JiscMail Logo
Email discussion lists for the UK Education and Research communities

Help for MCG Archives


MCG Archives

MCG Archives


MCG@JISCMAIL.AC.UK


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Proportional Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

MCG Home

MCG Home

MCG  January 2007

MCG January 2007

Options

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password

Subject:

Re: Learning design

From:

Stephen C Brown <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Museums Computer Group <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:21:47 -0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (216 lines)

Hi Bridget, I have been mulling over your thoughts during Christmas (by
way of pleasant relief from family gatherings and rubbish TV ;-).  I
agree that it's harder to measure the success of your strategies if the
learning outcomes are loosely expressed.  But it seems to me that a goal
such as encouraging open-ended discovery need not necessarily result in
loosely expressed outcomes.  So, taking your example "develop skills in
comparison of objects", as designers we might usefully think about
comparison skills: what are they?  How are they developed?  What are the
common barriers or pitfalls to developing such skills?  Then maybe we
could begin to develop a learning activity which encourages people to
make comparisons and which helps them to develop comparative skills.
This would be an open ended activity in the sense that the learners
would be free to choose what they compared but the learning outcome is
quite specific and quite easy to measure therefore.   So I am not sure
that the opposite of measurable learning activities is open ended
discovery.  Putting that another way, I think it is possible to define
specific learning outcomes for open ended discovery activities providing
one accepts a shift in focus from learning content to the learning
process.  For example, we might devise a learning activity in which
learning comparison skills in the context of medieval surgical
implements is more important than learning about medieval surgical
implements themselves.  Such an activity would be quite exploratory and
open ended in one sense and yet focussed and precise in another.

A consequence of loosely expressed learning outcomes is that one has to
accept that the actual learning emerges from the interaction between
learner and learning experience without being able to predict it very
precisely in advance. But from a design perspective this approach has a
major flaw.  Under this regime a good learning activity design will be
one that engenders a lot of positive responses.  But until the design
has undergone extensive testing, with large numbers of participants, its
overall impact on users will not be apparent. There will not be enough
interactions for the overall pattern to emerge.  Given the tight
budgetary and time constraints that surround most web development
projects, lengthy field trials are usually out of the question during
the development phase.  This effectively leaves the designer without a
tool for testing the effectiveness of the design until most of the
investment has been made.

So while "emergent" learning outcomes are useful for retrospective
assessment of overall impact I think they are of little use for
supporting a developmental user-centred design approach.  We need
"predictive" measures to assess performance iteratively against clearly
specified intended learning outcomes during the design development
process.  I hope the above exmple explins why I think that clearly
specified learning outcomes need not be didactic.. I think a couple of
good real life examples are:  "AccessArt"
(http://www.accessart.org.uk/index.php), an online learning resource for
"pupils, students, and lifelong learners as well as teachers, gallery
educators and artists" is a good example of how online resources can be
used to support clear learning objectives without prescribing the
precise outcomes.  The online drawing workshop for 16+ learners
encourages and supports exploration of understanding of seeing and
drawing.  Another good example is the set of learning "challenges" in
the British Museum's Ancient Egypt Interactive learning web site (see
for example the temple challenge at
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/temples/home.html.  In both cases the
activities provided carefully "scaffold" the learning experience.  

Id be interested in responses to these ideas and suggestions of further
examples.

Stephen
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Bridget McKenzie
Sent: 01 December 2006 11:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Learning design


Hello
This is an interjection, I hope a little bit relevant, just to raise a 
thought about instructional learning design in a context that favours 
constructivist learning.

Museum learning is about open-ended discovery, so learning outcomes will

often be loosely expressed e.g. 'develop skills in comparison of
objects', 
'develop tolerance of other cultures'. Therefore it's harder to measure
the 
success of your strategies. You may be able to discern changes in
learners 
if you evaluate a sustained project, including museum visits,
experimental 
activities and use of the linked web resources. Or formative evaluation
can 
work if the resources are seen being used in a discovery learning
context. 
If you haven't got time/money to do this you can only guess that
open-ended 
tools would be successful in reaching the desired outcomes if people
seem to 
like them and are using them.

It could be tempting to design more and more instructional or didactic
web 
tools, simply because you know you're supposed to evaluate them and it's

easier to assess whether users 'got it' or not.

Much better to support an expansion of e-learning as dialogue, so that 
discovery happens online in interactions between people with questions, 
people with insights and cultural artefacts. The proof of that kind of 
pudding is definitely in the eating, and not only divined in an
expensive 
evaluation.

Bridget

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe Cutting" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 10:34 AM
Subject: Learning design


> Stephen,
> >>
> Hi, does anyone have experience of using user-centred design to create

> either exhibitions/displays and/or web sites please? I would be really

> interested to find out how useful you found this approach.
> >>
> Dear colleagues, have you built learning activities into your Museum 
> web site?  Was it important for you to be able to demonstrate the 
> effectiveness of your designs?  Did you test the designs during 
> development, and/or after they were completed?
> >>
>
> This is pretty much established best practice and becoming more 
> widespread
> as
> funders are demanding summative evaluation on exhibitions and projects

> after completion.
> They're also demanding that institutions specify objectives and
audiences 
> upfront with their
> funding applications - although I would agree that these can easily
get 
> lost along the way.
> It tends to be much easier to do formative evaluation on exhibits and 
> micro-sites than
> whole institution sites due to the difficulty of specifying audiences
and 
> objectives for a whole institution site.
> The amount of evaluation done tends to depend on the attitudes and 
> resources of the institution but if you're looking into this
> your main issues are going to be
> Institutions don't tend to release the results of evaluation unless 
> they're completely positive. This is for a variety of political
> reasons connected with the press and funders.
> There's also very little movement by institutions to publish anything 
> about their development methods and
> experiences - in general its just not seen as a priority. There are 
> honourable exceptions like the Tate's Multimedia tour page
> http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/multimediatour/re_keyfindings.htm.
There's 
> also bits and pieces by Ben Gammon scattered around the web
> like this one
http://ukupa.org.uk/events/presentations/science_museum.pdf 
> (google "Ben Gammon" for more).
>
> Given that there's a lot of work going on, your problem is unlikely to

> be
> finding examples - its much more likely to be
> getting people to tell you about them in any detail - particularly if
user 
> testing wasn't done or produced "bad" results.
> My recommendation would be either to get hold of a list of recent
projects 
> from a major funder like HLF or Wellcome and then
> go and interview a selection of the project managers or pick one
project 
> which did use a lot of user testing and study it in detail.
> To give you an idea, one project I worked on last year did around 20 
> formative evaluation studies in 4 months of development so there's a
> lot to get your teeth into.
>
> All the best with your project
>
> Joe
>
>
>
>
> Joe Cutting
> Computer exhibits and installations
> www.joecutting.com
> The Fishergate Centre, 4 Fishergate, York, YO10 4FB
> 01904 624681
>
> As of 30th October 2006 I have a new office so
> please note my new address and phone number
> **************************************************
> For mcg information and to manage your subscription to the list, visit

> the
> website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
> **************************************************
>
> 

**************************************************
For mcg information and to manage your subscription to the list, visit
the website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
**************************************************

**************************************************
For mcg information and to manage your subscription to the list, visit the website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
**************************************************

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

JiscMail Tools


RSS Feeds and Sharing


Advanced Options


Archives

March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998


JiscMail is a Jisc service.

View our service policies at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/ and Jisc's privacy policy at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/website/privacy-notice

For help and support help@jisc.ac.uk

Secured by F-Secure Anti-Virus CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager