Join Our Upcoming Discussions on How Learning Works!

The Office of Teaching and Learning in collaboration with Learning and Information Technology Services is offering a monthly professional development series on

How Learning Works

  

Through this series participants will complete common readings and engage in webinar discussions to connect key learning principles with effective teaching practices and useful learning technologies. The common reading is a book entitled How Learning Works 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching by Ambrose, Bridges, Lovett, DiPietro, and Norman (availabledigitally through the library).

The perspective provided and associated discussions will help us consider learning as a trajectory of increasingly sophisticated performances – and how that might look within specific instructional domains. It will also prompt us to consider significant ways in which learners vary in their learning progress and the types of interventions we might use to facilitate their progress. Each chapter focuses on a principle of learning illustrated by higher education scenarios, explains the research base behind the principle, and provides several evidence-based strategies for teaching in ways that are consistent with the learning principle. Participants can drop in to the monthly chapter discussions, share related experiences, and examine new learning technologies that can apply.  The book group/webinar will also be supported by a D2L course where participants can continue posting online and share resources.

Schedule of Upcoming Events

Chapter 3: Students’ motivation determines, directs, and sustains what they do to learn.	November 15, 2016 12am to 1pm
Chapter 4: For mastery, students must acquire component skills practice integrating them, and know when to apply what they have learned.	December 20. 2016 12am to 1pm
Chapter 5: Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback enhances the quality of students’ learning.	January 17, 2016 12am to 1pm
Chapter 6: Students’ current level of development interacts with the social, emotional, and intellectual climate of the course to impact learning.	February 21, 2016 12am to 1pm
Chapter 7: To become self-directed learners, students must learn to monitor and adjust their approaches to learning.	March 21, 2016 12am to 1pm

RSVP for specific sessions to: learning@nl.edu

Questions: Contact Diane Salmon dsalmon@nl.edu or Anthony Boen aboen@nl.edu

We look forward to your participation!

Action Mapping, What Is It?

Cathy Moore is the original author and owner of this concept.  She explores the complexity of instructional problems and presents a holistic approach to designing instructional goals and activities for learning.  Although her presentation uses the language and ID methodology for business, you will easily understand her intuitive design concepts for getting to the root of the learning problem. 

Action Mapping Explained

To get a full perspective on Action Mapping Ms. Moore has provided a wonderful resource on her web site at http://blog.cathy-moore.com/2008/05/be-an-elearning-action-hero/ you can also view a short video clip where Cathy distills the process down to a more concise description here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azr2OFw6Woo .

Action Mapping is one way to brainstorm the activities and content that you want to include in your training without a lot of development expense. In terms of Instructional Design, this is typically a process for creating a design document.

 

The Traditional Course Design Process

Traditional course design is a process whereby an instructional analyst and or designer analyze an instruction problem then provides a proposed solution.

This solution is called a design document; a road map describing an instructional problem, and the proposed solution(s) recommended by an Instructional Designer.

Design documents typically include the following:

1. The integration and alignment of business and training goals to the actual instructional design solution
2. An analysis and measurement of internal vs. external resources
3. An in-depth timeline mapped to the resources and budget analysis
4. The design, development and implementation process
5. Recommendations for updates and evaluations

 

Is Action Mapping an Option?

Action mapping is action driven; which means it does not rely solely on measurable success based on a learner’s ability to successfully pass a test or participate in a discussion. Action Mapping also includes uses the following processes:

1. Identify the Business Goal. In our case, this is the UCO which defines the administrative learning goals for the course. We convert the UCO into course level instructional goals.
2. Identify what students need to DO, to achieve these instructional goals. These become those measurable tasks; activities, discussions and assignments, etc. in an online course.
3. Design the tasks around the learning.
4. Identify the information and resources learners need to complete the task

How it works for NLU

In OIT, our course design and development strategy uses a combination of both of these processes to assist faculty in the planning, design and development of their online courses and programs. Each opportunity provides us with a unique solution based on sound instructional design principles and practices.

Ms. Moore’s approach for analyzing an instructional problem and defining a learning strategy is called Action Mapping. As an instructional analyst, my job is to investigate and explore various methods of instructional design and development practice – the concept of Action Mapping is intriguing and when integrated with traditional instruction design practices, it provides a truly comprehensive and effective process for designing learning.

Five Media Forms

[From Clive on E-Learning] Last week I posted on Exploring e-learning in all its forms, which Mark Bethelemy elaborated on in his post From formal courses to social learning. Mark referenced a number of alternative models which somehow led me to Diana Laurillard’s conversational framework. I was particularly taken by Diana’s five media forms: Narrative media: explain, demonstrate, describe Interactive media: facilitate reflection, check understanding, encourage exploration, provide feedback Communicative media: allow exchanges between learners and between learners and tutors Adaptive media: facilitate experimentation and practice Productive media: allow learners to articulate, express, demonstrate understanding I was interested to see what light these categorisations would shed on my understanding of the wide range of learning technologies currently at our disposal. The following table is my attempt at allocating technologies to each of the five categories. I added a column to explain whether e-content would be an input to the activities involved or an output. Media form Example learning technologies The role of content Narrative media Online articles and papers, slide shows, podcasts, online videos, software demos Content is the input Interactive media Scenarios, quizzes, games, e-tutorials Content is the input Communicative media Forums, virtual classrooms, email Content is an output Adaptive media Simulations, intelligent tutorials Content is the input Productive media Wikis, blogs, text and media editors Content is an output