivist approach. I integrated a Web 2.0 technology that provides history on notorious natural disaster events, and includes a game that allows students to match the correct tectonic movement for the cause of the natural disaster (Guzey & Roehrig, 2009). 

I provided a detailed description of the lesson, that included how students will investigate, collaborate and produce their findings to their peers. I also outlined the strategies and activities that I will be incorporating into the lesson, such as blended learning, jigsaw and collaborative learning (Mengduo & Xiaoling, 2010; Dhull & Verma, 2019). I added the aim and the key outcomes of the lesson. which involved the description below.

The next part of designing involved breaking down the activities in a sequential way, and provided a clear description of the activity, included links to the resources I added to the activity and a desginated time frame. 

For the last part of the design, I exported the lesson to Microsoft Word and the tool does this for your automatically. You can use word, ldj file and Moodle (if your school provides it) to share your material. The pie graph below visually shows the user the amount of time that is being invested in each activity and skill. 

References: 

1. Bower, M. (2017). Design of Web 2.0 enhanced learning. In M. Bower, Design of technology-enhanced learning : integrating research and practice (First ed., pp. 159–218). Emerald Publishing. 

2. Bower, M. (2017). Technology affordances and multimedia learning effects. In M. Bower, Design of technology-enhanced learning : integrating research and practice (First ed., pp. 65–92). Emerald Publishing. 

3. Guzey, S. S., & Roehrig, G. H. (2009). Teaching science with technology: case studies of science teachers' development of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK). Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 25-45. 

4. Mengduo, Q., & Xiaoling, J. (2010). Jigsaw Strategy as a Cooperative Learning Technique: Focusing on the Language Learners. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics (Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press), 33(4). 

5. Dhull, P., & Verma, G. (2019). Jigsaw teaching technique for teaching science. International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews (IJRAR), 6(2), 809-15.