E-Learning and Digital Media
ISSN 2042-7530

CONTENTS [click on author's name for abstract and full text]

The Teacher as Designer: pedagogy in the new media age

MARY KALANTZIS & BILL COPE College of Education, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA

doi:10.2304/elea.2010.7.3.200

This article outlines a learning intervention which the authors call Learning by Design. The goal of this intervention is classroom and curriculum transformation, and the professional learning of teachers. The experiment involves the practical application of the learning theory to everyday classroom practice. Its ideas are grounded in pedagogical principles originally articulated in the Multiliteracies project, an approach to teaching and learning that addresses literacy and learning in the context of new media and the globalizing knowledge economy. The need for a new approach to learning arises from a complex range of factors – among them, changes in society and the economy; the potential for new forms of communication made possible by emerging technologies; and rising expectations amongst learners that education will maximize their potential for personal fulfillment, civic participation and access to work. The authors first brought together the Learning by Design team of researchers and teachers in 2003 in order to reflect upon and create new and dynamic learning environments. A series of research and development activities were embarked upon in Australia and, more recently, in the United States, exploring the potentials of new pedagogical approaches, assisted by digital technologies, to transform today’s learning environments and create learning for the future – learning environments which could be more relevant to a changing world, more effective in meeting community expectations and which manage educational resources more efficiently. One of the key challenges was to create learning environments which engaged the sensibilities of learners who are increasingly immersed in digital and global lifestyles – from the entertainment sources they choose to the way they work and learn. It was also about enabling teachers to explicitly track and be aware of the relationship between their pedagogical choices and their students’ learning outcomes.

What Learners ‘Know’ through Digital Media Production: learning by design

KATHY A. MILLS Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane,Australia

doi:10.2304/elea.2010.7.3.223

The power to influence others in ever expanding social networks in the new knowledge economy is tied to capabilities with digital media production that require increased technological knowledge. This article draws on research in primary classrooms to examine the repertoires of cross-disciplinary knowledge that literacy learners need to produce innovative digital media via the ‘social web’. The article builds on Learning by Design and the ‘knowledge processes’ to describe ‘how’ learning occurs, while presenting a model to theorise ‘what’ students know – the ‘knowledge assets’ – when learners produce digital and multimodal texts.

Meaning Making Using New Media: Learning by Design case studies

MARY NEVILLE Education Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

doi:10.2304/elea.2010.7.3.237

This article discusses a study of three Australian middle-years teachers who deployed Learning by Design principles and practice to support multiliteracies learning through students’ production of digital/multimodal texts. The aim of the research was to develop an understanding of how three teachers embraced new e-learning pedagogical designs for teaching and learning about multiliteracies, and to what extent Learning by Design facilitated both the teachers’ and students’ learning. This qualitative research involved the collection and analysis of the three teachers’ curriculum-planning artefacts before and after professional development on Learning by Design, interviews, audio and video recordings, classroom observations and student digital/multimodal products. This article examines Learning by Design as an e-learning pedagogical framework and the dimensions of professional practice that contribute to quality student production of digital/multimedia texts. The study demonstrates the existence of five conditions that are necessary for the Learning by Design pedagogical framework to be effective as a heuristic to enhance digital/multimodal literacy outcomes.

Technologies in Literacy Learning: a case study

ANNE CLOONAN Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia

doi:10.2304/elea.2010.7.3.248

This article draws on outcomes of a study which explored changes in teachers’ literacy pedagogies as a result of their participation in a collaborative teacher professional learning project. The educational usability of schemas drawn from multiliteracies and Learning by Design theory is illustrated through a case study of a teacher’s work on website exploration and design with 8- to 11-year-olds. The teacher sought to develop pedagogical responses which were cognisant of multimodal shifts resulting from an increasingly digitised, networked communications environment. Engagement with the schemas influenced the teacher’s print-based literacy pedagogies to incorporate multimodal literacy practices.

