Supporting E-Learning Development in Higher Education:
FROM THREE-PHASETO PROACTIVE LEARNING DESIGN: CREATING EFFECTIVE ONLINE TEACHING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS[1]
Roderick Sims, Capella University
Introduction
For many tertiary educational institutions, enterprise learning management systems have become a significant component of the teaching and learning environment. At the same time, pedagogies applied to these systems have emphasised socio-constructivist frameworks to align with the collaborative and interactive affordances of online learning. However, these same institutions are faced with a double dilemma; first, many academic and support staff have limited skill-sets in both the technology and the emerging pedagogy and second, the design models applied to the creation of teaching and learning resources are often founded on transmission models of education. Consequently it is not unusual to observe online learning classes exhibiting traditional face-to-face strategies which minimise opportunities for teachers and learners to engage in interactive and meaningful dialogue. To address this situation, the majority of Australian universities have established teaching and learning centres to support curriculum design and effective strategies for online teaching and learning.
Within this context, this chapter presents an argument that it is the processes and resources applied to the development of online teaching and learning resources which must be consistent with the institutional framework, the teaching and learning environment, the technological infrastructure and, most importantly, an appropriate online pedagogy. However this must be achieved in an environment still “characterised by demands from students for quality face-to-face and distance education, staff concern over workloads, institutional budgeting constraints and an imperative to use learning management systems” (Sims & Jones, 2003, p. 4).
This chapter begins by revisiting Sims and Jones’ (2003) Three-Phase Design (3PD) model and the way it has been successfully applied to the implementation of two online learning development projects. Using 3PD as a framework, the discussion elaborates on other key elements of the design process such as proactive evaluation (Sims, Dobbs & Hand, 2002), interactivity (Sims, 2006), emergence (Irlbeck, Kays, Jones & Sims, 2006), competencies (Sims & Koszalka, 2008) and authentic, contextual learning (Sims & Stork, 2007) to establish create a fully-operational model for the implementation of engaging, collaborative and constructive online teaching and learning environments. Known as Proactive Design for Learning (PD4L), the model encapsulates all elements required to be successful in online teaching and learning – from the competencies of the stakeholders to the most effective design strategies to the interactions between course participants. Underpinning PD4L is an ethos of collaborative design and development teams who can, over time, establish communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) where the shared learning and interest of its members maintain the functionality and integrity of the course.
The Three-Phase Design Model
According to Sims and Jones (2003), the value of Three-Phase Design (3PD) would be realised through a three-step process of develop functionality, evaluate/elaborate/enhance and maintain rather than the more traditional sequence of design, develop, implement, evaluate. While not attempting to replace accepted instructional design models, the intent of 3PD was to provide a new lens for the overall development process, especially with respect to online teaching and learning. A key component of 3PD was that online course creation could not be viewed as a short-term development process, but rather as a long-term collaborative process which would “generate and evolve into focused communities of practice with shared understanding and a philosophy of continuous improvement” (Sims & Jones, 2003 , p. 18).
Three-Phase Design (3PD) also integrates the three essential competency sets for unit or course development (design, subject matter, production) in a cohesive rather than disparate manner. Rather than process driving development, it is the context of the educational components which determine the members of development teams in a targeted and effective manner. Ideally, these teams would remain for the duration of the project, potentially over a number of semesters. Finally, as shown in Figure 1, 3PD specifies baselines that align with implementation iterations – the first focusing on building functional and essential course components, the second on enhancement or interactivity and the third to ongoing maintenance. These three phases of development integrate methodological approaches to unit development, scaffolding of participants and quality control and assurance.
Figure 1: Three-Phase Design & Scaffolding (adapted from Sims & Jones, 2003)
Phase 1: Building Functional Components
The aim of the initial phase is to create a functional teaching and learning online environment that will achieve learning outcomes as well as meet organisation standards for display. Production is neither focused on completion of a final course of study nor does it encourage ‘bells and whistles’ that can cause interference with learning (Sims, 2006). This phase involves specifying key course components including resources (e.g. study guides, readings), their mode of access (e.g. print, online), assessment-based outcomes, preferred teaching strategies (e.g. experiential, problem-based) and learning/learner activities designed to achieve outcomes. In this way the teacher with minimal experience with online teaching and learning environments has access to functional learning structures as well as ongoing support will enable the generational development of that environment. With each phase of 3PD, it is anticipated that there will be a dynamic interplay between three key stakeholders in the process – teachers, learners and designers (who include technical specialists). As illustrated in Figure 2, the communication between each of these three roles is critical to the success of the teaching and learning environment, and also leads to potential role variation – teacher as designer and learner, designer as teacher and learner and learner as teacher and designer.
