I've been involved with instructional design at PSU since 1984. More recently, I've become involved in Learning Design. It's a superset of ID, encompassing not only ID, but instructional technology, systemic change, administration, and (IMO) just about anything else that impacts on the educational experience, such as the physical learning environment.
We have over 100 Instructional Designers at Penn State, but no one, to the best of my knowledge, is listed as a Learning Designer. So I wonder if it would benefit the entire Penn State Community to start thinking about Learning Design? We already have taken steps in that direction via the Learning Design Summer Camp [http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/wiki/Learning_Design_Summer_Camp_2009], but we've not looked at Learning Design per se. We've not examined what Learning Design is, how it can and should affect how we plan instruction, how we work together in teams, and how it affects our career paths.
So what is Learning Design? Clark Quinn views it as the intersection of instructional design, information design and experience design. Earlier I alluded it's a superset of instructional design. I think if you step back from the doing and look from the balcony on what's involved in creating educational materials and experiences, you'll be closer to what LD is.
How does it affect instruction? How doesn't it? For an instructional designer, it means taking into account many things we simply ignore. Take the typical prerequisite skills diagram. In this type of analytical diagram, one lists the skills needed to perform the task at hand. At some point you draw a dotted line separating the skills into two sets. The skills that fall below the dotted line are considered already mastered - you don't need to worry about teaching them.
Now imagine vertical dotted lines on each side of the listed skills. Anything that lies outside those vertical dotted lines is not dealt with by instructional design, but rather by learning design. I've only included a few LD things in this illustration - hope you get the point I'm trying to make. Instructional Designers need to not only dig deep, they need to look wide to see what else impacts their tiny portion of the entire learning experience.
So how do we at PSU go about learning more about this tremendous challenge and opportunity? What does this mean for career advancement? I know many IDs at PSU feel their upward mobility is curtailed. Is a move into Learning Design a way to foster a stronger career path?
I'm asking these questions in the hopes of sparking a true dialog with anyone that works to develop instruction - what can/should we be doing and exploring in this space?
We have over 100 Instructional Designers at Penn State, but no one, to the best of my knowledge, is listed as a Learning Designer. So I wonder if it would benefit the entire Penn State Community to start thinking about Learning Design? We already have taken steps in that direction via the Learning Design Summer Camp [http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/wiki/Learning_Design_Summer_Camp_2009], but we've not looked at Learning Design per se. We've not examined what Learning Design is, how it can and should affect how we plan instruction, how we work together in teams, and how it affects our career paths.
So what is Learning Design? Clark Quinn views it as the intersection of instructional design, information design and experience design. Earlier I alluded it's a superset of instructional design. I think if you step back from the doing and look from the balcony on what's involved in creating educational materials and experiences, you'll be closer to what LD is.
How does it affect instruction? How doesn't it? For an instructional designer, it means taking into account many things we simply ignore. Take the typical prerequisite skills diagram. In this type of analytical diagram, one lists the skills needed to perform the task at hand. At some point you draw a dotted line separating the skills into two sets. The skills that fall below the dotted line are considered already mastered - you don't need to worry about teaching them.
Now imagine vertical dotted lines on each side of the listed skills. Anything that lies outside those vertical dotted lines is not dealt with by instructional design, but rather by learning design. I've only included a few LD things in this illustration - hope you get the point I'm trying to make. Instructional Designers need to not only dig deep, they need to look wide to see what else impacts their tiny portion of the entire learning experience.
So how do we at PSU go about learning more about this tremendous challenge and opportunity? What does this mean for career advancement? I know many IDs at PSU feel their upward mobility is curtailed. Is a move into Learning Design a way to foster a stronger career path?
I'm asking these questions in the hopes of sparking a true dialog with anyone that works to develop instruction - what can/should we be doing and exploring in this space?
I think you've come across the right question about LD -- not what it is, but what it takes to step back and look at a larger set of questions when thinking about design. I know as an instructional designer I was asked to think in a very focused way about a very specific set of problems ... I was never really all that comfortable with that. I was always trying to see beyond the immediate set of goals ... I always wanted to push and explore more about what I was doing. I'm not sure that made me a good ID, but I know its pushed me to look more closely at discovering affordances across the board. What does LD really mean? I think the definition you provide is a great starting point. I see it as a broader view of the design space -- that there are many people living within the design space and they can/should all contribute to a given teaching or learning environment. I am convinced that if we think in these broader terms we'll make more impact over the long haul.
I am hoping we keep pushing towards recognizing design is something really important and that it cuts a really wide path. I see the work we do in ETS as an example of learning design in practice -- we bring multiple perspectives to a challenge and fight to find the best solution in the moment to address it. I think the ID community is at the center of this progressive approach to problem solving. That to me is really exciting!