Engaging Learner Diversity through Learning by Design

RITA van HAREN Lanyon Cluster of Schools, ACT, Australia

doi:10.2304/elea.2010.7.3.258

Diversity is a key issue in education not only because of ongoing inequalities in student learning outcomes but also because of the importance of supporting each individual to reach his/her potential to contribute to national economic prosperity, individual well-being and social cohesion. Through an ethnographical approach, this research investigates how the Learning by Design pedagogy, developed by Kalantzis & Cope, addresses diversity in two Year 8 (students aged 14 years) classrooms in Australia. Student and teacher perspectives emphasize the importance of incorporating students’ lifeworlds and their individual attributes in learning designs, of scaffolding learning, creating student agency, including challenge and intellectual quality, and providing a metalanguage for students to participate in their learning.

Learning, Technology and School Success

KEIJU SUOMINEN Tampere, Finland

doi:10.2304/elea.2010.7.3.272

Based on research conducted as part of the project Learning by Design: creating pedagogical frameworks for knowledge building in the 21st century, funded by the Australian Research Council, the article explores the learning experiences of two students in a primary school in the Australian Capital Territory. In communities where ordinary citizens, including children, have ready access to contemporary technologies, the potential causes of underperformance are critically examined in the light of the cases of two students in their final year of primary/elementary school, for whom school success had proved elusive in the past. The article describes the learning journey of the students and their teacher as they begin working on a Learning Element designed using the Learning by Design planning framework with its eight knowledge processes. A brief outline of the Learning Element provides a context for the students’ experiences, highlighting some of the factors which influenced the teacher’s design. The children are given a voice as they explain their experiences of learning designed using this approach. Their improved performance is analysed in the light of the learning design to extract the features of the Learning Element which impacted most significantly on the performance of these students.

Teacher Professional Transformation Using Learning by Design: a case study

LESLIE MORGAN School of Art, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

doi:10.2304/elea.2010.7.3.280

This case study of a senior teacher in an Australian high school describes the story of her professional transformation through involvement in the Learning by Design milieu. In so doing, it demonstrates how a pedagogical intervention under particular conditions can transform the learning of students and lead to deep learning. This article highlights the value that the skilled use of Learning by Design pedagogies, in combination with inclusive multimodal tools, can bring to improving education outcomes of all students. It also adds to the literature concerning the impact of researchers who work closely with educators to develop them as teacher-researchers. In so doing, it builds capacity in staff to then design learning that fosters a sense of belonging in the learning that in turn, improves the learning outcomes for their students.

Addressing Diversity in an Early Years Mathematics Unit: a matter of design

PETER BURROWS Globalism Research Centre, School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

doi:10.2304/elea.2010.7.3.293

In this article the manifold aims and theorised benefits of Learning by Design are explored and evaluated through the practices and experiences of an early years mathematics teacher. The article examines and elaborates the ways in which this teacher took up and embraced Learning by Design as both a professional meta-language and as a design scaffold that underpinned her classroom practices. In particular it is shown how Learning by Design equipped this teacher to design learning that was engaging, effective and inclusive of the diverse needs of her learners, and how she employed the language of Learning by Design to think-through, explain and articulate her work, thereby making her practices and experiences accessible to others. The research underpinning this article was drawn from a three-year project funded by the Australian Research Council.

Driving the Agenda of Learning by Design in Science Literacy in Malaysia

AMBIGAPATHY PANDIAN School of Languages, Literacies & Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
SHANTHI BALRAJ School of Arts Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

doi:10.2304/elea.2010.7.3.301

This article looks at a project that was interested in pedagogical practices in science literacy in secondary schools with a focus on new media technologies and teachers as change agents who will be able to make transformation in schooling and learning in Malaysia. Teachers’ views on dominant practices are explored to reveal the difficulties and implications in approaching science literacy in schools. The ‘Learning by Design’ model is introduced to these teachers, who then set out to design a set of modules that can enhance teaching and learning in schools. The project has encouraged the development of new pedagogical practices and multimodal skills and provided new kinds of relationships to be built among the community of teachers, researchers and students.

© SYMPOSIUM JOURNALS Ltd
PO Box 204, Didcot, Oxford OX11 9ZQ, United Kingdom
info@symposium-journals.co.uk
www.symposium-journals.co.uk