Figure 2: Dynamic Collaboration
Phase 2: Evaluate, Elaborate and Enhance
Unlike many educational processes that view the evaluation as a post-delivery activity, the nature of online technology is such that changes can be made immediately, as long as those changes do not compromise the integrity of the course outcomes. Therefore the second phase can be conceptualised to take place during course delivery, with feedback from both teachers and learners being used to modify and/or enhance delivery.
This phase continues the dynamic collaboration (as shown in Figure 2) during delivery. While the more technically-oriented roles will assess the efficacy of the environment, those involved in the pedagogy (teachers and learners) can address the integration of additional content, interactive learning objects or collaborative activities. At the same time, targeted professional development or scaffolding for effective online teaching and learning can be delivered in situ. This second phase enables generational changes in the course structure, with emphasis on the production (completion) of resources, and where learners can take a role of research and evaluation assistants. By developing and building effective communication paths between each of these three roles, a shared understanding of the course goals and learning outcomes can be established, thereby minimising and compromise in educational quality and effectiveness. As illustrated in Figure 1, the recursive arrow indicates that the enhancement process would be repeated until the course of study is considered complete.
Phase 3: Maintain
Ultimately the course will reach a state where the teaching strategies and learning activities are working well, allowing the course to shift into a maintenance phase until it is targeted for formal review. The implications of applying the 3PD model is that the original functional system will always be subject to change, and that development environments need to schedule resources for the life-time of that course. The continual process of gathering and incorporating evaluation data caters for the sustainability of the course.
Academic Professional Development
Within the context of these three phases, and for academic new to online learning, maximum exploitation of the online environment can mean reassessing their overall approach to the content, how it should be presented or accessed and the ongoing relationship between teacher and learner. The options for course content must therefore be considered in terms of their interaction with design strategies and their relevance to the learning community (Sims, Dobbs & Hand, 2002). Competencies in online pedagogy manifested by many academics is such that they do not have the necessary background to work online and therefore require support to assist in the transfer of their good classroom practice to good online practice (Sims, 2006).
Therefore there is an ongoing requirement for staff in support units to provide targeted professional development to academic staff such that it functions as a scaffold for their teaching and learning practice. If this can be implemented into the day-to-day work of the academic and their relationship with course participants, all the better. This proposal is emerges from the work of Vygotsky (1978), where scaffolding can be understood to relate to supporting academic staff who may not be able to accomplish all aspects of online teaching and learning independently. While this support is likely to diminish over time, as academic staff gain in competency, it is important that the relationships established be maintained.
informing factors
While the 3PD model provides a strategic context from which to build and maintain online teaching and learning environments, its original design did not focus on more detailed aspects of the design process. In this section six key informing factors are presented which, it is argued, are essential to achieving engaging, interactive and memorable learning experiences.
Figure 3: Components of Proactive Design for Learning (PD4L)
As illustrated in Figure 3, three-phase design provides a core for these factors, establishing the build-enhance-maintain process as core to successful project implementation. Integral to the success of this model, labelled Proactive Design for Learning (PD4L), are the six factors which imply that design for effective online teaching and learning is:
• theory-based, ensuring that decisions are based on contemporary approaches to teaching and learning.
• innovative and relevant (incorporating elements of proactive evaluation documented by Sims, Dobbs & Hand, 2002).
• team-based, with team members having the relevant and appropriate competencies to engage with and complete the design tasks (Sims & Koszlaka, 2008).
• emergent, allowing (where appropriate) the interactions between course participants to establish and introduce course content (Irlbeck, Kays, Sims & Jones, 2006).
• interactive, enabling participants to actively explore the relevance and application of the course content (Allen, 2003; Sims, 2006).
• personalised, such that participants are able to apply their own context and situation to the learning outcomes (Sims & Stork, 2007).
These six factors are discussed in more detail in the following sections.
Theory-Based Design for Learning
The first key element of the model relates to the range of theories and approaches which underpin the success of online teaching and learning. In terms of learning theories, the PD4L model is founded on theories including the social formation of the mind (Vygotsky, 1978), meaningful learning (Ausubel, 1968), situated cognition (Clancey, 1997), constructivism (Driscoll, 2005) and connectivism (Siemens, 2004). Together with a pragmatic, interpretivist epistemology, the PD4L model focuses on creating teaching and learning environments where relevant, meaningful knowledge is constructed by the individual. These theories also embrace learning as activities which mirror the situation in which the learning is likely to be applied, and as such propose an empowerment of the learner which values their current understanding of the world and prior experience.
