Pedagogical designs for e-learning
Learning by designing
Designing as a means for acquiring knowledge is commonly used in practice-based disciplines such as engineering and architecture (Newstetter, 2000; Hmelo, Holton & Kolodner, 2000). The obvious benefit of a design task is its inherent situatedness or authenticity. In design-based activities, students' understanding of the subject matter is "enacted" through the physical process of conceptualizing and producing something. The objects or structures created, functions sought, and the behaviors exhibited by the design solution offer a means to assess knowledge of the subject matter. A student's conceptual understanding or misunderstanding of domain knowledge can be ascertained from that design artifact. A poor artifact may indicate an incomplete understanding of the subject matter.
The big advantage learning by designing is the variety of cognitive tasks required to move from a conceptual idea to a product:
- information gathering
- problem identification
- constraint setting
- idea generation
- modeling and prototyping
- evaluating.
These tasks are complex learning activities in their own right, and when they become the environment in which knowledge of the subject matter is constructed, students have the opportunities to explore that content in the different phases and through different representations (see Naidu, Anderson, & Riddle, 2000).
Design activities:
- support knowledge acquisition
- support iterative activity that supports refinement of concepts
- dictate the need for collaboration
Designing a "virtual print exhibition"
"The National Gallery is planning a major exhibition to celebrate the re-opening of its print room in 2003, for which they have received a grant of $100,000. You and your colleagues have been asked to put together a virtual exhibition from the newly developed electronic database of Old Master Print Collection in the Library. To accomplish this task, you will need to prepare a proposal, in which you design, install, and curate an exhibition online, focusing on an appropriate theme of your choice. The Director of the Gallery would like to see you put together a detailed plan with time lines, and a budget with a detailed rationale before it can release the funds for you to begin work. The group with which you will work will have access to an asynchronous computer conference facility, to which you and your colleagues will be automatically subscribed. You must conduct all your planning activity as a group using this medium. You should complete the concept of the proposal in five weeks; submit it for discussion and feedback from other curators in the gallery as well as the exhibition committee. You will also be required to present your team's proposal in a seminar to the director of the museum."