1.3 Why is learning design important?
Sequential modules in canvas are great, but need to be clearly linked to activities and assessments; and students need to see the big picture of your course. Learning designers can really help you package your materials in a user-friendly manner, and organize your files in the backend (so you can find things)! - Sandra Brown, Instructor, Land and Food Systems
As mentioned earlier in this module, online learning can be as effective as in-person learning, when online courses are well designed. Careful thinking and planning goes into creating a course that engages and motivates students. This includes thinking about how the learning outcomes, assessments, learning activities, and content (e.g. textbooks) align and support each other. While there are many different approaches to learning design, one of the mostly widely used approaches for both in-person and online learning is “backward design Links to an external site..” Backward design focuses on student learning as opposed to covering content (Rovai, 2004). Using the backward process, an instructor determines:
- What do I want my students to learn? (or if co-constructing the course with students: what do students want to learn?) These become the course learning outcomes.
- How will students demonstrate their learning? These become the course assessment methods.
- What experiences or activities will allow for this learning to occur? These become the course activities and help determine content.
When you take a backward design approach, you start with the end goal and plan accordingly to ensure that your assessment strategies, teaching and learning activities, and content choices are all in service of the learning outcomes. The goal of backward design is to achieve “constructive alignment” the coherence between learning objectives, assessment and teaching and learning activities (Biggs, 2003).