Team-based Design for Learning
One of the key elements of the three-phased ‘engine’ is an expectation that the creation of online teaching strategies and learning activities will involve a long-term, collaborative team of stakeholders. Therefore there is a need to articulate the likely roles that will be required to successfully complete the development. Sims and Jones (2003) identified roles such as the Interactive Architect, Content Specialist and Technical Specialist – and as detailed earlier there can be a certain ‘blurring’ of the roles depending on the nature of the project. An important feature of the PD4L model is the influence that each team-member will have at each phase of the development effort – “members of the development team are understood to have potential levels of influence at any stage of the development and delivery process. For example the Interactive Architect, who has the main responsibility (influence) for creating the design specifications, may also be active in the quality review of the project as it nears completion” (Sims & Jones, 2003, p. 15). And within this context there is the importance for team members to embrace new sets of competencies to ensure a strong alignment with the affordances on the online environment (Sims & Koszalka, 2008).
The development of a team that is also focused on continuous improvement will also help develop a community of practice (Wenger, 1998), where all participants on the online development environment actively contribute and participate, integrating the three dimensions identified by Wenger (1998): as a joint enterprise understood and continually renegotiated by its members, as a mutual engagement that binds members together into a social entity and as a shared repertoire of communal resources.
Design for Personalised Learning
The notion of personalised or individualised learning is by no means new, and much was written about adaptive learning systems to meet the specific needs of the learner. More recently, these needs have been addressed through concepts such as Multiple Intelligences (Gardner, 1983), Learning Styles (e.g. Kiolb, and Cognitive Load (Sweller, . The perspective taken with PD4L is however somewhat different, especially when considering the online learning context which theoretically may consist of diverse learners spread across the globe. As documented in Sims & Stork (2007) the role of the designer shifts from assessing the characteristics of the learner (such as through the traditional target audience analysis) to focusing on creating an environment where the learner is able to apply individual traits such as their prior knowledge, specific context and situation, preferred learning style, cultural framework and media preferences.
Design for Interactive Learning
What makes a learning experience interactive? As a designer it is essential to create conditions for learning whereby at any point within the course structure the learner is engaged in an activity that is directly related to the learning activity – and that completion of that activity is critical to moving towards completion. A number of self-paced courses have been designed so that, literally, a learner could gain mastery by closing their eyes and pressing the enter key repeatedly. This is not interaction and it is not interactivity learning; without risk, or challenge or a means to engage (Allen, 2003) the design effort will have failed.
The majority of research on interactivity identifies the conditions for interaction – such as learner-to-learner or learner-with-content – but the value of that interaction is what is important when applying PD4L principles. As detailed by Sims (2006) the most important of these is to ensure the learner is engaged in some cognitive activity, such as adjusting variables (experimenting), testing assumptions (hypothesising), introducing content (modifying), constructing solutions (manipulating) or situating the learning within their own experience and environment (contextualising).
A second area that can enhance the interactive dynamic is where the learner has a clear understanding of their role in the learning process, it is more than interacting with other learners or the content, it is about the learning having an individual purpose. In addition, interaction without feedback (whether immediate, conditional or delayed) will detract from the learning process. For the designer, the key issues is to be able to respond by articulating, for any part of the course, what the learning will be doing in terms of cognitive engagement.
Innovative Design Practice
Integrating the concepts proposed for proactive evaluation of online teaching and learning (Sims, Dobbs & Hand, 2002), this component of PD4L addresses a set of factors which, if applied and considered, will ensure the integrity of the online teaching and learning environment. The first of these relates to ensuring there is a clear definition of the strategic intent of the course – why it is required, who it is for and what the desired outcomes are. Often academic staff are familiar with a course that is content-rich but outcome poor – and establishing a clear link between assessment, learning outcomes and delivery strategy is an essential part of effective educational practice. By addressing this, a clear focus can be placed on optimal teaching strategies, associated learning activities (including assessment) and the context in which those activities will take place.
The second factor concerns content. Traditionally, many courses have been designed around the delivery of content, but with the advent of extensive and reliable web-resources, it is argued that it is the learners who can take more responsibility for accessing and identifying relevant content, and the teachers who need to focus on the strategies by which learners will make sense of that content.
A third factor relates to the actual environment and interface in which the teachers and learners will be working. While there are well-accepted standards for interfaces, and the learning management systems in use have clear but unexciting designs, when considering the interface as representing a learning environment, it becomes incumbent on the designer to consider the options. Within the PD4L context it is recommended that an interface provide the course participants with a clear context or metaphor within which to work. For example, creating the sense for participants that they are part of an overarching narrative where each task they complete is related to working through that narrative sequence. Importantly this does not mean focusing on extensive audio-visual effects and artefacts, but a clear context and purpose for the various learning activities.
