There was some discussion at the NDF about human centred design. Which pretty much means – ask the users and develop based on your understanding of what they want.
The e-learning nomad (again and just as I was musing) talks about the 4 crucial things in learner centred design for online (or anything). The four crucial things, she says, are context, construction, collaboration and conversation. And I agree.
“Learner-centredness” says Kehrweld in the (now elderly!) 2011 book Reflection to transformation “is an approach to teaching and learning processes which identifies the learner as the key subject and focuses attention on the learner’s main aim, namely ‘learning’.”
Yes but do we all have different meanings as to what this means and how we do it? What does a learner centred organisation look like? How do we KNOW that we are learner centred? Does it matter? For that matter what does a learner centred course look like (the answer is a bit easier).
“Within an organisation, members are inter-subjectively socialised and expected to participate in a discourse of shared meanings that enables them to participate in the culture of the organisation. They participate in several discursive positions at once and try to make sense of the related experiences and their own positions” (Brown, 2006).
I think this is what I am doing. I think this is what we are all doing.
In an organisation’s (any teaching organisation) policy we may find words that promote a learner centred approach or a focus on students, but often in practice we find that this is not so. Partly, I reckon, because everyone in the organisation has a different view of what this means.
So, what WOULD a learner centred organisation look like? How would we know that it was learner centred? What would we see and hear?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I’m just asking. But I do have one or two ideas.
edtech. ako 