Step 2: Designing Learning Activities
When you have written your learning objectives, you should plan at least one activity for your students that will help them achieve each objective. Planning activities will be a key element in the design of your online course. Activities can be performed by students on their own, in pairs or in small groups of, say, 3 to 6 students. These groups of students can collaborate either face-to-face or online, using asynchronous technologies - such as e-mail, online discussions, collaborative workspaces (groupware) and digital repositories/libraries; or synchronous technologies - such as chat, shared whiteboards and videoconferencing. Frequently students will find interesting resources (websites, articles, etc) that they want to share with other members of the class. This can be achieved through posting to a discussion forum or to shared workspaces. Student reflection can be encouraged through the use of e-portfolios and/or reflective journals, so that individual, or groups of, students can keep track of ideas about what they have read and discovered.
Examples of learning activities are as follows. If your objective is 'By the end of this course, students will understand the key concepts of learning design', you may devise an activity or series of linked activities that guide your students in learning about 'learning design':
Activity 1: download and read Koper's article on Learning Design.
Activity 2: devise a short course design that is based upon Learning Design. Upload your design to the discussion forum within the VLE.
Alternatively, the activities could be redesigned for peer assisted learning:
Activity 1: in groups of three, download and read Koper's article on Learning Design.
Activity 2: individually devise a short course design that is based upon Learning Design. Upload your design to your group discussion area within the VLE.
Activity 3: read and respond to the other two designs. Identify the strengths and weaknesses.
These activities could be further redesigned to allow for blended learning:
Activity 1: in groups of three, download and read Koper's article on Learning Design.
Activity 2: individually devise a short course design that is based upon Learning Design. Upload your design to your group discussion area within the VLE.
Activity 3: examine the other two designs and discuss face-to-face the strengths and weaknesses they have in common.
Activity 4: upload a summary of the common strengths and weaknesses of your designs.
When designing learning activities it may be useful for you to answer the following questions:
what are the core concepts to be communicated to students?
what activities are students asked to do to learn this concept?
how do you know the students have understood this concept?
when is it appropriate to find out if they have understood this concept (by assessment)?
what feedback do they get and from whom/what?
how is the technology adding value to this process?
The LTSN Generic Centre has commissioned a series of case studies which explore how different pedagogies are being employed across different Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) including BlackBoard and WebCT: Learning Environments and Pedagogy (LEAP). These case studies may help you plan successful teaching strategies when using a VLE. The LEAP case studies are now on the HE Academy website: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/1575.htm.
The work on E-tivities by Gilly Salmon http://www.e-tivities.com/home.asp is also useful.
