Designing Interesting Learning Environments When the Medium isn't enough

Abstract

Educators broadly agree that interest plays an important role in learning. In our work, we develop learning environments that align learner interest and important adult-defined learning objectives. Through this work we have come to recognise the complexity of the enterprise of this kind of learning environment design.1 At this stage, we have a relatively stable design model in the passion curriculum design approach.2 Missing, however, is a basis for analysing the interests and engagement of individual learners as they interact with a learning environment over time. This paper describes the theoretical and design frameworks we use, and recounts our most recent curriculum implementation, Multimedia Studio, and how it exposed this critical gap in the design model. We found that designing for learner interest is an even more complex undertaking than we originally understood. The lessons learned demonstrate the challenges of interest-centred approaches to curriculum design and can inform the work of other learning environment designers and researchers working in similar contexts.

Programming in context

“…The learners expected to easily be able to transfer the examples shown in the course to their daily working lives, and accepted that it was their own responsibility to do so. This is in line with the arguments made by Joseph and Nacu (2003) that the learners need the instruction to be aligned with their work.…”

“…One example is Joseph and Nacu (2003), who talk about instruction as being -aligned‖ if students recognise that their school activity leads toward a community of practice they value. This implies that students participating in a course whose goals and purposes cannot be understood as relating to a long-term goal (e.g., becoming a member of a community of practice) will not be motivated to learn.…”

Medium-based design: Extending a medium to create an exploratory learning environment

“…At that point, designers have to do what is right for their learners' needs (Soloway et al, 1994) and the design process can best be characterized as learnercentred iterative development. Sometimes, the medium is not enough and other learning supports will need to be added (Joseph & Nacu, 2003). Social and process support may be needed to support the environmental affordances (Quintana et al, 2004).…”

The Wikipedia Adventure

“…Drawing on previous work around the concept of authenticity in education [29,43], Guzdial and Tew [21] argue that learners may derive similar benefits from performing inauthentic tasks as long as they perceive an alignment between the tasks they are assigned and the work of a community of practice they value. Moreover, they suggest that educators can facilitate such alignment through storytelling, by (for example) creating a fictional narrative context in which students can perceive their learning tasks as legitimate peripheral participation within an imagined community of practice.…”