Peer Review

Foundations in Learner-Centered Design

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Sep 6, 2022 by Teacher Education

Bookmark

Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

This resource is an open-access short course designed to introduce teams of instructors and/or course designers to learner-centered design.

This open mini-course provides a hands-on, team-based introduction to learner-centered design. Through an exploration of your own experiences as a learner, you'll explore key ideas in teaching and learning, develop a statement of design values, and dive into a learner-centered design process.

Relate key ideas in learning, teaching, and design to your own personal experiences
Map out the challenges, breakthroughs, and outcomes in a learning process
Center your designs around learners and the learning process

Type of Material:

Open-access short course

Hybrid or Blended Course

Recommended Uses:

This can be used as a self-paced activities or embedded in a module for a course. Teams would also work well.

Technical Requirements:

Google forms
PDF reader
Web browser
internet access

Identify Major Learning Goals:

By the end of this mini-course users will:

have a deeper understanding of learning,
a shared vocabulary to talk about your ideas,
a learner-centered design process to help teachers develop great work, and
practice rapid-prototyping, storyboarding, and constructive feedback techniques to expand one's design toolkbox.

By the end of this mini-course you and your team will have a deeper understanding of learning, a shared vocabulary to talk about your ideas, and a learner-centered design process to help you develop great work together. We will also practice rapid-prototyping, storyboarding, and constructive feedback techniques to expand your team’s design toolkbox.

Target Student Population:

Instructors
Teachers
Course Designers

College General Ed, College Lower Division, College Upper Division, Graduate School, Professional

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Ability to navigate website and web readings
English language proficiency

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

The content is:

easy to understand, appropriate for any discipline and thorough.
learner focused, and includes reflections and guided questions.
customizable, based on the responses from team members.
specific to learner-centered design.

The course is designed to facilitate:

active engagement by both learners and teachers
learners interacting with each other to learn and experience new things
learners exploring and questioning the status quo or other personal or social norms
the design of the learning activities and environment and how they might either enhance or detract from the overall experience

Concerns:

None

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

Depending on the instruction intent, you have a number of opportunities achieve the teaching and learning goals.

The learning objectives are readily identifiable.
Users are guided through stages of thinking and reflection.
The material is designed to improve the instructor/designers ability to deliver learner-focused instruction.
The assignments involve active learning, reflection and collaboration.

Concerns:

None

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

The course is easy to navigate; solid layout with tracking indicator to show progress.

Practical, creative, and hands-on activities are included in the design of the course.
The site is functional.
There are opportunities to see the responses from past participants to check the user's level of understanding.
There is a comments feature to pose questions of the developer.

Concerns:

None

Other Issues and Comments:

Handouts are available as a complement to the course.
An area of future direction is to include an accessibility statement for diverse or disabled learners.

Creative Commons: