In higher education, we spend a lot of time talking about curriculum design. We map learning outcomes, review assessments, structure programmes and make sure our courses meet academic and professional requirements. All important stuff, but I think we’re missing something.
Curriculum design and learning design are often used interchangeably, as though getting the curriculum right automatically means we’ve designed a good learning experience…
Designing the learning experience
While we put considerable effort into deciding what students should learn, we don’t always give the same attention to how they’re actually going to learn it. This becomes particularly apparent when we look at the online elements of blended courses and the design of distance learning more broadly.
It’s relatively easy to put resources online, record a lecture or direct students towards some reading. But that’s not the same as designing an effective online learning experience, whether students are studying partly on campus or entirely at a distance. What are students expected to do with those resources? How will they engage with the ideas, apply what they’ve learned, interact with others and receive feedback? How does their online learning connect with what happens on campus, where relevant, and how will distance learners experience those same opportunities for interaction, support and participation?
These are learning design questions, and they deserve more than a passing thought. Jisc’s work on digital learning and teaching offers useful guidance here, extending beyond the provision of blended resources to consider how technology can support purposeful activity, interaction, inclusion and feedback. The focus is not simply on where resources are located, but on how students use them as part of a coherent learning experience, whether they are studying on campus, remotely or through a combination of both.
The Beyond Blended guidance from Jisc provides a useful framework for thinking about this broader challenge. It encourages institutions to move beyond treating blended learning as a simple combination of online and face-to-face provision and instead consider how learning experiences can be designed around students’ needs, contexts and patterns of participation.
Connecting curriculum and learning design
If we’re serious about delivering effective blended and distance learning, we need to recognise the difference between the what and the how. Curriculum design establishes what we’re trying to achieve: the knowledge, skills and capabilities students should develop. Learning design focuses on how we make that learning happen: the activities, interactions, support and feedback that help students achieve those outcomes, wherever and however they study.
The two are closely related, but they are not the same. A well-designed curriculum is essential, but it is only the starting point. To create genuinely effective blended and distance learning, we need to give equal attention to the design of the learning experience itself.