The fourth factor focuses on assessment, and the importance of ensuring that all learning activities are related to the assessment outcomes – to the extent that learning activities and the resulting products become the assessment item. In working towards this goal, there are innovative options other than all assessment being teacher-managed; strategies such as self or peer assessment can also be used effectively to develop a sense of reflective practice within the course participants.
Finally, the delivery elements of the system must be considered. This includes the support provided to students, especially as there are many off-campus and distance students making use of the affordances of online learning. In addition delivery must include an assessment of the value the content will have to the student through copyright and accessibility provisions. Finally, in packaging a course for delivery, the reliability, reusability, flexibility and scalability of resources must be taken into consideration.
Design for Emergent Learning
Emergence is a concept that Johnson (2002, ¶2) suggests is “what happens when the whole is smarter than the sum of its parts” and occurs from the bottom-up without any explicit control. If emergence is applied to the educational setting, then we have the notion of knowledge generation through the interaction of participants, and without the presence of a ‘teacher’. The design for emergent learning component does not advocate anarchy in education, but rather emphasizes the potential to allow knowledge emergence to occur, rather than define a curriculum on fixed content. In the online environment where collaboration and communities of practice are considered desirable because of the social learning outcomes, emergence has particular relevance because it allows the designer to focus on the students being able to take advantage of the dynamic nature of the environment through contributing content and knowledge based on prior-experience, rather than relying on teacher-prescribed materials (Irlbeck et al, 2006).
Rather than assuming in our respective fields that knowledge is fixed and that domain knowledge is something students should learn, what if environments could be created where the potential for enhancing that knowledge base was enabled. Empowering students to challenge and question existing theories and principles is an essential component of the model presented in this chapter and, it is argued, is critical for the successful implementation of online teaching and learning environments. The implications for the ‘traditional’ instructional designer is that control must be relinquished by not designing for someone, but assigning that someone design privileges. The online environment is complex, flexible, organic and dynamic, and creating the space from which new perspectives on existing knowledge can emerge is recommended, even more so when there is the potential for informal participants in course structures.
CONCLUSION
As higher education is changing, and online learning becoming more embedded, new models are required to meet these changes and challenges, especially those that support academic staff with minimal experience in online design and development. The Proactive Design for Learning (PD4L) model proposed in this chapter articulates a re-shaping of the traditional instructional design process where specific aspects of development and delivery are viewed in parallel and interconnected rather than in sequence. Integrating these six components factors within the three-phase framework creates a model for designers and developers that not only supports the team-based and continuous improvement requirements but also provides theory-based prescriptions for sound learning design.
References
Allen, M.W. (2003). Michael Allen’s Guide to e-Learning. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
Ausubel, D.P. (1968). Educational psychology: A cognitive view. New York: Hoilt, Rinehart & Winston.
Clancey, W.J. (1997). Situated cognition: On human knowledge and computer representations. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Driscoll, M.P.(2005). Psychology of learning for instruction. Boston: Pearson.
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences.New York: Basic Books.
Irlbeck, S., Kays, E., Jones, D. & Sims, R. (2006). The pheonix rising: Emergent models of instructional design. Distance Education, 27(2).
Kolb, D.A. (1984) Experiential Learning: experience as the source of learning and development New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. Available online: .
Sims, R. (2006). Beyond instructional design: Making learning design a reality. Journal of Learning Design, 1(2), 1-8. (Keynote Paper) Available online: .
Sims, R., Dobbs, G. & Hand, T. (2002). Enhancing quality in online learning: Scaffolding design and planning through proactive evaluation. Distance Education, 23(2), 135-148.
Sims, R. & Jones, D. (2003). Where practice informs theory: Reshaping instructional design for academic communities of practice in online teaching and learning. Information Technology, Education and Society, 4(1), 3-20.
Sims, R. & Stork, E. (2007). Design for Contextual Learning: Web-based Environments that Engage Diverse Learners, in J. Richardson & A. Ellis (Eds), Proceedings of AusWeb07. Lismore, NSW: Southern Cross University. Available online: ()
Sims, R. & Koszalka, T.A. (2008). Competencies for the new-age instructional designer. In Spector, J.M., Merrill, M.D., van Merriënboer, J., & Driscoll, M.P. (Eds.). Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (3rd ed.). New York: Taylor & Francis (pp. 569-575).
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning as a social system. [Online] Available: [29th July 2002]
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[1] The original articulation of the Three-Phase Design (3PD) model was presented in Sims, R. & Jones, D. (2003). Where practice informs theory: Reshaping instructional design for academic communities of practice in online teaching and learning. Information Technology, Education and Society, 4(1), 3-20.
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